The B.1.1.529 variant was first spotted in Botswana and six cases have been found in South Africa
Scientists have said a new Covid variant that carries an “extremely high number” of mutations may drive further waves of disease by evading the body’s defences.
Only 10 cases in three countries have been confirmed by genomic sequencing, but the variant has sparked serious concern among some researchers because a number of the mutations may help the virus evade immunity.
Continue reading...UK judge rules some passages convey a defamatory meaning, including claim Putin told him to buy Chelsea
A judge has ruled that a number of passages in the bestselling book Putin’s People convey a defamatory meaning against Roman Abramovich, including a claim that he bought Chelsea football club on Vladimir Putin’s orders.
The Russian oligarch said he was defamed by 26 specific passages in the book by the journalist Catherine Belton, all of which he says convey untrue meanings about him.
Continue reading...Magdalena Andersson quits on day one after the Green party withdraws support for her budget
Sweden’s first female prime minister, the Social Democrat Magdalena Andersson, has resigned less than 12 hours into the job when her coalition collapsed, plunging the country into further political uncertainty.
Andersson said a decision by the Green party, the junior party in the coalition, to quit had forced her to resign. She added that she had told the speaker of parliament she hoped to be appointed prime minister again as the head of a single-party government.
Continue reading...Analysis: push for interest rate cuts has divided party and left Turkish president in precarious position, say experts
Turkey’s president is gambling that a strong economic recovery from the pandemic will stay on track despite rocketing inflation that has hit living standards and sparked protests in major cities.
The $750bn economy is on course to expand by 9% this year following a return of tourism and a surge in demand for exports that has pushed factory output to pre-pandemic levels.
Continue reading...Cases under ‘foreign agents’ law mark attack on civil society and attempt to recast Soviet history
Russia may dissolve Memorial, the country’s premier human rights group, in an attack on civil society and symbolic reversal of the freedoms won by dissidents at the fall of the Soviet Union.
A supreme court case, to be heard on Thursday, may mark a watershed in Vladimir Putin’s campaign to recast Soviet history by banning International Memorial, which began meeting in the late 1980s to shed light on atrocities and political repression under Joseph Stalin and other Soviet leaders.
Continue reading...Hundreds of illegal goldmining dredges converge in search of metal as one activists describes it as a ‘free-for-all’
Environmentalists are demanding urgent action to halt an aquatic gold rush along one of the Amazon River’s largest tributaries, where hundreds of illegal goldmining dredges have converged in search of the precious metal.
The vast flotilla – so large one local website compared it to a floating neighbourhood – reportedly began forming on the Madeira River earlier this month after rumours that a large gold deposit had been found in the vicinity.
Continue reading...Social Democrat, Green and liberal parties agree to form government after two months of talks
Germany’s new three-way coalition government of Social Democrats, Greens and liberals has addressed the public for the first time, pledging to put climate protection at the top of its agenda but stressing its first priority was to control the coronavirus pandemic.
Replacing Angela Merkel as chancellor after 16 years, Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats used his opening speech to deliver a dramatic appeal to Germans to get vaccinated, announcing a seven-point plan to tackle the health emergency, which he called “very serious”, stressing that hospitals were close to capacity, and that his government would be considering the introduction of a vaccine mandate.
Continue reading...Two-time Olympic gold medallist enlists as alarm grows over war that threatens to engulf Addis Ababa
The two-time Olympic gold medallist Haile Gebrselassie has announced he is enlisting in the Ethiopian military to fight an insurgency that threatens the capital, Addis Ababa.
Gebrselassie, who set 27 long-distance running records, told Reuters he was joining up on Wednesday. The Olympic silver medallist runner Feyisa Lilesa would also enlist, local media reported.
Continue reading...Parents wanted a second child to act as bone marrow donor to their son but ended up with more
A hospital in Belgium has been ordered to compensate a couple for their “shock” and “impoverishment” after they ended up having three children by IVF treatment owing to a mistake at its fertility clinic.
It is the first time the Belgian courts have found that a healthy child can be the cause of loss to parents.
Continue reading...NGOs believe raids, officially part of an embezzlement inquiry, are an attempt to ‘criminalise social movements’
Rights activists in El Salvador said they will not be pressured into silence after prosecutors raided the offices of seven charities and groups in the Central American country.
“They’re trying to criminalise social movements,” said Morena Herrera, a prominent women’s rights activist. “They can’t accept that they are in support of a better El Salvador.”
Continue reading...Candidate would be the country’s first female president who vows to stop the violence and corruption causing many to flee
A week ahead of what may be Honduras’s most consequential election since the country’s return to democracy in 1982, the leading opposition candidate for president delivered her final address to an audience of fervent supporters.
“Today we are united as an opposition to say enough! Enough of so much theft, corruption and drug trafficking,” said Xiomara Castro, 62, as she addressed the crowd in Tegucigalpa on Sunday. “Enough suffering for the Honduran people.”
Continue reading...As an economist I know it makes financial as well as ethical sense to get this world-first vaccine to the millions who need it
I vividly remember the day I learned a harsh lesson in the tragic burden of malaria that too many of us from the African continent have endured. I was 15, living amid the chaos of Nigeria’s Biafran war, when my three-year-old sister fell sick. Her body burning with fever, I tied her on my back and carried her to a medical clinic, a six-mile trek from my home.
We arrived at the clinic to find a huge crowd trying to break through locked doors. I knew my sister’s condition could not wait. I dropped to the ground and crawled between legs, my sister propped listlessly on my back, until I reached an open window and climbed through. By the time I was inside, my sister was barely moving. The doctor worked rapidly, injecting antimalarial drugs and infusing her with fluids to rehydrate her body. In a few hours, she started to revive. If we had waited any longer, my sister might not have survived.
Continue reading...Italy unveils new Covid measures, to come into force on 6 December, that will ban unvaccinated people from entering venues
The health service in the UK is considering “radical ideas” to help tackle the backlog of care that has built-up over the last few years and been exacerbated by the Covid pandemic. That includes the idea of sending patients to different regions for treatment, the chief executive of NHS Providers has said.
But Chris Hopson told Times Radio it is more likely that people will be asked to go to neighbouring hospitals rather than different parts of the country. PA Media quote him saying:
Everybody across the NHS recognises that having patients wait for their care is not an acceptable situation. There is a moral obligation on trusts and their leaders to make sure that they do everything they can, no stone unturned, to get through those care backlogs as quickly as possible.
What we’re working on at the moment is a really comprehensive plan to get through those backlogs as fast as possible. And some of it will be all the traditional things that we do, which is: we will expand temporary capacity; we will ensure that we use overtime as much as possible; we will ensure that we use the capacity that sits in the independent sector.
Continue reading...Kashmiri farmers lose half their harvest to early snows for third year, with fears for future of the region’s orchards
The homegrown apple is in danger of becoming a rarity in India, as farmers have lost up to half their harvest this year, with predictions that the country’s main orchards could soon be all but wiped out.
Early snowfalls in Kashmir, where almost 80% of India’s apples are grown, have seen the region’s farmers lose half their crops in the third year of disastrous harvests.
Continue reading...Beijing urges Washington to stick to the ‘one China’ principle amid rising tensions over Taiwan
China’s government has accused Joe Biden of “a mistake” in inviting Taiwan to participate in a democracy summit alongside 109 other democratic governments.
Taiwan was included in a list of participants for next month’s Summit for Democracy, published by the state department on Tuesday. Taiwan is a democracy and self-governing, but Beijing claims it is a province of China and has accused its government of separatism.
Continue reading...In case you missed it yesterday: the House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection issued five more subpoenas to right-wing political operatives, including former Trump associate Roger Stone and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
Hugo Lowell reports:
The subpoenas demanding documents and testimony expand the select committee’s inquiry focused on the planning and financing of the rally at the Ellipse, by targeting operatives who appear to have had contacts with the Trump White House.
House investigators issued subpoenas to the veteran operatives Stone and Jones, Trump’s spokesperson Taylor Budowich, and the pro-Trump activists Dustin Stockton and his wife, Jennifer Lawrence.
Continue reading...Ján Kubiš gives no reason for resignation, having only taken post in war-torn country in January
The UN special envoy for Libya, Ján Kubiš, has quit just a month before crucial presidential elections in the war-torn nation – without giving security council members a clear reason for his sudden departure.
“Mr Kubiš has tendered his resignation to the secretary general, who has accepted it with regret,” UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric told reporters, adding that António Guterres was “working on an appropriate replacement”.
Continue reading...23-year-old Florida man’s disappearance sparked a nationwide hunt after the disappearance and death of Gabby Petito
Brian Laundrie, whose disappearance sparked a nationwide manhunt in September after his fiancee, Gabby Petito, went missing and was later found murdered, killed himself, an autopsy report released on Tuesday revealed.
Laundrie’s remains were found in a Florida nature preserve last month, one month after Petito, 22, was found strangled to death on the edge of Wyoming’s Grand Teton national park, where the couple had been travelling together in a van.
In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 and online chat is also available. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org
Continue reading...Ardern is imperfect and her government often struggles to implement its agenda – but they excel at crisis management
“If you want to know me, look at my surface”, Andy Warhol once said, or something along those lines. It’s an invitation to the obvious that should apply in politics, and yet the public regard politicians with – at best – a good deal of suspicion and, at worst, contempt. And who can blame them? In New Zealand the workers’ party (Labour) was responsible for introducing and administering neoliberalism in the 1980s, a dramatic break with their social democratic history that the Australian Labor party was also undertaking in the 1980s, the US Democrats in the 1990s, and UK Labour shortly after. As the old joke goes, capturing the distrust most people feel for left and right, “it doesn’t matter who you vote for, a politician always gets in”.
But what distinguishes prime minister Jacinda Ardern from the politicians who bite at her heels is that the Warholian doctrine is probably true. At least in her case. In New Zealand’s double disasters – the Christchurch massacre and the Whakaari eruption – Ardern met each tragedy with immediate action, crisp and clear communication, and an extraordinary human care almost entirely absent in modern politics. She met with victims, their families took her into their own homes and at every opportunity she made an invitation to act in solidarity – from the country’s successful gun reforms to the “Christchurch call”, an international bid to stamp out violent extremism online.
Continue reading...Dr Hans Kluge describes situation as ‘very serious’ with increasing strain on health services
Total deaths across Europe from Covid-19 are likely to exceed 2 million by March next year, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said, adding that the pandemic had become the number one cause of death in the region.
Reported deaths have risen to nearly 4,200 a day, double the number being recorded in September, the agency said, while cumulative reported deaths in the region, which includes the UK, have already surpassed 1.5 million.
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