Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
On 22 March Morrison returned to his courtyard with another $66bn. Then on 30 March, Monday, the prime minister came back with $130bn for wage subsidies. Monday’s $130bn will be spent not over the four-year forward estimates, which is the budgetary convention. It will be spent over the next six months.
In the Guzargah reception centre for returnees and repatriates in Herat, Afghanistan, 17-year-old Yunos rests on a thin mattress in a small, empty room.
The previous night fatigued him. He spent it sleeping rough in the desert along with thousands of other Afghans, awaiting the opening of the Iran-Afghanistan border. The frigid desert air froze him to the bone and hunger disturbed his sleep.
“Sauvignon blanc or viognier”? As the words left my mouth, my son and I locked eyes, our expressions flashing from shame-faced to half laughing at the irony. My live-in maid Ranjita had just laid out dinner and, since the fish and lyonnaise potatoes looked appetising, I thought it deserved a bottle of wine.
For people like us, under lockdown, the existential questions that punctuate our daily lives are: is it to be Curb Your Enthusiasm or Line of Duty, Netflix or Hotstar?
US president Donald Trump insinuates during a news conference that hospital staff in coronavirus hot spots such as New York city are stealing hundreds of thousands of surgical masks. He asked how the numbers of masks requested could shoot up from 10,000 to 300,000 overnight and said: ‘Are they going out the back door?’. Trump also lashed out at reporters who asked questions he did not like about his previous statements, telling, PBS NewsHour's Yamiche Alcindor: 'Don’t be threatening. Be nice'
Hungary is set to pass a new law on coronavirus that includes jail terms for spreading misinformation as critics warn that the nationalist prime minister Viktor Orbán could be given carte blanche to rule by decree, with no clear time limit.
Hungary’s parliament, in which Orbán’s Fidesz party has a two-thirds majority, looks set to pass the bill on Monday in spite of opposition from other political parties, who had demanded a time limit or sunset clause on the legislation.
Many left for home without even the chance to say goodbye, knowing that their big overseas experience may be lost forever
Swapping in “aubergine” for “eggplant” and “pepper” for “capsicum” – when you remember. Watching two clocks, one 13 hours fast. Smugly renouncing Boris Johnson as “not MY prime minister”.
To some extent, the experience of being a New Zealander in London has always been one of being split between two places. Now the coronavirus crisis has forced us to pick one.
Australian prime minister Scott Morrison announced further restrictions on Sunday, including limiting public gatherings to two people. Follow all the latest Covid-19 updates
Passengers onboard the Ocean Atlantic have begged Scott Morrison to help bring them home via a YouTube video.
The passengers, who include about 150 Australians, embarked on what was supposed to be an Antarctic cruise in February/early March.
Queensland will also be issuing on the spot fines for people who ignore the social distancing rules. As AAP reports:
In Queensland thus far, no more than 10 people - other than residents - will be allowed inside a home at any one time, with homeowners and occupants now obliged to ensure they and visitors practice social distancing as much as possible.
Queensland Police now have powers to issue infringement notices for breaches of quarantine directions of up to $13,345 for individuals and $66,672 for businesses.
Covid-19 infections worldwide have risen to 732,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker. The US had the most cases, with over 142,000; Italy was second with nearly 98,000; and Spain has passed China’s 82,000 cases with 85,000. Italy still had the highest death toll, with nearly 10,800. Spain was second with 7,340. More than 2,500 people have died in the US.
Two of Brazil’s most iconic football stadiums - Rio de Janeiro’s Maracanã and the Pacaembu in São Paulo - are being converted into Covid-19 field hospitals as the country braces for an explosion of coronavirus cases.
The Pacaembu - whose turf has been graced by giants of Brazilian football including Pelé, Socrates and Ronaldo - is expected to open on Wednesday as a 200-bed clinic for coronavirus patients who do not require intensive care treatment.
“From what we have seen in Asia and Europe, the hospital system will fast become overloaded if we don’t have parallel infrastructure,” told Brazilian television network Globo on Sunday night.
The Maracanã - which has hosted two World Cup finals, in 1950 and 2014 - will also reportedly be turned into a hospital in early April.
Other Brazilian cities turning football stadiums into temporary hospitals include Boa Vista in the Amazon state of Roraima and Fortaleza in northeast Brazil.
As of Sunday Brazil had officially confirmed 4,256 cases and 136 Covid-19 deaths - the majority in Rio (17) and São Paulo (98). Those numbers are expected to rise significantly in the coming days as testing increases and the virus spreads. Brazil’s health ministry has warned the hospital system could collapse by the end of April.
Musician has been hospitalized since Thursday and has been placed on a ventilator
The country musician John Prine has been hospitalised in a critical condition after experiencing symptoms of coronavirus. A post to his official Twitter account said that Prine, 73, had been hospitalised on Thursday and intubated on Saturday.
“This is hard news for us to share,” it says. “But so many of you have loved and supported John over the years, we wanted to let you know, and give you the chance to send on more of that love and support now. And know that we love you, and John loves you.”
Australian academic, psychologist and author Lea Waters discusses the physiological and emotion benefits from keeping up, or developing, an exercise routine while self-isolating. The video is the first in a multi-part series looking at ways we can all stay positive during the coronavirus crisis.
Campaigners fear that EU citizens who have made their homes in the UK are at risk of becoming illegal as the government diverts resources to fight coronavirus.
Under current rules, all EU citizens have until June 2021 to apply for settled status. However, there are concerns that the pandemic will mean that the government support available to help EU citizens will reduce, and public awareness campaigns, designed to reach the most vulnerable people and those without an online presence, will be delayed.
Hundreds of passengers, many of them British, on a coronavirus-stricken cruise trip where four people have died are confined to their cabins awaiting the go-ahead to pass through the Panama Canal.
Dozens have fallen ill on the Zaandam cruise ship, which was stranded off the Pacific coast of Panama after several Latin American countries refused to let it into port. Some passengers were transferred to a second ship – the Rotterdam – on Saturday night.
The House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, delivered a devastating critique of Donald Trump on Sunday, accusing the president directly of costing American lives through his constant denials and delays in response to the coronavirus outbreak. ‘The president’s denial at the beginning was deadly,’ the House Speaker told CNN’s State of the Union. ‘His delay in getting equipment to where it’s needed is deadly … As the president fiddles, people are dying’
The deputy chief medical officer for England, Dr Jenny Harries, has said restrictions could remain in place for up to six months, and that lifting them too soon would risk a second wave of infection. She said the current measures would be reviewed three weeks after implementation. ‘We actually anticipate our numbers will get worse over the next week, possibly two, and then we are looking to see whether we have managed to push that curve down and we start to see a decline,’ she said
“The first thing the plague brought to our town was exile ... It was undoubtedly the feeling of exile – that sensation of a void within which never left us ... they drifted through life rather than lived, the prey of aimless days and sterile memories, like wandering shadows that could have acquired substance only by consenting to root themselves in the solid earth of their distress.”
Health workers in Madrid meditate together as many Spanish hospitals are stretched to near breaking point. The country has posted record single-day death tolls in succession and more than 9,000 health workers have been infected, but the head of Spain's health emergency service said the country may be nearing the peak of its coronavirus outbreak
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian dual national on temporary release from a five-year jail sentence, is for the first time under formal consideration for clemency, her family has been told. A decision will be made by the highest level of Iran’s multi-layered government. There is no guarantee that clemency will be granted, or that she will be allowed to return to the UK.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, seen by some as a bargaining chip in the wider diplomatic dispute between the UK and Iran, was given a temporary fortnight’s release from Evin prison, Tehran, on 17 March along with 85,000 other prisoners at risk from the coronavirus outbreak. She has been allowed to stay at her parents’ house in Tehran but made to wear an ankle brace that keeps her within 300 metres of her parents’ home.
Coronavirus keeps crowds that usually greet hatching of hawksbill turtles away
Nearly 100 critically endangered sea turtles have hatched on a deserted beach in Brazil, their first steps going almost unnoticed because of coronavirus restrictions that prohibit people from gathering on the region’s sands.
The 97 hawksbill sea turtles, or tartarugas-de-pente as they are known in Brazil, were born last Sunday in Paulista, a town in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco.
The world’s second-most crowded city is trying to stay home, but it wasn’t built for social distancing. Ever since it became an entrepôt of the British empire, Mumbai has been optimised to keep things moving – both labour and capital. Over the last fortnight, its citizens have been retreating from public premises. A majority are now confined to one- or two-room tenement housing, often with dividing walls made of tin and tarpaulin. These stand cheek-by-jowl with shops, restaurants and crowded medical clinics. Isolation is for people who live in homes with attached toilets.
The numbers aren’t yet staggering. Unlike New York City, which currently accounts for nearly 10% of the world’s known Covid-19 cases, Mumbai counts 74 as of this writing. Unlike London, authorities here initiated shutdowns before India’s government passed orders for a national lockdown.
The Cabinet Office minister, Michael Gove, has said the peak of the coronavirus outbreak in Britain will depend on people’s actions. He told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show and that the lockdown would remain in place for a significant period