Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Europeans gathering for Christmas with their friends or families should try to celebrate outside or wear masks indoors in a well-ventilated space, according to an advisory issued by the World Health Organization.
Yoshihide Suga’s honeymoon period as Japan’s prime minister had barely begun when coronavirus intervened. Now, two months into his leadership, he finds himself battling a resurgent outbreak and disillusionment among voters.
Enthusiasm for the farmer’s son who worked part-time to pay his way through university has all but evaporated since he took office in late September. As Japan prepares for a holiday period that experts fear could be overshadowed by a sharp rise in Covid-19 cases, an anxious public has Suga in its sights.
The film star can be heard saying ‘if you don’t do it, you’re fired’, reportedly after crew members in Leavesden studios failed to socially distance
Tom Cruise has been recorded screaming obscenities at crew members on his current film Mission: Impossible 7 after apparent breaches of on-set social distancing guidelines.
The Sun published an audio recording of Cruise shouting and swearing at film crew on the project, of which is he one of the producers, threatening instant dismissal of anyone found to be contravening distancing rules.
Covid has brought with it a spate of disturbing reports of schoolchildren reverting to child labour, increases in child marriage, trafficking, domestic violence and a sharpening digital divide in education. Children the world over are falling through the cracks, with governments ignoring child rights violations under the guise of having more urgent crises to tackle. Equally disturbing is any acceptance of this as a regrettable necessity. For activists, civil society groups and international agencies working to reverse regressive norms legitimising child labour, any message that appears to condone it in any form is dangerous.
Apologists for child labour often argue in favour of “good” work – usually done in household settings, against “bad” work – which takes place in commercial settings and is deemed exploitative and hazardous. But in reality, it is virtually impossible to draw a clear line between good and bad work. The negative impacts of child labour on physical and mental health are well documented – poor growth, malnutrition, serious skin and other infections, chronic lung disease, musculoskeletal deformities, impairments to hearing, vision and immune function, and behavioural and emotional disorders. These harms are not restricted to the most hazardous forms of child labour but can be equally true for activities undertaken within the household. Even a seemingly benign task such as cooking the family meal will expose a girl to the risks associated with indoor pollution caused by cooking fires.
A severe weather warning has been issued for Wagga and much of the Riverina for flash flooding this afternoon.
Severe thunderstorms have been forecast for the entire region, all the way from Hay in the west, right across to the east coast, and from the Queensland border down to Tumbarumba.
⚡SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING⚡ for HEAVY RAINFALL. Warning current for much of central and eastern NSW and the ACT. 2hr Obs: 92mm @ Lismore. 30min Obs: 26mm @ Glen Alice, 25mm at Mt.Werong & 22mm @ Lake Burley Griffin. ⚠️Warnings: https://t.co/30woSZ6O2x#ifitsfloodedforgetitpic.twitter.com/L8OXMiSlAz
Victoria police commissioner Shane Patton has sought to differentiate between the police approach during the Black Lives Matter protest in Melbourne in early June and anti-lockdown protests that were broken up during the second wave, with many more fined.
Patton told a Victorian parliament Covid-19 committee on Wednesday that at the time of the BLM protest, the spread of Covid was not as big as it was later on in the second wave, and there weren’t the severe restrictions at the time that were seen later – in June, groups of up to 20 people could assemble.
We eventually made a decision to reluctantly allow that Black Lives Matter to go ahead, because of the emotion that was in the community, because of the emotion that was being displayed across the world.
One in four people globally may not get vaccines until 2022; EU likely to approve vaccine within days; Canada signs dealto accelerate Moderna vaccine deliveries
A little more on the new community transmission case in Sydney. The positive case was detected in van driver transporting international airline crew to and from Sydney airport. Matilda Boseley and Melissa Davey report.
It’s been described as “very un-Australian” - one of the fiercest, but most flexible, criticisms you can make in this part of the world.
Australian department of foreign affairs and trade officials are being allowed to skip government-mandated hotel quarantine when returning from abroad, instead spending two weeks at home.
Peru’s government told people in the country not to invite friends and family who live outside the home to Christmas and New Year celebrations, a measure aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus.
Coronavirus cases in Peru totalled 987,675 as of Tuesday with 36,817 deaths so far, according to official figures. Health authorities are warning of a possible second wave of infections early next year.
Brazil has registered more than 70,000 additional cases of Covid-19, pushing the country’s total confirmed cases over 7 million.
The country has now registered 7,040,608 total confirmed cases, behind only the US and India.
Tourist operators will be able to cater for more than just weekend visitors, and airlines have shown plenty of enthusiasm
New Zealand tourism businesses will be gratefully awaiting the arrival of Australian travellers who previously made up 40% of international arrivals and spent $2.7bn during their stay.
Data from Tourism New Zealand also shows that 89% of Aussie visitors stay a minimum of four days, and this will be crucial for tourism operators who have been doing their best to survive on domestic travellers only. Although the “team of 5 million” Kiwis has made a concerted effort to support the industry, domestic travel is heavily skewed toward weekends and public holidays. Operators will be excited at the prospect of having an additional supply of midweek customers.
The 45-year-old man who tested positive was a van driver transporting international flight crew to and from the airport • Follow Wednesday’s Australia liveblog
New South Wales has recorded a new locally acquired case of Covid after a van driver transporting international airline crew to and from Sydney airport contracted the virus.
The state’s health minister, Brad Hazzard, said the case was discovered Wednesday morning.
Christmas plans for millions of families were in the balance last night as ministers and devolved leaders held talks on curtailing freedoms over the festive period amid warnings that the NHS would be overwhelmed.
Boris Johnson is likely to face down calls to change course, though the government may issue new advice urging extreme caution. A government source said it was possible the four nations may diverge after no agreement was reached at a crisis meeting with devolved administrations on Tuesday chaired by Michael Gove.
The UK government’s long-awaited test to release scheme, designed to allow travellers to cut quarantine, was embroiled in chaos on its first day of operation after the last-minute publication of 11 private providers, most of whom appeared unable to offer the service on Tuesday morning.
Airports, many of which have had testing centres in place for weeks or months, were perplexed at being left off the Department for Transport’s approved list, as they reported a surge in bookings in the run-up to the festive season.
Daniel Uhlfelder sprung to fame earlier this year as he stalked Florida beaches in hood-and-scythe to warn about coronavirus
“This is not about me,” the Grim Reaper said on Tuesday, about his decision to take Florida governor and “mini-Trump” Ron DeSantis to court over the state’s coronavirus response. “It’s about citizens having the right to challenge government when they’re not doing the right thing.”
The Danish government will extend current lockdown measures to the entire country, the broadcaster TV2 has reported, citing unnamed sources. The measures, which were implemented last week in parts of Denmark after signs of a rapid rise in infections, include shutting bars, restaurants and museums.
Plans to relax Covid restrictions at Christmas must be reversed or many lives risk being lost, according to a rare joint editorial from two of the UK’s most eminent medical journals.
The government can no longer claim to be protecting the NHS if it goes ahead with “rash” plans to allow households to mix indoors over Christmas, the British Medical Journal and Health Service Journal have said.
The London borough of Greenwich has reluctantly backed down over plans to close schools and switch to online learning to slow the spread of coronavirus, after the government launched legal action ordering schools to remain fully open until the end of term.
In a letter to parents, the leader of Greenwich council, Danny Thorpe, said he could not agree this was the best choice for schools in the borough, but neither could he justify using public funds to fight a court battle with the government.
Plans to relax Covid restrictions at Christmas must be reversed or many lives risk being lost, according to a rare joint editorial from two of the UK’s most eminent medical journals.
The government can no longer claim to be protecting the NHS if it goes ahead with “rash” plans to allow households to mix indoors over Christmas, the British Medical Journal and Health Service Journal have said.
The mayor of London has criticised the government's Covid tier system, calling it a 'blunt instrument being retrofitted around solutions that are not as effective as they should be'. The city will be placed in tier 3 from 16 December, meaning bars and restaurants must close.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Khan said the majority of new infections in the capital were among school-age children. 'I see very few children of that age in pubs, bars and restaurants,' Khan said. He urged the government to close secondary schools so that pupils do not pass on the virus to older relatives over Christmas
For scientists, 5 January was a turning point in the fight against the coronavirus. That day, a team led by Prof Yong-Zhen Zhang at Fudan University in Shanghai sequenced the genetic code of the virus behind Wuhan’s month-long pneumonia outbreak. The process took about 40 hours. Having analysed the code, Zhang reported back to the Ministry of Health. The pathogen was a novel coronavirus similar to Sars, the deadly virus that sparked an epidemic in 2003. People should take precautions, he warned.
The Chinese government had imposed an embargo on information about the outbreak and Zhang and his co-workers were under pressure not to publish the code. The blackout couldn’t hold. On 8 January, news broke about the nature of the pathogen and was confirmed a day later by Chinese authorities. To sit on the code now seemed ridiculous.
The prime minister’s spell in intensive care underscored the severity of the pandemic. Did it also make him reassess his life?
It was an unexpected twist in what already felt like an excessively dramatic disaster movie. On 6 April, the British prime minister was admitted to the intensive care ward at St Thomas’ hospital in London, after contracting a new and potentially deadly virus. Donald Trump said he was “praying for his good friend”; the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said all his wishes were with the prime minister, his family and the British people in “this difficult time”. The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, described it as “terribly sad news”.
Boris Johnson pulled through, of course, surviving to witness the birth of his son, Wilfred – given the middle name Nicholas, after the doctors, Dr Nick Price and Dr Nick Hart, who saved Johnson’s life. But more than eight months later, could the country still be feeling the impact of this dramatic turn of events?
Unless leaders make the right choices on recovering from the pandemic to avoid entrenching environmental problems and social inequalities, the world faces a future of lurching from crisis to crisis, reversing gains made in recent decades in health, education, social freedom and combating poverty, the UN has warned.
The unprecedented impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, combined with the environmental crises the world is facing, threaten to wind back human progress and development, leaving societies around the world vulnerable and more unequal, according to a new report from the UN development programme (UNDP).