Miguel Otávio Santana da Silva fell nine storeys after being left alone by his mother’s employer, one of many richer white Brazilians employing black domestic workers
Mirtes Santana weeps when she remembers finding her son dying on the pavement outside the luxury seaside apartment block where she worked in north-eastern Brazil.
“I can’t bear it,” said the 33-year-old domestic worker. “It breaks my heart.”
Continue reading...A man vandalized a mock cemetery of 100 graves and crosses representing people who have died from Covid-19
A supporter of Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has desecrated a beachside memorial to Covid-19 victims as the country’s coronavirus death toll rose above 40,000.
Activists from civil society group Rio de Paz dug 100 symbolic shallow graves on Copacabana beach before dawn on Thursday to represent the Brazilian lives lost.
Continue reading...Almost 10,000 new cases in India on Thursday as WHO warns situation outside Europe deteriorating
India reported almost 10,000 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, with hospitals swamped in the worst-hit cities of Mumbai, New Delhi and Chennai, and predictions that the infection rate will not peak before the end of next month.
The country of 1.3bn people now has the fifth highest number of confirmed cases in the world, at 286,579. Over the last 24 hours 357 people have died from the virus, bringing the official toll to 8,102.
Continue reading...From protecting fishing communities to regrowing coral reefs, Guardian readers and environmentalists share how they’re working to defend the ocean
World Oceans Day, which took place on Monday, is marked by hundreds of beach cleans and events globally. Despite Covid-19 restrictions, environmentalists and readers from around the world shared how they are continuing to work to protect the ocean, and told us about the local marine issues that matter to them.
Continue reading...Move comes amid accusations government was trying to suppress the scale of the crisis
A Brazilian supreme court judge has ordered Jair Bolsonaro’s administration to resume publishing complete Covid-19 statistics after moves to suppress such information prompted accusations of authoritarian skulduggery designed to cover up the crisis.
The Brazilian government sparked outrage on Saturday by purging the health ministry website of historical data relating to the pandemic and announcing it would stop publishing the cumulative death toll or number of infections.
Continue reading...WHO expert backtracks after saying asymptomatic transmission ‘very rare’
Here are the latest developments in the world coronavirus outbreak so far on Tuesday:
Germany plans to extend its travel warnings for non-European countries until 31 August, government sources have told the Reuters news agency, adding that Berlin was also strongly advising against any cruises due to the special risks related to the pandemic.
Continue reading...Government accused of totalitarianism and censorship after Bolsonaro orders end to publication of numbers
The Brazilian government has been accused of totalitarianism and censorship after it stopped releasing its total numbers of Covid-19 cases and deaths and wiped an official site clean of swaths of data.
Health ministry insiders told local media the move was ordered by far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, himself – and was met with widespread outrage in Brazil, one of the world’s worst-hit Covid-19 hotspots, with more deaths than Italy and more cases than Russia and the UK.
Continue reading...Beijing denies cover-up or delay, while countries easing lockdowns face spike in cases
The number of confirmed deaths from coronavirus globally has topped 400,000, as the Chinese government released a report lauding its own response to the pandemic that emerged in the city of Wuhan six months ago.
As more countries prepared to continue easing their lockdowns from Monday, Singapore’s prime minister warned the city-state’s citizens that they were entering a tougher world of slowing demand and travel restrictions for the foreseeable future.
Continue reading...Greenpeace report shows cattle indirectly sold to JBS, Marfrig and Minerva came from protected Serro Ricardo Franco park
Three international meat companies have indirectly sourced cattle from farms that deforested a unique, protected Amazon reserve, a new report from Greenpeace has found – and two of them later sold meat from the area to the UK.
The revelations come as the Brazil-based companies involved, JBS, Marfrig and Minerva, are under increasing pressure to come clean about their Amazon supply chains. They are now known to have broken commitments made to Greenpeace and Brazilian federal prosecutors more than a decade ago.
Continue reading...Investigation uncovers ties between financial institutions and three Brazilian firms connected to environmental destruction
British-based banks and finance houses have provided more than $2bn (£1.5bn) in financial backing in recent years to Brazilian beef companies which have been linked to Amazon deforestation, according to new research.
Thousands of hectares of Amazon are being felled every year to graze cattle and provide meat for world markets.
Continue reading...Sérgio Camargo, who describes himself as a ‘rightwing black man’, made remark in April, according to recording
The man tasked with promoting black culture by Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has been recorded describing the country’s black rights movement as “scum”.
Sérgio Camargo, a fervent Bolsonarista whose appointment as the head of Brazil’s Palmares Cultural Foundation last year caused outrage, made the comments at the end of April, according to a recording obtained by the Estado de São Paulo newspaper.
Continue reading...The racially charged killing of teenager João Pedro Matos Pinto has drawn comparisons to that of George Floyd
João Pedro Matos Pinto was young, gifted and black, and he died last month with an assault rifle shot to his back.
“He had dreams. He wanted to be a top lawyer,” said Neilton da Costa Pinto, the father of the Brazilian teenager, whose shooting during a botched police raid has drawn comparisons to the killing of George Floyd, 9,000km north in Minneapolis.
Continue reading...Yemen aid funding falls short by US$1bn; Zoom profits double; global cases pass 6.3m. Follow the latest updates
China reported one new coronavirus case and four new asymptomatic Covid-19 cases in the mainland on 2 June, the country’s health commission said.
The National Health Commission said the one confirmed case was imported involving a traveller from overseas. Mainland China had five confirmed cases, all of which were imported, and 10 asymptomatic cases for 1 June.
China does not count asymptomatic patients, those who are infected with the coronavirus but not exhibiting symptoms, as confirmed cases.
Total number of infections to date in the mainland stands at 83,021. The death toll remained unchanged at 4,634.
Dan Collyns brings you this action-packed update from Bolivia:
“Thanos is beating us” warned a Bolivian government minister in a live televised press conference on Monday as he called for his compatriots to comply with sanitary measures and lockdown restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Mientras tanto, en bolivia pic.twitter.com/5VPR4sDoX3
Continue reading...Sweden death rate now higher than France; Pakistan records largest single day rise in new infections; global deaths pass 380,000. This blog is now closed
We’ve launched a new blog at the link below:
Related: Coronavirus live news: Germany reveals major stimulus plan as global cases grow by 100,000 a day
At least three people were reported dead as coronavirus-hit Mumbai appeared to escape the worst of Cyclone Nisarga Wednesday, the first severe storm to threaten India’s financial capital in more than 70 years, AFP reports.
The city and its surrounds are usually sheltered from cyclones - the last deadly storm to hit the city was in 1948. Authorities had evacuated at least 100,000 people, including coronavirus patients, from flood-prone areas in the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat ahead of Nisarga’s arrival.
Continue reading...Pakistanis urged to ‘live with the virus’; employee in Israeli prime minister’s office tests positive for Covid-19; Czech Republic will welcome foreign travellers from 15 June
UK ministers have been accused of not taking seriously the threat posed to black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) Britons by Covid-19, after it was reported that the release of an official review of the issue had been delayed over fears of potential civil unrest.
According to Sky News, officials are concerned about the effect the publication could have amid global anger over the death of George Floyd, an African American man who pleaded for air as a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on his neck.
Related: Ministers accused of not taking Covid-19 threat to BAME Britons seriously
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Continue reading...Chinese city marks recovery milestone; English health officials voice concern over loosened lockdown; Brazil pass 500,000 cases
The Chinese city of Wuhan, where the Covid-19 pandemic began, reported no new asymptomatic cases for the first time on Sunday, according to Chinese health officials.
Mainland China reported 16 new cases overall on Sunday, the highest daily number in three weeks. All were reported as imported cases – 11 in Sichuan province, three in Inner Mongolia, and two in Guangdong.
Continue reading...Call for unity comes as criticism of Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of coronavirus grows
Prominent figures from across Brazil’s political spectrum have a published a high-profile manifesto calling for a united front to protect Brazilian democracy and lives amid growing alarm over president Jair Bolsonaro’s authoritarian outbursts and shambolic response to coronavirus.
The Movimento Estamos Juntos (We’re In This Together Movement) was launched on Saturday as Brazil overtook France to become the country with the fourth highest official death toll. About a thousand coronavirus deaths are being confirmed each day as Latin America’s biggest economy cements itself as a major focus of the pandemic.
Continue reading...The pope warns that people are more important than economies as countries ease lockdowns
Global coronavirus infections have passed the 6 million mark as Latin America hit the grim milestone of 50,000 deaths with Brazil alone accounting for half of those fatalities.
With at least 369,000 deaths confirmed worldwide since the pandemic began in China in January – and that number believed to be an underestimate – Brazil’s virus death toll of 28,834 has now surpassed that of France with the country reporting 33,274 new infections in the past 24 hours.
Continue reading...Brazil becomes fourth worst country for deaths; pressure builds on South African president over his handling of outbreak
Bosnia’s state court has ordered the release of a regional prime minister and two other men suspected of corruption in connection with the import of defective ventilators for coronavirus patients.
The court of Bosnia-Herzegovina said their detention was unnecessary, and turned down the prosecution’s requests to detain the three men for 30 days.
Senior public health officials have made a last-minute plea for ministers to scrap Monday’s easing of the coronavirus lockdown in England, warning the country is unprepared to deal with any surge in infection and that public resolve to take steps to limit transmission has been eroded.
The Association of Directors of Public Health said new rules, including allowing groups of up to six people to meet outdoors and in private gardens, were “not supported by the science” and that pictures of crowded beaches and beauty spots over the weekend showed “the public is not keeping to social distancing as it was”.
Related: Health officials make last-minute plea to stop lockdown easing in England
Continue reading...Trump hopes to expand G7 in delayed summit; Brazil’s death toll passes France; Mexican health care workers to march
The number of people infected by the coronavirus around the world has passed 6 million, as the pandemic forced Donald trump to postpone the G7 summit in Washington.
According to the latest data from the Johns Hopkins University tracking site, there have now been more than 6,059,000 cases of the disease around the world, with 369,126 deaths.
Continue reading...