Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Soaring prices have left basic goods outside the reach of more than half of country’s population
For more than a decade, Ahmad Hussein would spend the last few days of Ramadan assembling arrays of sweets in his shop in south Beirut, preparing for the bonanza to follow.
Eid al-Fitr, the three-day celebration that capped the monthlong fast, was an annual highlight as customers splurged on sugary treats and shiny new clothes. Cakes were made for the occasion. Abstinence was replaced by bountiful rewards.
Donald Trump appeared without a protective mask on a visit to the carmaker Ford's Michigan plan despite the company requiring visitors to wear them. 'I had one on before. I wore one in the back area. I didn’t want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it,' he said.
Trump toured the Ford plant in Ypsilanti, which has been producing ventilators and personal protective equipment during the coronavirus outbreak. The president's decision to not wear a mask drew the ire of Michigan's state attorney general, Dana Nessel, after she had written to the White House saying it was the law in Michigan that everyone should wear a mask.
'The president is like a petulant child who refuses to follow the rules. This is not a joke,' she told CNN
More than 30,000 pubs, bars and restaurants may remain permanently closed because the coronavirus shutdown has sent a wrecking ball through the UK’s hospitality trade.
The grim prediction follows a week in which the Casual Dining Group, which owns the Bella Italia and Café Rouge restaurant chains, warned it was headed into administration – casting doubt over the future of its 250 restaurants.
Locals, NGOs and politicians express fears for world’s most vulnerable as charity announces withdrawal from 18 countries due to financial impact of Covid-19
Oxfam International’s announcement that it will close operations in countries including Afghanistan and Haiti has prompted fears that regions are being abandoned just as the coronavirus pandemic makes them more vulnerable.
Oxfam said the impact of Covid-19 on its finances had forced it to fast-track a global restructuring programme, which entails the closure of 18 country offices.
Boris Johnson’s insistence that the UK will be able to roll out a “world-beating” coronavirus test, track and trace regime by 1 June has inevitably drawn comparisons with countries around the world that have already set up effective Covid-19 tracing programmes.
It has also raised questions about timing, as some experts insist a system would have been more useful at the beginning of the pandemic.
The Conservative backbenchers Henry Smith has outraged opposition parliamentarians by saying that the objection to MPs returning to the House of Commons after next week’s recess (when the current, largely-virtual proceedings will end) has come from the “lazy left” and from “workshy” Labour and nationalist politicians.
Not that I should be surprised by the lazy left but interesting how work-shy socialist and nationalist MPs tried to keep the remote Parliament going beyond 2 June.
Henry this is an appalling thing to say, would you like to compare cases dealt with in this crisis? Hours helping with food, PPE, testing? Number of questions put down to ministers? Number of bill amendments written? Also calling people working at home workshy is quite something https://t.co/RROVCxbG7O
The government’s own public health advice has said that those who can work from home should and parliament has developed a system using technology to ensure the scrutiny of government whilst allowing people to work remotely.
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, told the London assembly this morning that he is considering banning passengers from buses and tube trains in the capital if they are not wearing a face covering. He said that he was hoping to persuade the UK government, which is currently just advising people to wear face coverings on public transport, to toughen its stance. He told the assembly:
We don’t want confusion. When there is a crisis, what’s important is to have message clarity.
When the coronavirus struck, the British government repeatedly said it was among the best-prepared countries in the world – with some justification. As recently as October, an international review of pandemic planning ranked the UK the second best prepared country in the world (behind the US).
Two months on, any breezy confidence has evaporated. The government is facing growing complaints over a series of policy missteps that critics say are responsible for the worst death toll in Europe.
EasyJet is to resume a small number of flights on 15 June, with increased safety measures on board including mandatory wearing of face masks, as it returns to the skies after grounding its entire fleet on 30 March.
The airline initially will restart domestic routes in the UK and France where it says there is sufficient customer demand to support profitable flying. Further routes will be added in the following weeks, as and when passenger demand rises and lockdown measures ease further across Europe.
When league football was paused in March 2020 due to coronavirus, the Tranmere Rovers chairman, Mark Palios, devised Project Malthus, his plan to keep the League One club alive. As he waits for fellow clubs to vote on the outcome of the season, which could mean their relegation, he explains why football needs to get serious about its messy economic situation, and why a club like Tranmere needs to look after its community in difficult times.
Why do Americans represent less than 5% of the world’s population but nearly a third of the known coronavirus death toll? Not because of government incompetence, the Trump administration is arguing, but because Americans are very unhealthy.
The United States’ organized response to the pandemic had been “historic”, Trump’s health secretary, Alex Azar, told CNN on 17 May, but America “unfortunately” has a “very diverse” population, and black Americans and minorities “in particular” have “significant underlying disease”.
Donald Trump says China’s coronavirus numbers ‘weren’t correct’, before adding it has ‘been easily shown and easily proven’, but he did not provide any evidence.
The US president made the comments during a meeting with the governors of Arkansas and Kansas, after explaining case numbers in the US were favourable if outbreaks in New York and New Jersey were not included. When asked by a journalist leaving the room at the end of the meeting, Trump added his hydroxychloroquine regimen finishes in ‘about two days’
Hairdressers and barbers have given free haircuts on the lawn of Michigan's state capitol in protest of the state government's stay-at-home orders, with state police fining three people for disorderly conduct during the demonstration that attracted 350 people.
The state capitol in Lansing has been the site of recent demonstrations by armed protesters against executive orders from Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer that forced businesses to close to slow the spread of Covid-19
Brazil is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for transgender people. For trans sex workers, the pandemic has intensified the risk
All photographs by Ian Cheibub
Social distancing is keeping people off the streets of central Rio de Janeiro. And that has created serious challenges for its trans sex workers, who have seen their clientele, and their income, melt away.
“You can see what it’s like: empty streets, shops closed, the fallen economy ” says Elba Tavares, 44, from Paraíba state in north-east Brazil. “I am no longer in that rush of prostitution but yes, I sell my body.” But, she says: “There are very few customers.”
The US secretary of state criticises China's handling of the coronavirus outbreak, while backing Australia's push for an investigation into the origins of Covid-19. In a media address, Mike Pompeo attacks the Chinese Communist party, declaring it 'ideologically and politically hostile to free nations'. His comments come after China slapped 80% tariffs on Australian barley exports and continue similar rhetoric from the Trump administration that is increasingly critical of Beijing
Preparing for the impact of a no-deal Brexit later this year would overwhelm local emergency response teams exhausted by the Covid-19 pandemic, a leaked Whitehall report has warned.
A review by a committee set up to review the response to coronavirus said failing to seek an extension to Brexit negotiations threatened to “compound Covid-19 with a second UK societal-wide, economic and social, chronic threat”.
FC Seoul was forced to apologise this week after TV and online viewers spotted about two dozen sex dolls dotted around the stadium during the club’s 1-0 win over Gwangju FC on Sunday.
Egyptian doctors are increasingly at odds with their own government on the country’s coronavirus outbreak, pleading for protections and a full lockdown even as the authorities urge people to learn to “coexist” with Covid-19.
A wave of government propaganda has hailed healthcare workers as the “white army”, a reference to their white coats. But some of them told the Guardian they lacked protective equipment and were struggling to get vital tests for themselves and patients.
International praise for Covid response and her rebuilding of traditional Labour support has been astute, but PM must address women’s wellbeing
The gendered dimensions of political leadership during the Covid-19 crisis has achieved global proportions, with headlines claiming that women are doing things differently, and with better results. Much of this is assertion, given Vietnam and Georgia, amongst other countries with male leaders, have also seen successful containment. We have also witnessed some pushback against the policy decisions taken by Belgian prime minister Sophie Wilmès.
Nevertheless, the novelty of women political leaders remains newsworthy, and the media’s go-to international “face’” of those women who have managed this crisis exceptionally well is Jacinda Ardern.
Angus Taylor also spoke on the border closure issue while on the ABC:
Well, I think ultimately it’s a decision for Queensland but the advice coming in is very clear from the Chief Medical Officer and it’s clear what the New South Wales Premier has put her view as well.
What I want to see is opening up, getting things going again, jobs, investment and of course we have got to make sure all our policies are aligned with that at the federal level and we’d like to see states do the same and that includes our emissions policy which is all about strengthening the economy.
Speaking to the ABC a little earlier, Gladys Berejiklian says she did not think it was “logical at this stage to maintain those border closures for a prolonged period of time”.
She prefaced the comment with “that’s a matter for the Queensland premier and the Queensland government” before giving her opinion, so that might tell you how relations within national cabinet are starting to go.
New South Wales is in a position now where we’re really focused on jobs and the economy, and we’ll be able to get our industries up and running.
But for Australia to really move forward as a nation during this very difficult economic time as well as difficult health time, we do need our borders down, we do need to allow people to move between states, to live, to work, to see family.