Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Children in Spain are to be allowed to take walks outside for the first time in nearly six weeks from Sunday after the government bowed to pressure to go further in its plans to ease lockdown measures.
As EU leaders prepared for a summit to assess the damage Covid-19 has done to economies and agree a plan to revive them, the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, told MPs on Wednesday that any relaxation of the rules would be “slow and gradual”.
Allies of the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, and his bitter foe, the opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, have secretly begun exploratory talks as concerns grow about the possible impact of the spread of the coronavirus, according to sources on both sides.
The discussions emerged from concerns about Covid-19, hyperinflation and growing fuel shortages – as well as worries among some members of the ruling Socialist party about how to ensure their political survival under a possible change of government as Washington tightens sanctions, the sources said.
America’s addiction to mass incarceration could almost double its number of deaths from coronavirus, with jails acting as incubators of the disease and spreading a further 100,000 fatalities across the US.
The startling warning comes from groundbreaking modeling by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and academic researchers, released on Wednesday.
Hundreds of asylum seekers in Glasgow have been given less than an hour’s notice to pack up their flats before being moved into city centre hotels, where they claim social distancing is “impossible”.
They have also had all financial support withdrawn, apparently because the hotels provide three meals a day, basic toiletries and a laundry service, in a move condemned by campaigners.
The health secretary, Matt Hancock, has told MPs: ‘We are at the peak’ of the pandemic. ‘But before we relax any social distancing rules or make changes to them we have set out the five tests that have to be met.’
The amount of money migrant workers send back to their home countries is expected to decrease by almost $110bn this year as the Covid 19 pandemic increases unemployment across the world.
Remittances to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are projected to fall by nearly 20% to $445bn (£360bn), “representing the loss of a crucial financial lifeline for many vulnerable households”, the World Bank said.
At noon on 4 April 2020, the day Covid-19 cases passed 1m globally, photojournalist Lucien Lung used webcams from Antarctica to Argentina to capture images of the global shutdown
Photographer Lucien Lung had been trying to unique find a way to cover the coronavirus pandemic despite being unable to leave his Paris flat. Using webcams, he captured the planet in lockdown at a specific time on a symbolic date: 4 April, the day Covid-19 cases exceeded 1m across the globe.
In his first prime minister's questions in parliament as Labour leader, Keir Starmer criticised the government's response to the coronavirus outbreak: 'There's a pattern emerging here. We were slow into lockdown, slow on testing, slow on protective equipment, and now slow to take up [PPE] offers from British firms.' Answering on behalf of Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab said he didn't accept the accusation: 'We have been guided by the scientific advice, the chief scientific adviser, the chief medical officer, at every step along this way'
The health secretary, Matt Hancock, is facing fresh pressure over the protection offered to NHS staff after the European commission said the UK had been given “ample opportunity” to join an EU scheme bulk-buying masks, gowns, gloves and goggles.
After a day of confusion in Westminster over the UK’s lack of involvement in the EU’s joint procurement of equipment, a spokesman for the commission appeared to bolster the claim that ministers had taken a “political decision” to opt out.
Donald Trump’s botched handling of the Covid-19 crisis has left the US looking like a “third world” country and on course for a second Great Depression, one of the world’s leading economists has warned.
In a withering attack on the president, Joseph Stiglitz said millions of people were turning to food banks, turning up for work due to a lack of sick pay and dying because of health inequalities.
The British government is coming under fire for failing to join the EU’s procurement scheme for medical equipment, including masks, gloves, goggles, gowns, testing kits and ventilators, at a time when NHS health workers across the country are crying out for more supplies. In the latest twist, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, was forced to deny claims, later retracted, by the government’s senior diplomat that it had been a “political decision” to opt out of the scheme.
As travel restrictions in response to the pandemic savagely cut the number of flights, airlines are scrambling to find places to park their redundant planes
It has been floating around again for a while, but this morning Josh Frydenberg put company tax cuts firmly back on the table.
Business Council of Australia chief executive, Jennifer Westacott told Sky News’s Laura Jayes they were absolutely needed (but she would say that, wouldn’t she).
We’re trying to solve business investment, which was low before this terrible crisis. It’s business investment that drives productivity which drives higher wages. So that’s the problem, let’s frame that up first. Look I think it is important for us to put it back on the table but along with other tax reform. It’s not the only thing that needs to be done. It’s important that we look at the state taxes, the productivity sapping stamp duty taxes, payroll tax. It is interesting how much payroll tax has been deferred.
The whole question of the right configuration of the state taxes. Whether or not we bring forward those other income tax cuts. So it’s not just company taxes but it is important we have a competitive company tax rate. To the treasurer’s point, we’re not asking, in the Business Council, for us to have the lowest rate, we’re simply asking for a competitive rate, so that we can be a magnet for investment in this country.
In case you haven’t seen this as yet, or cried today, I am giving this another run, because we all need a bit of heartbreakingly lovely in our lives.
After noticing that Ken slept with a photo of his late wife every night, one of the carers at Thistleton Lodge presented him with this incredible gift... pic.twitter.com/Q1v8V8HUFS
When Lauryn Miller was forced to stay at home during New Zealand’s stringent Covid-19 lockdown, which has barred everyone but essential workers from leaving their houses, she jumped at the chance “to do something for anyone”.
Miller, 34, who usually works as a librarian in New Zealand’s capital, Wellington – and lives in the quiet, beachfront suburb of Lyall Bay – has been helping, along with her friends, to deliver food parcels to people nearby who have been left vulnerable during the four-week national shutdown.
A Chinese citizen journalist who was missing for almost two months after posting videos from Wuhan during the coronavirus outbreak has re-appeared, claiming that he was detained by police and forcibly quarantined, Lily Kuo reports from Beijing.
Li Zehua was one of three Chinese journalists who had been reporting in Wuhan during some of the worst weeks of the epidemic. He was last seen on 26 February after posting a video in which he was chased by a white SUV and an hours-long livestream that ended when several agents entered his apartment.
Airlines in Europe have applied for €12.8bn (£11.3bn) in government support since the start of the coronavirus pandemic with no binding environmental conditions attached, according to an analysis of the sector’s bailout pleas, Sandra Laville reports.
By Tuesday this week, airlines including easyJet, Scandinavian Airlines and Tui had secured loans and other financial support amounting to €3.36bn. A further €9.47bn is being sought by other airlines, data tracking by Transport & Environment, Greenpeace and Carbon Watch reveals.
Donald Trump has announced a 60-day ban on immigrants seeking to live and work in America permanently, and said he could extend it depending on the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
The US president framed the executive order, which he expects to sign on Wednesday, as an effort to protect American workers from foreign competition. He said it would apply only to those seeking green cards and not temporary workers, but he did not explain how those whose applications are currently being processed would be affected.
Recent arrests and posturing signal a turbulent future amid calls from Beijing for national security legislation to be expedited
“Thus we left Hong Kong to her fate and the hope that Martin Lee, the leader of the Democrats, would not be arrested,” wrote Prince Charles in his journal after Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997.
Twenty-three years later, his premonitions unfortunately came true. Lee, the 81-year-old founder of the Democratic party and a senior barrister, was among 15 veteran pro-democracy activists arrested by Hong Kong police on Saturday on charges of illegal assembly, accused of being involved in unapproved protests last year.
A leading US public health official warned on Tuesday that a new wave of coronavirus hitting the US next winter could be “even more difficult” for America to deal with than the current outbreak.
And in a double blow for the prospect of ending the coronavirus pandemic, a US trial of the controversial treatment Donald Trump has referred to as “like a miracle” has produced poor results.
The world is facing widespread famine “of biblical proportions” because of the coronavirus pandemic, the chief of the UN’s food relief agency has warned, with a short time to act before hundreds of millions starve.
More than 30 countries in the developing world could experience widespread famine, and in 10 of those countries there are already more than 1 million people on the brink of starvation, said David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Programme.