Category Archives: Brazil

Coronavirus live news: WHO reports record global cases as South Africa reinstates alcohol ban

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Cases rise by over 230,000 worldwide in 24 hours; Florida cases increase by record total for a US state; Brazil cases near 2m. Follow the latest updates

Mainland China reported eight new Covid-19 cases as of the end of 12 July, up from seven reported a day earlier, the Chinese national health authority said on Monday.

The National Health Commission said in a statement that all of the new cases were imported infection involving travellers from overseas, the same as the seven cases a day earlier. The capital city of Beijing reported no new confirmed cases for the seventh consecutive day.

The Commission also reported six new asymptomatic patients, those who are infected with the coronavirus but have no symptoms, compared with five a day earlier. China does not consider such patients as confirmed cases.

Total number of confirmed Covid-19 cases for mainland China now stands at 83,602, while the death toll remained unchanged at 4,634.

Hong Kong health authorities are continuing to battle its worst virus outbreak yet. It saw a rise in cases in March as people began returning from overseas, prompting increased social distancing measures and restrictions which had started to ease in recent weeks.

On Sunday another 38 new cases were confirmed, including 30 local transmissions. Of the 30, 13 have an unknown source.

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Coronavirus live: Colombia faces calls to put capital into total lockdown

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Cases rise by over 230,000 worldwide in 24 hours; EU summit ‘may not agree Covid-19 recovery fund’; 130m ‘may go hungry in 2020 because of virus’

An entire hospital in Mexico’s southern Oaxaca state has been put in quarantine after 68% of its remaining staff tested positive, writes Analy Nuño in Guadalajara.

Doctors and nurses at the Macedonio Benítez Fuentes hospital in the town of Juchitán de Zaragoza held protests last week, calling for a lockdown after 120 of their colleagues were put under isolation after positive tests.

The hospital won’t close – we will still deal with urgent cases, and have already analysed our staffing requirements to attend to the community as our colleagues start to return to work.

China has stepped up a travel warning to Australia, telling its citizens of a risk of being searched “arbitrarily” by law enforcement authorities, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.

Tensions between the two countries have been escalating on various fronts after Beijing reacted with fury to calls for an independent investigation into the origins and spread of the pandemic, which first surfaced in central China last year.

We urge Australia to change its course and stop interfering in Hong Kong’s affairs and China’s internal affairs in any way, or risk further damage to China-Australia relations.

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The Guardian view on Covid-19 worldwide: on the march

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Infections are accelerating in largely untouched countries and those which hoped they had come through the worst. But there is hope

“Most of the world sort of sat by and watched with almost a sense of detachment and bemusement,” said Helen Clark, appointed to investigate the World Health Organization’s handling of the pandemic. The former New Zealand prime minister was describing the early weeks of the outbreak, and the sense that coronavirus was a problem “over there”. The failure to recognise our interconnection created complacency even as the death toll rose.

It took three months for the first million people to fall sick – but only a week to record the last million of the nearly 13 million cases now reported worldwide. As England emerges from lockdown at an unwary pace, Covid-19 is accelerating globally. The WHO has reported a record surge of a quarter of a million cases in a single day. The death toll is over half a million people and rising fast.

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Global report: Tokyo hits Covid-19 high as Australia limits arrivals

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Japan reels from resurgence of virus while Australia restricts admissions to 4,000 a week

Tokyo hit another record daily high number of new cases, Australia is to halve the number of citizens it allows to return each week and Hong Kong’s schools have closed early for the summer as countries around the world struggled to contain fresh coronavirus outbreaks.

Amid growing signs of a resurgence of the virus in Japan, the capital reported 243 new infections on Friday, more than the previous day’s 224 and the first time that more than 200 cases have been confirmed for two consecutive days.

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Hunger could kill millions more than Covid-19, warns Oxfam

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Starvation looms from Afghanistan to Haiti as coronavirus restrictions wipe out incomes and cut food supplies

Millions of people are being pushed towards hunger by the coronavirus pandemic, which could end up killing more people through lack of food than from the illness itself, Oxfam has warned.

Closed borders, curfews and travel restrictions have disrupted food supplies and incomes in already fragile countries, forcing an extra million people closer to famine in Afghanistan and heightening the humanitarian disaster in Yemen, where two-thirds already live in hunger.

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‘The virus can kill anyone’: families condemn Bolsonaro’s claim young people face little risk

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Far-right leader is adamant the young can rest easy but 3,500 Brazilians under the age of 40 have already died from Covid-19

Young people should not fret about coronavirus, Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro declared on Tuesday as he announced he had contracted the illness.

But Hugo Dutra was youthful and fit: a dance-addicted millennial with no underlying medical conditions. He died in Rio on 18 April, after eight days on a ventilator.

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How Bolsonaro downplayed Covid-19 before, and after, he contracted the virus – video

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Jair Bolsonaro has announced live on television he has tested positive for coronavirus - after months of repeatedly trivializing the pandemic and flouting social distancing guidelines.

In March, as Covid-19 claimed its first victims in Brazil, the far-right populist leader bragged that, if infected, he would quickly shake off the illness thanks to his 'athlete’s background'. Since then, the president has continued to attend social events and political rallies, often wearing masks incorrectly, if at all.

Brazil has suffered one of the world’s worst outbreaks, with more than 1.6m confirmed cases and 65,000 related deaths, according to official data released on 6 July.

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Coronavirus Brazil: president Jair Bolsonaro tests positive

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The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has announced live on television he has tested positive for coronavirus.

“It came back positive,” a mask-wearing Bolsonaro told a hand-picked group of reporters on Tuesday lunchtime outside his official residence.

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Replace or reclaim: progressive Brazil divided on fate of famous yellow shirts

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Adoption of football jersey by Jair Bolsonaro’s radical right has inspired a campaign for new colours

It is the most recognisable symbol of Brazilian identity: the iconic canary yellow jersey in which footballing giants such as Pelé and Rivaldo have helped the nation win a record five World Cups.

But the world-famous shirt has also become the emblem of President Jair Bolsonaro’s radical right, and a group of sport lovers are now demanding it be abolished and replaced with a less partisan kit.

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Poverty, not just populists, to blame for Covid-19’s impact on Latin America

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Mexico and Brazil have been hit hard by the pandemic, but so too have countries that were quicker to respond

Coronavirus arrived in Latin America later than in Europe, but it has taken firm hold. A quarter of global confirmed cases are in the region, and researchers have warned the death toll is likely to triple by October to nearly 400,000.

The two countries with the deadliest outbreaks share populist leaders, Brazil’s rightwing Jair Bolsonaro and Mexico’s leftwing Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

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‘It’s a tsunami’: pandemic leaves vulnerable Latin America reeling

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Years of social progress could be reversed by the virus, amid accusations that politicians have been fatally inept

As coronavirus galloped through Latin America in late April, the mayor of Manaus was in despair. “The outlook is dismal,” Arthur Virgílio admitted as gravediggers in the Amazon’s largest city piled coffins into muddy trenches, Brazil’s death toll hit 5,500, and its president, Jair Bolsonaro, responded with a shrug. “It’s obvious this won’t end well.”

Two months later, Virgílio’s nightmare has come true. Brazil’s death toll has risen to more than 60,000 – the second highest in the world after the United States – with some now predicting it could overtake the US, where 130,000 have died, by the end of July.

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Global report: WHO reports record 200,000 cases in one day, amid surging outbreaks

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Donald Trump describes ‘victory’ over virus as cases rise; Mexico death toll becomes 5th highest; Australia’s toughest lockdown begins

The World Health Organization has reported a record increase in global coronavirus cases with 212,326 being recorded in just 24 hours, amid a surge in the United States, Brazil and India.

The WHO’s situation report showed that just under 130,000 of those new cases were in the Americas, including the US, Brazil and Mexico, but the WHO said South-East Asia, including India stood at just under new 28,000 new cases on Saturday.

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Christ the Redeemer statue lit up for coronavirus victims – video

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Rio de Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer statue was illuminated on Wednesday night in tribute to Covid-19 victims. Brazil surpassed 60,000 coronavirus deaths, while overall confirmed infections reached 1.42 million. The country is the second worst hit in the world by the coronavirus after the US

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Global report: first tourists arrive in Greece as Brazil passes 60,000 deaths

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Spain and Portugal reopen border as global tourism industry predicted to lose up to £2.6tn

The first tourist flights in four months landed on the Greek island of Crete, and Spain and Portugal reopened their land border as European countries continued to ease travel restrictions, as Brazil recorded 60,000 deaths.

A charter plane carrying 172 passengers from Hamburg landed at Heraklion airport on Crete at 8am, minutes after another aircraft had arrived from the Czech Republic, re-establishing the island’s air links with the outside world.

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Brazil’s new education minister resigns amid scrutiny over qualifications

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Carlos Decotelli stepped down after five days following reports he lied about his credentials in blow to Bolsonaro

Brazil’s latest pick for education minister has been forced to resign after just five days following reports that he repeatedly lied about his qualifications, the most recent in a series of embarrassing blows for the far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro.

Carlos Decotelli, an economist and former navy man, stepped down yesterday after Brazil’s Getúlio Vargas Foundation business school publicly refuted his claims he had worked there as a teacher.

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US visitors set to remain banned from entering EU

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Agreed shortlist of permitted countries also excludes Russia, Brazil and India

Most visitors from the US are set to remain banned from entering the European Union because of the country’s rising infection rate in a move that risks antagonising Donald Trump.

In an attempt to save the European tourism season, a list of 15 countries from where people should be allowed into the EU from 1 July has been agreed by representatives of the 27 member states.

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Top Brazil newspaper in pro-democracy drive as unease grows about Bolsonaro

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Folha de São Paulo urges people who support campaign to protect country’s political future to wear yellow

One of Brazil’s leading newspapers has launched a major pro-democracy campaign as unease grows about the threat many fear Jair Bolsonaro and his most militant supporters pose to the country’s political future.

Unveiling the initiative on Sunday, the Folha de São Paulo said systematic attacks from pro-Bolsonaro extremists were putting Brazilian democracy through its greatest “stress test” since the return of civilian rule in 1985.

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‘Either we change or we die’: the radical farming project in the Amazon

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A growing movement for sustainable agriculture in Brazil has taken on new urgency with the coronavirus pandemic

The cumaru trees could have been planted elsewhere in this Amazon reserve, where they had better chances of flourishing. Instead, they were planted in harsh, sandy soil in the dry savannah that breaks up the forest. Jack beans, guandu peas and other crops were planted in straw around them with cut savannah grass, for moisture and compost. “We call it the cradle,” says agronomist Alailson Rêgo. “It protects them.”

The hope is that if these Amazon-native trees – whose seeds can be used in cosmetics – thrive on this sandy soil and a nearby patch of deforested, burned land, they can regenerate abandoned pasture elsewhere. In the Amazon, more land is cleared for cattle than anything else. It’s easier enough to clear – chop down a few trees, light a few fires. But restoring the forest? Bringing back the life and the greenness? That is far, far harder.

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Coronavirus live news: Egypt loosens lockdown despite surging infections as India passes 500,000 cases

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US records highest daily new infections; Brazil records nearly 47,000 new cases; Covid cases with unknown source rise in Melbourne. Follow the latest

The Dominican Republic’s Ministry of Health reported 855 new coronavirus cases on Friday, as well as six new deaths, bringing the country’s total number of infection cases to 30,619.

The Caribbean country’s death toll now stands at 718, according to health authorities.

A global fundraising meeting on Saturday raised€6.15bn ($6.9bn) from the United States, the European Commission and numerous countries to fight Covid-19, with many participants stressing that an eventual vaccine should be available to anyone who needs it.

The pledging summit, part of a joint initiative by the EU executive and advocacy group Global Citizen, also included a globally televised and streamed fundraising concert featuring Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, Shakira, Chloe X Halle, Usher and others.

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