Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Japan’s theme parks have banned screaming on roller coasters because it spreads coronavirus. “Please scream inside your heart.” https://t.co/DJjC40H0Ap
Confusion over NSW-Victoria border closure as the state’s northern border closes for the first time in a century and Melbourne prepares for lockdown. Follow the latest news
Someone asks about some sort of foreign travel tax? I don’t know - there is a lot in the question, and it’s involving shiz that none of us can even think about until at least July next year, because I’m not sure if this is common knowledge or not - but Australia’s international borders ARE CLOSED.
Scott Morrison:
Well, there’s a lot of speculation on all those questions. So I don’t intend to engage in what is the normal budget speculation when you lead up to a budget.
Those matters will be addressed in the budget.
On what we are planning on doing with Hong Kong residents, Scott Morrison says:
We continue to be concerned about issues in Hong Kong as many nations are, and we have remained in close contact with other like-minded countries about this issue.
This is about how we, as a nation, are responding, domestically, to these issues.
On the issue of the broader shutdown of Melbourne - this is a matter that the Premier advised me of and, of course, based on their advice and the advice that I have received from the chief medical officer, then this was necessary.
I hope it isn’t for that long. I hope it’s for a shorter period as possible.
Goal to eradicate poverty by 2030 ‘completely off track’, says outgoing special rapporteur, with Covid-19 likely to impoverish millions more
International institutions are losing the fight against global poverty despite “self congratulatory” messages to the contrary, according to the UN’s outgoing special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.
In his final report in the post, the Australian academic Philip Alston warns that states and global organisations are “completely off track” to meet the goal of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030, with more people instead likely to become highly impoverished by new shocks, including coronavirus and existing challenges like the climate crisis.
Green campaigners and housing experts warn Boris Johnson’s recovery plan could swiftly become a liability
Boris Johnson’s plan to build tens of thousands of new homes risks locking in high carbon emissions for decades to come, if they are built to today’s poor efficiency standards instead of being designed for net zero carbon.
The prime minister’s plans to “build, build, build” form the centrepiece of his “new deal” to lift Britain’s economy out of the coronavirus recession. About £12bn will go to building 180,000 new homes to relieve the housing crisis, while new hospitals and schools will be constructed to improve degraded public services.
Report identifies gap between market optimism and depressed state of economies
The global stock market rally represents a gamble by investors that central banks will ignore the risks of a buildup in debt and continue to provide support at the current record levels, the International Monetary Fund has warned.
In an update to its half-yearly global financial stability report, the IMF said central banks had been pivotal in the recovery of share prices from their Covid-19 trough but there was now a gap between the optimism of financial markets and the depressed state of economies.
Australia and New Zealand are about to begin negotiations on a free trade agreement with the UK in what the Australian trade minister said was “a strong signal of our mutual support for free trade” in a post-Covid-19 world.
Simon Birmingham said Australia was “ready to help the UK find new beginnings post-Brexit and in doing so, open up new doors for our farmers, businesses and investors”.
Richard Horton does not hold back in his criticism of the UK’s response to the pandemic and the medical establishment’s part in backing fatal government decisions
There is a school of thought that says now is not the time to criticise the government and its scientific advisers about the way they have handled the Covid-19 pandemic. Wait until all the facts are known and the crisis has subsided, goes this thinking, and then we can analyse the performance of those involved. It’s safe to say that Richard Horton, the editor of the influential medical journal the Lancet, is not part of this school.
An outspoken critic of what he sees as the medical science establishment’s acquiescence to government, he has written a book that he calls a “reckoning” for the “missed opportunities and appalling misjudgments” here and abroad that have led to “the avoidable deaths of tens of thousands of citizens”.
Dow Jones loses more than 1,800 points while S&P down 5% after US coronavirus infections hit 2m
Stock markets tumbled in the US and Europe on Thursday amid growing fears over the long-term economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
The sell off started after the US labor department announced another 1.5 million people had filed for unemployment benefits and the number of coronavirus infections passed 2m even as states across the US continued to relax their quarantine measures.
National Bureau of Economic Research says economic growth in the US peaked in February and has since entered its first downturn since 2007 to 2009
The United States is officially in a recession, ending the longest economic expansion in US history, the committee that calls downturns announced on Monday.
The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) said that economic growth in the US peaked in February and has since entered its first downturn since 2007 to 2009.
Germany amazed the whole continent with last week’s stimulus package, but it paves the way for countries such as France to agree an effective coronavirus response
From champion of austerity to Europe’s biggest spender – Germany has travelled a long way in just a few months. The notoriously frugal ministry of finance has agreed to spend €130bn – a sum equal to 4% of national income – on more than 50 initiatives to promote growth across the country.
This breathtaking investment programme comes on top of the almost 30% of GDP the government has so far spent on rescuing businesses and protecting jobs during the coronavirus crisis.
And in one bound she was transformed. For Angela Merkel, the days of being lampooned as the archetypal Swabian housewife keeping tight control over the purse strings are over. Now, courtesy of a €130bn (£116bn) stimulus package, she is the spend, spend, spend chancellor.
Make no mistake, much of the past criticism of Germany’s frugal approach to government spending and budget deficits was justified. Saving some money for a rainy day is one thing but running surpluses worth 8% of national output was unnecessary and harmful to the global economy.
Young’s pub chain intends to open all of its 276 sites by the 3 August, and is hopeful the business can “bounce back” once its pubs are allowed to reopen, but expects trading to be “materially below average” for the rest of the year.
Another interesting detail from the SMMT data: Tesla’s Model 3 was the most popular car during May.
Paper concludes EU does not have to offer privileges given to others in previous deals
The EU has no legal duty to grant the UK privileges offered to other countries in trade deals, an internal European parliament paper has concluded ahead of a crucial round of Brexit talks this week.
The document, drawn up by officials for the parliament’s UK coordination group, is a short analysis of arguments made by the UK’s chief negotiator, David Frost, in a letter to his counterpart, Michel Barnier. Frost accused the EU of treating the UK as an “unworthy” negotiating partner by denying the UK “the kind of well-precedented arrangements commonplace in modern FTAs [free trade agreements]”.
The European Commission has put down a marker for the world with its green recovery package. It sets a high standard for other nations, using the rebuilding of coronavirus-ravaged economies to tackle the even greater threat of the climate emergency, in principle at least.
With the world fast approaching the point when climate chaos becomes inevitable, how the trillions of recovery dollars – or euros – are spent is a use-it-or-lose-it moment, so what the EU does really matters. Climate change is a global crisis, meaning all nations must act and some must lead the way.
In total the coronavirus government support for UK workers has come to £21.8bn, if you add together the money paid for furloughed employees and income support for self-employed workers.
More than 10m British workers have been given some form of income support, if furlough numbers are added to those who have claimed self-employed support*.
More struggles for the British property sector:
British Land, which owns shopping centres including Sheffield’s Meadowhall and Drake Circus in Plymouth, has written down the value of its retail portfolio by more than a quarter due to the impact of the coronavirus.
When France and Germany announced a plan to raise €500bn (£448bn) on financial markets to fund a European coronavirus recovery plan, leaders sought to underscore the magnitude of the moment.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, hailed “a real change of philosophy”, with the plan for the European commission to borrow money on behalf of the entire EU and issue grants to the most stricken industries and regions. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, declared: “The nation state has no future standing alone,” and the German finance minister, Olaf Scholz, evoked the legacy of the US founding father Alexander Hamilton, who helped to transform the US into a true political unit with his scheme for the national government to take on debts accrued by individual states.
EU foreign affairs chief says end of US-led global system may have arrived and Europe needs robust strategy for China
The Asian century may have arrived marking the end of a US-led global system, the EU’s foreign affairs chief has said amid a growing discussion in Europe on how to weave a path between China and the US.
“Analysts have long talked about the end of an American-led system and the arrival of an Asian century. This is now happening in front of our eyes,” Josep Borrell told a group of German diplomats on Monday, adding that the coronavirus pandemic could be seen as a turning point and that the “pressure to choose sides is growing”.
Rebecca Wilkie is used to running a budget. The single mother of two daughters knows what it is to keep one eye on the bank balance. After being stood down as a full-time Qantas flight attendant at the end of March, however, the budget is tighter still. “Life was a struggle for us before the pandemic, to be honest,” she says.
She is managing. But catching up on the mortgage payments after the initial relief ends, and paying for the greater utility bills when they come through, worry her. She’s hoping, and expecting, that after 18 years at the airline, a job will be waiting for her once jobkeeper stops and the recovery begins.
Jerome Powell: pace of downturn ‘without modern precedent’
Lowest-paid Americans hit hardest by coronavirus pandemic
More evidence of how the coronavirus pandemic is widening income inequality has emerged after the Federal Reserve announced 40% of households earning less than $40,000 included someone who has lost a job since February.
More than 20 million people in the US lost their jobs in April and the unemployment rate more than trebled as the coronavirus pandemic shuttered the world’s largest economy, triggering a financial crisis unseen since the Great Depression.
The Department of Labor announced Friday that the US unemployment rate rose to 14.7% from just 4.4% in March and a near 50-year low of 3.5% in February before the US was hit by the virus.