Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Israel’s prime minister has announced that the country would offer a coronavirus booster shot to those people over 60 who have already been vaccinated.
The announcement by Naftali Bennett makes Israel, which launched one of the world’s most successful vaccination drives earlier this year, the first country to offer a third dose of a western vaccine to its citizens on a wide scale.
Rule would affect more than 2m civilian employees, but Republicans continue to block preventive measures
Joe Biden has announced that all civilian federal workers must show proof of vaccination against the coronavirus or face regular testing and stringent physical distancing, masking and travel restrictions.
Facing a daunting political test as the Delta variant cuts a swath through unvaccinated Americans, the president outlined a more aggressive approach by the federal government and expressed hope that it would offer a model for corporate employers.
Benevolent dictatorship is not the answer to the region’s real problems
This week has shown that Arab regimes are tough on dissent, but much less interested in its causes. This will create problems for years to come as these states struggle to recover from the pandemic. Tunisia’s presidential power grab is a test for Joe Biden’s democracy and human rights agenda. War has impoverished ancient centres of Arab civilisation. The UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia this week pointed out that poverty now affects 88% of the population in Syria and 83% in Yemen. Even nations once considered wealthy have been brought low by an unhappy meeting of leadership failures and Covid-19. Lebanon’s leaders are begging for foreign assistance after the local currency plummeted in value and the population ran short of food, fuel and medicine.
The Arab world is a varied place. The latest UN survey shows it diverging into wealthy Gulf absolute monarchies; a set of middle-income countries with more people than their oil reserves can comfortably afford; war zones in some of the largest nations such as Iraq; and very poor states. The oil-rich sheikhdoms are pulling ahead and using their financial and military clout to extend their influence, often with disastrous results. The Arab region, says the UN, hosts more than six million refugees and more than 11 million internally displaced persons. There is little coordinated action to deal with the numerous social challenges, including growing poverty, increased unemployment and persistent gender inequalities. Food insecurity has spread. One can be too downcast: the UN hopes for a silver lining in the prospect of peace in Libya.
The daily number of Covid cases reported in the UK has risen for the second day in a row, although experts have cautioned against drawing premature conclusions from the fluctuations.
On Thursday, 31,117 cases were reported in the UK, up from 27,734 the day before, which marked the first rise in cases since 20 July.
China has reported small coronavirus outbreaks driven by the Delta variant in three provinces as a cluster linked to an eastern airport spreads despite mass testing and a vaccination drive.
AFP reports that the flare-up, which began after nine workers at the Nanjing airport tested positive on 20 July, has seen 171 cases detected in Jiangsu province, while infections have spread to at least four other provinces.
The European Commission has said it had agreed with Hungary to extend a deadline for Budapest to meet demands on its €7bn coronavirus recovery plan.
“The commission is working together with Hungary constructively, with an aim to finalising the assessment by the end of September,” a spokeswoman said. “The commission requested an extended deadline and Hungary did not object.”
Here are the main points from the Downing Street lobby briefing.
The chancellor has said previously that the triple lock is government policy. But we recognise people’s concerns. We’ve got to ensure fairness for both taxpayers an pensioners.
These are from Torsten Bell, the chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, a thinktank focusing on pay and inequality, on today’s furlough figures. (See 11.44am.)
Two big take-aways from today's furlough stats. 1. almost 2 million workers still furloughed as the scheme's phase out started. That's more than I expected and the rate of decline halved in June from May (lesson = labour market chat has become too complacent) pic.twitter.com/xZgxG1AmAp
2. Furlough is now an older workers story. The young (who were most likely to have been furloughed) are flowing off the scheme much faster. Older workers are more likely to be parked on it and as a result, for the first time, they have the highest furlough rates pic.twitter.com/Ot6ThssfJa
Kristian Pulkownik, 33, is yet to formally apply for bail after he was arrested on Saturday following a so-called freedom march
An alleged Sydney anti-lockdown protester accused of punching a police horse called Tobruk will remain behind bars after refusing a Covid test that was a prerequiste for him to appear in court.
Kristian Pulkownik, 33, is yet to formally apply for bail after he was arrested on Saturday following a march in Sydney’s city centre where thousands of people defied coronavirus restrictions to attend.
Health experts in Japan have warned that a recent surge in coronavirus cases in Tokyo, six days into the Olympics, could put hospitals under severe strain unless young people stop socialising at night and get vaccinated.
Tokyo reported 3,865 daily coronavirus cases on Thursday, up from 3,177 on Wednesday, as rising infections in the capital cast a shadow over the Olympics. Wednesday was the first time cases in Tokyo had exceeded 3,000 since the start of the pandemic.
The government is using the threat of domestic vaccine passports to coax and cajole people into getting fully vaccinated, the foreign secretary has admitted.
Dominic Raab said ministers did not want to “hold the country back” just because some individuals were not coming forward to get inoculated, confirming publicly what many suspected about Boris Johnson’s sudden decision to throw his weight behind certification for nightclubs.
Dominic Cummings personally called a former colleague on the Vote Leave Brexit campaign and asked if his company would work for the government on its response to the Covid pandemic, leading to the award of a £580,000 Cabinet Office contract with no competitive process.
In an email on 20 March 2020, Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser asked the most senior civil servant responsible for contracts to sign off the budget immediately, and that if “anybody in CABOFF [the Cabinet Office] whines”, to tell them Cummings had “ordered it” from the prime minister.
Health authorities in China have set up checkpoints and reportedly suspended flights in the eastern city of Nanjing in the country’s worst coronavirus emergency in months.
More than 170 people have been diagnosed with the Delta variant in the past 10 days. The main outbreak is centred on Nanjing, in Jiangsu province, but connected cases have reportedly been identified in Beijing and other provinces including Anhui, Liaoning, Sichuan and Guangdong.
Shelters swept away as activists say people stuck in Cox’s Bazar are highly vulnerable to the ‘rapidly changing climate’
At least six Rohingya refugees were killed by landslides or drowned in flooding after rain inundated refugee camps in Bangladesh over recent days, deepening the despair among those living there.
Knee-deep waters coursed through the camps, battering fragile shelters made of bamboo and tarpaulin and making at least 5,000 people homeless, according to the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR).
Residents of eight local government areas banned from leaving hotspots unless they are essential workers; tradespeople now allowed into clients’ homes. Follow all the day’s news
Oooh, Victorian premier Daniel Andrews is speaking early this morning. I wonder if we will get the Covid-19 update at this event or if we will have to wait for the CHO to step up later in the day:
Daniel Andrews is speaking at from 9.45am at a level crossing removal.
NSW is lagging behind many other states and territories when it comes to vaccinating its elderly population, with fewer than 40% of over-70s fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
New data released by the federal government on Wednesday provides a state breakdown of national vaccination numbers for the first time. The figures reveal that of the almost 1 million people over 70 in NSW, 77% have received a first vaccine dose and 39% have received a second.
The Federal Reserve chair said today that the Delta variant poses little threat to the economy, so far. At a news conference, chair Jerome Powell said:
What we’ve seen is with successive waves of COVID over the past year and some months now, there has tended to be less in the way of economic implications from each wave. We will see whether that is the case with the delta variety, but it’s certainly not an unreasonable expectation.”
Dining out, traveling, some schools might not reopen. We may see economic effects from some of that or it might weigh on the return to the labor market. We don’t have a strong sense of how that will work out, so we’ll be monitoring it carefully.”
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has said he will vote to move forward with the infrastructure bill:
Based on a commitment from Leader Schumer to Senators Portman and Sinema that the Portman-Sinema amendment to be filed will be the substitute amendment, I will vote to proceed to the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
Observers fear pandemic could be responsible for deaths, adding intrigue to freedom protests taking place in Cuba and US
Five mostly elderly and retired Cuban military generals have died in recent days in mysterious circumstances, the country’s communist regime has confirmed, adding intrigue to a new round of freedom protests taking place in the island and US.
Kevin McCarthy: mask policy a political decision by Democrats
Capitol physician reimposes mask requirement for the House
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, on Wednesday heaped disdain on the Republican minority leader’s criticism of Congress’s new mask requirement – a reversal of policy that reflected growing number of cases and fears about the highly-transmissible Covid-19 Delta variant at the Capitol.
Sajid Javid has said “no one really knows” what trajectory the Covid pandemic will take in the weeks ahead, as new cases across the UK rose after seven days of consecutive declines.
The latest Covid data, published on Wednesday, showed 27,734 people testing positive across the UK – up by 4,000 from a day earlier.
Double-vaccinated travellers from the US and most of Europe will have their jab status recognised, meaning they can avoid quarantine when arriving in England.
The Guardian revealed on Tuesday that the government was poised to announce a significant loosening of international travel restrictions to let millions more people visit friends and family in the country, as well as boost the struggling tourism and aviation sectors.