Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Appeal court clears wife to sue company in London over husband’s death while helping to scrap tanker in Chittagong
British shipping companies that sell old vessels to be scrapped cheaply in dangerous, low-paid conditions in Bangladesh, India or Pakistan may now be sued in London for workers’ deaths or injuries.
In the first ruling of its kind by any higher court anywhere in the world, the court of appeal of England and Wales has held that a shipping company in London selling a vessel in south Asia could owe a legal “duty of care” to shipbreaking workers in Bangladesh even where there are multiple third parties involved in the transaction.
The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine appears to give high protection against asymptomatic Covid-19, according to data from Israel – a finding that will boost hopes that mass vaccination can stop the spread of the virus.
The top line of the real-world results, issued by the Israeli ministry of health and the companies but not yet peer-reviewed by scientists, is efficacy of 97% against disease and death and 94% against infection without symptoms.
Brexit red tape and disruption to global trade from pandemic leaves businesses ‘severely strained’
Three-quarters of British manufacturers are struggling to cope with delays in moving goods in and out of the EU amid continuing disruption caused by Brexit and the Covid pandemic, industry figures said.
Two months after the UK left the EU on trade terms agreed by Boris Johnson’s government, research from the manufacturing trade group Make UK has shown that 74% of firms in a survey of more than 200 leading industrial companies are facing delays with EU imports and exports.
Air travel restrictions forced firm to burn through £4.2bn in cash to keep afloat as revenues collapsed
Rolls-Royce has reported a loss of £4bn for 2020 as the jet-engine manufacturer’s business was shaken by the coronavirus pandemic.
The FTSE 100 manufacturer revealed it burned through £4.2bn in cash during the year as revenues from servicing passenger aircraft collapsed. It expects to burn through a further £2bn this year.
Developers built windfarms with a total capacity of almost 100GW in 2020, a rise of nearly 60% on previous year
China built more new windfarm capacity in 2020 than the whole world combined in the year before, leading to an annual record for windfarm installations despite the Covid-19 pandemic.
A study has revealed that China led the world’s biggest ever increase in wind power capacity as developers built almost 100GW worth of windfarms last year – enough to power almost three times the number of homes in the UK and a rise of nearly 60% on the previous year.
Cairns hospital called a code yellow on Tuesday due to an influx of patients, including a number of Covid-19 payments from Papua New Guinea.
More from AAP:
More than 260 people presented at the emergency department on Tuesday, with road crash victims adding to increased pressure on services.
“A sustained high number of presentations to the ED, alongside a spike in trauma admissions and several patients needing isolation for Covid-19 had led to the hospital declaring a Code Yellow,” the hospital said in a statement on Wednesday.
News that the Hong Kong legislator Ted Hui is settling in Australia after being granted a travel exemption by the Australian government is unlikely to go down well in Beijing.
When Guardian Australia contacted the Chinese embassy in Canberra for comment on the matter, an official pointed us to remarks made by the foreign ministry spokesperson in Beijing last week. The foreign ministry spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, told reporters Monday last week:
China’s position on Hong Kong-related issues is consistent and clear. Hong Kong is China’s Hong Kong, and every bit of Hong Kong affairs belongs to China’s internal affairs, in which no other country has the right to interfere.
The Chinese side urges the Australian side to stop meddling in Hong Kong’s affairs and China’s internal affairs in any way. Otherwise the China-Australia relations will only sustain further damage.
SA Health says positive Covid-19 wastewater results may be linked to hotel quarantine, but further investigations are under way. Follow the latest updates
Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has defended the pace of the vaccine rollout saying it can only be rolled out as fast as it’s being supplied by the federal government, reports AAP.
Queensland gave 6,300 people their first doses of the Pfizer jab last week, against a target of 3,000, but there’s been media criticism of the state’s slow rollout compared with other states.
All of this is being done in consultation with the Commonwealth, so please don’t disrespect the process...
We want to get it right, we want it to be rolled out smoothly, and of course we are making sure that the people have the adequate training to do this.
We are adapting very quickly to the numbers that we’re getting, but the Commonwealth are adjusting these numbers on a regular basis how much we’ll get.
And in some cases, as in the figures I was given like last week, we’re getting triple what we expected and they have to last us for a few weeks because they can’t necessarily guarantee (how much) we’re going to get each week.
Wentworth Liberal MP Dave Sharma’s idea for International Women’s Day seems to have backfired this morning after he handed out what I believe are pink carnations to women.
Face masks can be worn safely during intense exercise, and could reduce the risk of Covid-19 spreading at indoor gyms, preliminary findings suggests.
Scientists from the Monzino Cardiology Centre (CCM) in Milan and the University of Milan tested the breathing rate, heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen levels of six women and men on exercise bikes, with and without a mask.
Novelty trips to unknown destinations have become a surprise hit for airlines and travel agents, as all travel remains uncertain
There’s a lot to consider when booking a holiday these days. Will state borders stay open? What restrictions are in place? Is it safe? Is it worth the risk?
The uncertainty has many Australians staying close to home; it’s been a huge summer for regional road trips. But others are seizing new opportunities, strapping themselves into planes and hurtling into the great unknown.
Republican opposition holds through marathon ‘vote-a-rama’
Speaker Pelosi has said measure should be law by 14 March
Joe Biden hailed “one more giant step forward on delivering on that promise that help is on the way”, after Democrats took a critical step towards a first major legislative victory since assuming control of Congress and the White House, with a party-line vote in the Senate to approve a $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill.
The arrival of Covid-19 vaccines promises a return to more normal life – and has created a global market worth tens of billions of dollars in annual sales for some pharmaceutical companies.
Among the biggest winners will be Moderna and Pfizer – two very different US pharma firms which are both charging more than $30 per person for the protection of their two-dose vaccines. While Moderna was founded just 11 years ago, has never made a profit and employed just 830 staff pre-pandemic, Pfizer traces its roots back to 1849, made a net profit of $9.6bn last year and employs nearly 80,000 staff.
The hedge fund manager earns Britain’s biggest salary. He also avoids meat, likes yoga and supports Extinction Rebellion
Hedge fund manager Sir Chris Hohn once made a point of telling a high court judge that he was an “unbelievable moneymaker”. This week Hohn proved his point – definitively – when it was revealed that he paid himself just shy of £1m-a-day last year.
Hohn collected $479m (£343m) in annual dividend payments from his The Children’s Investment (TCI) fund in the biggest ever personal payday in the UK after doubling profits at his Mayfair hedge fund, run from an office a couple of doors down from Louis Vuitton’s flagship store.
Decline wipes billions off Elon Musk’s fortune as investors fear firm is vastly overvalued
A sharp decline in Tesla’s share price has wiped more than $250bn (£193bn) off the value of the electric car company, and dragged down the value of an Edinburgh-based investment fund that is one of Tesla’s biggest backers.
The shares dropped by 7.5% in early trading in the US on Friday to $575 – setting them on course to close down 16% this week and 35% below their record peak of $883 on 26 January.
The normal rules of business that protect the profits of vaccine manufacturers will have to be set aside if that is what it takes to ensure everybody is immunised against the coronavirus, according to the director general of the World Health Organization.
Writing in the Guardian, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says the world needs to be “on a war footing”. Before a key meeting of the World Trade Organization next week on the anniversary of the declaration of the pandemic, he supports a patent waiver that would allow countries to make and sell cheap copies of vaccines that were invented elsewhere.
Petra Diamonds already faces court action on similar grounds, as its contractors are accused of continued assaults on illegal miners
A Tanzanian mine that produced a flawless pink diamond for one of the Queen’s favourite brooches is investigating claims that security personnel have shot and assaulted illegal miners.
New allegations come months after a lawsuit alleging “serious” human rights abuses was filed against Petra Diamonds, the mine’s British owner, in the high court in London.
Sex discrimination commissioner to lead review of parliament culture; Italy blocks 250,000 doses of Covid vaccine under the EU’s export authorisation scheme. Follow latest updates
Minister Reynolds has offered an apology, as she should. And as I said yesterday. And I didn’t find that acceptable, the comments that were made within her office at that time. They weren’t public statements, of course. These were comments made not in a public space... That doesn’t excuse them. And it was relating... she was not talking about the allegations of sexual assault.
Linda Reynolds is returning. She’s currently on leave and will return to her duties when her leave is finished. She maintains my confidence.
Morrison is also asked about the education sector, and whether that was a consideration when discussing international arrival caps and quarantine facilities. In short, no change, but if universities want to reach agreements with government, they’re willing to chat.
No, there’s no change on that front. It would be good if we could get to that point, but at this stage we’re not at that point. The opening of the international borders, we don’t think is wise at this time, and for the period that we’ve suggested, and that’s totally consistent with the medical advice. And we’ve always been happy to work with the international education sector if they want to put in place supplementary self-funded quarantine arrangements and flight arrangements. That has always been there for the international education industry, the large universities and others to go down that path. They haven’t chosen to go down that path. Our focus has remained on the responsibilities we have as a commonwealth.
A letter signed by 29 experts and activist groups says Cormann’s climate record should rule him out of secretary-general’s job
International climate change groups and influential advisers on the global shift from fossil fuels have written to the OECD expressing “grave concerns” over Australian politician Mathias Cormann’s bid to be its next secretary-general.
Former Australian finance minister Cormann’s record in a government that “persistently failed to take effective action” to cut emissions while blocking international action meant he was “not a suitable candidate”, the letter says.
Focus on agro-business rather than ecology has split groups invited to planned UN conference on hunger
An international food summit to address growing hunger and diet-related disease is in disarray as hundreds of farmers’ and human rights groups are planning a boycott.
Rishi Sunak is delivering his budget – here is rolling coverage of the main points, updated throughout the speech
The chancellor says he would do “whatever it takes” during the pandemic, and that he has done and will continue to do so. He says there has been acute damage to the economy, with more than 700,000 people losing their jobs, the economy shrinking by 10% – the largest fall in 300 years, and borrowing is highest it has been outside of wartime. “It’s going to take this country, and the whole world, a long time to recover from this extraordinary situation,” he says.