The World Health Organisation has sounded a new warning about the Omicron variant, arguing some events over the festive period should be postponed. 'All of us are sick of this pandemic,' said WHO director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The fastest way to do this, he said, could mean potentially cancelling or delaying holiday events. 'An event cancelled is better than a life cancelled,' he said. The WHO says there's now consistent evidence that the Omicron strain is spreading faster than the Delta variant
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WHO chief warns over festive gatherings: ‘An event cancelled is better than a life cancelled’
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says Omicron is infecting people who have been vaccinated and could double its infections every 1.5 to three days
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that holiday festivities would in many places lead to “increased cases, overwhelmed health systems and more deaths” and urged people to postpone gatherings.
“An event cancelled is better than a life cancelled,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Continue reading...Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex-trafficking trial: jury begins deliberations
Prosecutors say Maxwell, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges, manipulated victims and groomed them for sexual abuse
- This article contains depictions of sexual abuse
The jury began deliberating late on Monday afternoon in Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex-trafficking trial in New York.
Closing arguments had wrapped up in federal court in Manhattan earlier on Monday with a simple, chilling message.
Continue reading...Leading activist in Egypt’s 2011 uprising and two others jailed
Alaa Abd El-Fattah gets five years for ‘spreading false news’ and lawyer and blogger get four-year terms
A leading figure in Egypt’s 2011 uprising, his lawyer and a blogger have been served lengthy prison sentences in a Cairo court, in a move that observers have branded a further blow to human rights.
An emergency court on Monday sentenced activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah to five years in prison on charges of “spreading false news”. Human rights lawyer Mohamed El-Baqer, formerly Abd El-Fattah’s counsel, and blogger Mohamed “Oxygen” Ibrahim were both sentenced to four years in detention on the same charges.
Continue reading...Global Covid vaccination failure will harm Britain, Gordon Brown warns
Exclusive: Ex-PM says virus will have ‘free rein to mutate’ unless richer countries fund $23bn vaccine drive
- Gordon Brown: We have money and medicines – so this is how we can vaccinate the world
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The failure to vaccinate the world against coronavirus will come back to haunt even fully vaccinated Britons in 2022, Gordon Brown has warned.
The former prime minister said the emergence of Omicron was “not Africa’s fault”, and added that new variants would continue to wreak havoc because richer countries such as the UK had “stockpiled” hundreds of millions of vaccines.
Continue reading...Leftwing millennial to be Chile’s new president – video
Gabriel Boric, a leftwing former student leader, will become Chile’s youngest president after storming to a resounding victory in a run-off vote against his ultra-conservative far-right opponent, José Antonio Kast.
With nearly 97% of the vote counted, the 35-year-old claimed 55.8% to take a 12 percentage point lead over Kast, who quickly accepted his defeat and called Boric to congratulate him.
Covid live: Thailand to consider ending quarantine-free travel; EU set to back Novavax vaccine
Bangkok considering reinstating mandatory quarantine due to spread of Omicron; EU’s drug regulator will decide on whether to approve Novavax
- UK PM and staff pictured with wine in Downing St garden in May 2020
- Fauci: Omicron ‘raging through the world’ and travel increases risks
- ‘Vaccines are not the only answer’: calls for more public health measures
- UK coronavirus updates – live
Thailand’s public health minister said on Monday that his ministry will propose reinstating mandatory quarantine for foreign visitors due to concerns over the spread of the Omicron variant.
The proposal would scrap the current quarantine waiver for vaccinated visitors and revert to hotel quarantine and the “sandbox” programme, which allows free movement within a specific location, Anutin Charnvirakul told the Inside Thailand television show.
Continue reading...Gabriel Boric vows to ‘fight privileges of the few’ as Chile’s premier
Leftist former student has vowed to unite country and tackle poverty and inequality
Gabriel Boric has vowed to unite Chile, fight “the privileges of the few” and tackle poverty and inequality after winning a decisive victory over his far-right opponent to become the South American country’s youngest premier.
The 35-year-old leftist former student leader won 56% of the vote in Sunday’s second-round presidential election, cruising past his ultra-conservative opponent, José Antonio Kast, who took 44.2%.
Continue reading...Moderna says booster produces strong antibody response to Omicron
Pharmaceuticals firm says third dose of its Covid vaccine increases antibodies against variant by 37-fold
The pharmaceuticals company Moderna has said a booster dose of its Covid vaccine appeared to protect against the fast-spreading Omicron variant in laboratory testing and that the current version will continue to beits “first line of defence against Omicron”.
The decision to focus on the current vaccine, mRNA-1273, was driven in part by how quickly the variant is spreading. The company plans to develop a vaccine specifically to protect against Omicron, which it hopes to advance into clinical trials early next year.
Continue reading...Trump ‘deeply unnerved’ over Capitol attack investigation | First Thing
Flurry of revelations raises prospect that the committee may be heading towards an incriminating conclusion. Plus, the weirdest stories of 2021
Good morning.
Donald Trump is increasingly agitated by the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack, according to sources familiar with the matter, and appears anxious that he could be implicated in the sprawling inquiry into the insurrection even as he protests his innocence.
Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the 6 January committee, said he was not yet ready to declare the former president guilty of a crime, but that the panel was investigating the likelihood that he is.
The US is “closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe”, a member of a key CIA advisory panel has said. The analysis by Barbara F Walter, a political science professor, is contained in a book due out next year.
Doug Ericksen, a staunch conservative Washington state senator and an outspoken critic of Covid-19 pandemic emergency orders, has died aged 52. His death comes weeks after he tested positive for coronavirus, though his cause of death wasn’t immediately released.
The US senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker have confirmed they have tested positive for Covid-19. Both reported having mild symptoms.
Continue reading...Contact with nature in cities reduces loneliness, study shows
Loneliness is significant mental health concern and can raise risk of death by 45%, say scientists
Contact with nature in cities significantly reduces feelings of loneliness, according to a team of scientists.
Loneliness is a major public health concern, their research shows, and can raise a person’s risk of death by 45% – more than air pollution, obesity or alcohol abuse.
Continue reading...The big news quiz of 2021 – do you know your Jackie Weavers from your German leaders?
A Catholic president, a cake, an inconvenient ship and a very clever tennis player: all this and more in trivia expert Bobby Seagull’s news quiz of the year
• Try our kids’ quiz and bumper Saturday quiz, too
Continue reading...New head of Unesco world heritage centre wants to put Africa on the map
Lazare Eloundou Assomo wants to address imbalance that benefits rich nations and protect sites threatened by climate crisis and war
It covers 9 million sq miles (24m sq km) from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean and from the Sahara in the north to Cape Point in the south. And in between lie some of the world’s most ancient cultural sites and precious natural wonders.
However, despite its vast size, sub-Saharan Africa has never been proportionately represented on Unesco’s world heritage list, its 98 sites dwarfed by Europe, North America and Asia.
Continue reading...Phi Phi islands’ sustainable tourism renaissance – in pictures
Mass tourism had brought the archipelago to the brink of ecological catastrophe. Now Thailand hopes to make it the standard bearer for a sustainable tourism model as the country reopens to visitors after the Covid shutdown
Continue reading...Trump’s Peace review: dysfunction and accord in US Israel policy
Barak Ravid has written a fascinating account of four chaotic years in which some progress was nonetheless made
Trump’s Peace is a blockbuster of a book. Barak Ravid captures the 45th president saying “Fuck him” to Benjamin Netanyahu and reducing American Jews to antisemitic caricatures. Imagine the Republican reaction if Barack Obama had done that. Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham would plotz. But Trump? Crickets.
Ravid also delivers a mesmerizing tick-tock of the making of the Abraham Accords, the normalization of Israel’s relations with four non-neighboring Arab states.
Continue reading...Peng Shuai appearance fails to address concerns for her wellbeing, says WTA
- Peng retracts sexual assault claims in first foreign media interview
- Women’s tennis governing body still wants ‘full and fair’ investigation'
The Women’s Tennis Association has reiterated its call for an investigation into the welfare of Peng Shuai and said a public appearance by the Chinese star on Sunday still did not address its concerns about her wellbeing.
On Sunday Peng said a message she had posted on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform, in early November in which she accused the former vice-premier Zhang Gaoli of sexual assault had been “misunderstood”.
Continue reading...Pro-Beijing candidates sweep Hong Kong ‘patriots’-only elections
Legislative elections marred by record low turnout following crackdown on political dissent
Pro-Beijing candidates will occupy nearly every seat in Hong Kong’s new legislature, after party loyalists swept the first elections under a revamp by Beijing ensuring that only “patriots” could run for office.
The elections were marred by record low voter turnout that observers say signal a general political apathy in the city, 18 months since authorities began a crackdown on political dissent in the name of national security.
Continue reading...UN-backed investigator into possible Yemen war crimes targeted by spyware
Exclusive: Analysis of Kamel Jendoubi’s mobile phone reveals he was targeted in August 2019
The mobile phone of a UN-backed investigator who was examining possible war crimes in Yemen was targeted with spyware made by Israel’s NSO Group, a new forensic analysis of the device has revealed.
Kamel Jendoubi, a Tunisian who served as the chairman of the now defunct Group of Eminent Experts in Yemen (GEE)– a panel mandated by the UN to investigate possible war crimes – was targeted in August 2019, according to an analysis of his mobile phone by experts at Amnesty International and the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto.
Continue reading...Death of child with Covid-19 prompts calls for Māori to be prioritised in NZ vaccine rollout
Māori boy who died last week was youngest New Zealander to die with virus and the first child
The first death of a child with Covid-19 in New Zealand has prompted calls for Māori children to be prioritised in the next stage of the vaccine rollout, as the country grapples with racial inequalities compounded by the pandemic.
A Māori boy, under the age of 10 and who had tested positive for the virus, died last week, becoming the youngest New Zealander to die with Covid, the Ministry of Health confirmed. It is unclear whether Covid-19 was the cause of the boy’s death, as New Zealand records all deaths of people considered active Covid cases in its official count. It is the country’s 49th death of a Covid-positive person since the start of the pandemic. Māori make up an estimated 17.1% of the population but they have accounted for 32% of all Covid-19 related deaths.
Continue reading...From Shakira’s boar brawl to Nicki Minaj’s testicle fiasco: the weirdest news stories of 2021
In another fraught year full of depressing news, animals, celebrities and headline writers kept things wonderfully absurd
In a year that began with the US Capitol attack, continued with the fall of Afghanistan and is ending with the rapid spread of Omicron, the global news cycle has at times felt overwhelming.
But while 2021 has been another fraught year, not all the news has been negative. Here are a few of the funniest and weirdest stories and headlines published this year.
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