Boris Johnson has announced updates to Covid regulations as plan B measures are due to expire. The work-from-home mandate will be dropped, as will mandatory face mask-wearing, including in classrooms. Rules over self-isolation after a positive Covid test remain in place
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Zimbabweans put their country on the map in the world of wine
After rising to the top of a white-dominated industry, a new generation of Zimbabweans are bringing their talents home
Like many young Zimbabweans before and since, Tinashe Nyamudoka left the economic chaos of his country to find work and a better life for himself in neighbouring South Africa.
When he left in 2008, Nyamudoka had never tasted wine. Now, he ranks among southern Africa’s top sommeliers and has his own wine label with international sales.
Continue reading...Millionaires call on governments worldwide to ‘tax us now’
Group of 102 wealthy people say tax would help tackle gulf between rich and poor
More than 100 members of the global super-rich called on Wednesday for governments around the world to “tax us now” to help pay for the pandemic response and tackle the gulf between rich and poor.
The group of 102 millionaires and billionaires, including Disney heiress Abigail Disney, said the current tax system is rigged in their favour and needs to be rewritten to make taxation fairer for hard-working people and restore trust in politics.
Pay for the Health and Social Care Levy twice over every year – eliminating the need to raise national insurance on working people.
Cover the salaries of an additional 50,000 new nurses.
Pay for the permanent increase of universal credit.
Build 35,000 affordable houses and retrofit the UK’s draughtiest homes to reduce the cost of energy bills and help fight the climate crisis.
Continue reading...Moderna aims to launch single Covid and flu booster jab within two years
Combined vaccine should be ready in time for winter infectious season in 2023, says drug firm’s chief executive
Moderna is aiming to launch a single booster vaccination that will protect against both Covid-19 and flu within two years, its chief executive has said.
Stéphane Bancel said that the combined vaccine – which will protect against Covid-19, influenza and RSV, a common respiratory virus – could be available before the winter infectious season in 2023.
Continue reading...China’s coal production hit record levels in 2021
In blow to climate campaigners, state encourages miners to ramp up output to avert winter gas crisis
China’s coal production reached record levels last year as the state encouraged miners to ramp up their fossil fuel output to safeguard the country’s energy supplies through the winter gas crisis.
The world’s biggest coal producer and consumer mined 384.67m tonnes of the fossil fuel last month, easily topping its previous record of 370.84m tonnes set in November, after the government called for miners to work at maximum capacity to help fuel the country’s economic growth.
Continue reading...Australia news live update: PM asked about double standard on Djokovic anti-vax concerns; 23 Covid deaths in Victoria, NSW as hospital cases rise
Victoria reports 22,429 new Covid cases, six deaths and 1,229 people in hospital; NSW records 29,504 cases and 17 deaths, with 2,776 people in hospital; Scott Morrison discusses Novak Djokovic deportation; Australian surveillance flight to assess Tonga tsunami damage delayed; unions meet over workforce and supply chain shortages. Follow all the day’s news
- Serbia’s leaders hit out at ‘scandalous’ treatment of Novak Djokovic
- 100 doctors locked out of WA weeks before state reopens
- ‘Like a lockdown’: Australians feel the fear and anxiety of Covid
- Comment: Imagine if Australia applied its new no-dickhead policy on Djokovic to government troublemakers
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Prime minister Scott Morrison has appeared on 2GB this morning, confirming Djokovic didn’t comply with entry requirements ... but that is not why his visa was cancelled.
Australia has very clear rules and Australians have been following those rules ... we apply our rules equally in this country and there was a very clear message sent – he wanted to come, he wasn’t vaccinated, well you’ve got to have a valid medical exemption and neither of those were in place. People make their own choices, and those choices meant you couldn’t come here and play tennis.
The idea someone could come and not follow those rules just was not on ... he was wrong, simple as that ... we didn’t give him an exemption, the federal government gave him no such exemption.
And that is that Mr Djokovic would be asked to leave, it is in the remit of the minister to do that, the judges reviewed the process and found the process the minister followed was legal. But to be quite frank, I am on the same page as Mr Djokovic. We’ll move on. And the things I will move on to are making sure to keep food on the shelves of supermarkets as ... people have been interested in the story, it’s been a ... soap opera. But now people are going to focus on the tennis, watch the tennis and also focus on looking after them and one of the big issues right now is making sure we keep food on the shelves at the grocery store.
Continue reading...‘Praying it won’t happen’: how Omicron could cut off Australia’s rural towns from essential services
An outbreak in a small regional community could leave locals unable to access pharmaceutical and banking services
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Essential services in rural towns are under pressure due to Covid-19 and could leave locals unable to access pharmaceutical and banking services.
Katie Stott, together with her husband, pharmacist Fred Hellqvist, manage the only pharmacy in Dover, Tasmania, the southernmost town in Australia, servicing approximately 2,000 to 3,000 people.
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Continue reading...So no one’s going to Davos: our guide to the big issues that won’t be tackled
We bring you Not the World Economic Forum, where monetary hawks fly and bankers explain why China is all right, really
The purpose of this column is usually fairly clear: to look ahead at the biggest event in the coming week. But this time we are breaking with tradition to bring you the week’s biggest non-event: Davos.
Every year the great and the good gather in the Swiss Alps at the grandly titled World Economic Forum to give their answers to the big questions. But Covid-19, running now into its fourth calendar year, has seen it called off again.
Continue reading...UK economy back to pre-pandemic levels in November
GDP expanded by 0.9% before impact of Omicron as Christmas shopping began early
The UK economy surpassed its pre-pandemic level for the first time in November after growing by 0.9% over the month, partly driven by an unexpected surge in early Christmas shopping.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said a jump in restaurant bookings and a rapid turnaround in construction output were also behind the growth that took the size of the economy 0.7% above its level before March 2020.
Continue reading...Behind the scenes of Munich: The Edge of War – in pictures
Guardian photographer Sarah Lee describes her experience as a stills photographer on the set of the joint British-German Netflix production starring Jeremy Irons
Munich, based on the Robert Harris novel, is a German-British TV production that was filmed in Germany and subsequently in England in late 2020. I was invited to join the crew as an on-set stills photographer for the UK leg of shooting.
We started in Liverpool, which was doubling for 1930s London. The historic Liver Building, which stood in for Gotham city in the forthcoming Batman movie, made a very convincing Whitehall. The production later moved south to Amersham in Buckinghamshire where we shot in historic houses used as sets for Chequers and Downing Street.
Liverpool doubled for 1930s London – with the historic Liver Building making an impressive substitute for Whitehall
Continue reading...Global surge in electricity use could bring three more years of price rises
International Energy Agency says pollution from power generation will worsen until alternatives are found
The global surge in demand for energy could spark another three years of market volatility and record power plant pollution unless countries make major changes to how they generate electricity, the world’s energy watchdog has warned.
The International Energy Agency recorded the steepest ever increase in electricity demand last year, which triggered blackouts in major economies and led to historic energy price highs and record emissions.
Continue reading...French bakers in pain over cut-price supermarket baguettes
Leclerc destroying ‘dignity’ of profession for selling a baguette for 29 cents (24p)
French bakers have taken aim at a major supermarket chain that is offering inflation-busting low prices for baguettes, saying the move will undermine competition in one of the country’s prized industries.
The Leclerc group said in newspaper ads on Tuesday that “because of inflation, the average price of baguettes could increase significantly. That’s unthinkable”, vowing to cut into its profit margins to cap the cost of the signature French loaf at 29 euro cents (24p).
Continue reading...Heathrow demands end to Covid testing for vaccinated as 600,000 cancel flights
Airport says passengers abandoned plans because of Omicron variant and uncertainty on restrictions
Heathrow airport has said at least 600,000 passengers cancelled their travel plans from the airport in December because of Omicron, warning aviation would take years to recover from the pandemic.
Only 19.4 million passengers passed through the airport in 2021 – less than a quarter of 2019 levels and below even 2020, the year when the Covid-19 pandemic started in March.
Continue reading...Chinese developer Shimao plans fire sale after downgrade and missed payment
Fears over contagion mount as a company once considered financially sound is running out of cash to pay its debts
A Chinese developer previously considered financially sound is embarking on a fire sale of assets as the contagion of bad debts built up within China’s bloated housing sector continues to spread.
Shimao Group Holdings, which is in the top dozen Chinese property companies, was plunged into crisis after it said it defaulted a trust loan last week after missing a 645m yuan ($101m) payment that it guaranteed.
Continue reading...Brexit changes will add to soaring costs in 2022, warn UK manufacturers
Make UK says two-thirds of companies fear customs delays and red tape from new rules will further hamper supply chains
Manufacturers have warned that Brexit will add to soaring costs facing British industry, amid concerns that customs delays and red tape will rank among the biggest challenges for firms this year.
Make UK, the industry body representing 20,000 manufacturing firms of all sizes from across the country, said that while optimism among its members had grown, it was being undermined by the after-effects of the UK’s departure from the EU.
Continue reading...Brexit decision left UK firms paying 10% more than EU rivals for emissions
Government refusal to link carbon market to EU’s has led to higher cost for British businesses
British businesses are paying substantially more to produce carbon dioxide than their EU rivals because of the government’s refusal to link the UK carbon market to the bigger European market after Brexit.
The difference is putting UK industry at a significant competitive disadvantage to European rivals, at a time of soaring energy prices, but does not result in any additional benefit to the environment.
Continue reading...Do smart supermarkets herald the end of shopping as we know it?
A new breed of supermarkets means the days of queues, checkouts and shoplifting are numbered. But what else will we lose when no-transaction shopping becomes the norm?
Welcome to the supermarkets of the future. They may look and feel like the supermarkets we are all used to – and stock the same bread, butter and bananas – but these shops are now fitted out with more than £1m of the latest technology that their bosses promise will put an end to our biggest frustration (queueing) and our most persistent crime (shoplifting).
Jill French, a legal secretary in her 30s, wearing a sharp navy suit and matching beret, has just left a Tesco Express on London’s Holborn Viaduct empty-handed. It’s coming up to 6.30pm on a Thursday and, like dozens of others, French has popped in for a few essentials on her way home. “I just went in to grab pasta, milk and some broccoli,” she says. “But there was such a queue I got frustrated and walked out.”
Continue reading...Richest 1% of UK households are worth at least £3.6m each
New ONS figures reveal inequality gap growing ever wider before the coronavirus pandemic
The richest 1% of households in the UK each have fortunes of at least £3.6m, according to new official figures that show the inequality gap was yawning even before the pandemic struck.
At the other end of the scale, the poorest 10% of households have just £15,400 or less, with almost half burdened with more debts than they had in assets, according to figures released on Friday by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Continue reading...Tory peer Michelle Mone secretly involved in PPE firm she referred to government
Exclusive: Leaked files suggest Mone and her husband were involved in business given £200m contracts
Leaked files appear to suggest the Conservative peer Michelle Mone and her husband, Douglas Barrowman, were secretly involved in a PPE business that was awarded more than £200m in government contracts after she referred it to the Cabinet Office.
Barrowman, an Isle of Man-based financier, may have played a central role in the business deal that enabled PPE Medpro to sell millions of masks and surgical gowns to the government at the start of the pandemic, documents suggest.
Continue reading...Tui reaches agreement with Sousse terror survivors and victims’ families
Travel agent and lawyers representing 80 people agree settlement after 2015 Tunisian beach attack in which 38 died
The travel operator Tui has reached a settlement “without admission of liability or fault” with survivors and relatives of British tourists killed in the 2015 Tunisia beach terror attack, the company and the law firm representing victims said.
Seifeddine Rezgui killed 38 people, including 30 Britons, at the Riu Imperial Marhaba hotel complex on the Sousse coast, with dozens more injured, on 26 June that year.
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