Follow the latest updates on the coronavirus from the UK and around the world
Covid infections in the UK are at record levels, with 1.28 million people suffering from the virus, but scientists say that cases may have peaked as separate figures suggest the number of daily infections has declined by 14%.
Russians are spurning the Sputnik jab and heading west for vaccines to enable them to travel more freely as international regulators delay approval.
Continue reading...Death of 55-year-old attacked in Onda is first such fatality since events resumed following Covid hiatus
A man bled to death from his injuries after he was gored at a bull-running festival in eastern Spain, authorities said.
It was the first related fatality in the country since such events resumed after Covid-19 curbs were relaxed during the summer.
Continue reading...The region used to be almost synonymous with magic realism but recent bestselling fiction draws on a legacy of dictatorship, poverty and sinister folklore
A young man follows the bloody trail of his CIA father, through Paraguayan torture chambers and the sites of Andean massacres. An Ecuadorian artist fantasizes about running a scalpel through the tongue of her mute twin. In a Buenos Aires cemetery, teenage fans devour a rock star’s rotting remains.
These grisly scenes – and many more like them – populate the pages of Latin America’s recent bestselling fiction. From the Andes to the Amazon and to the urban sprawl of some of the world’s biggest cities, a ghoulish shadow has been cast over Latin American literature.
Continue reading...EU and UK travel bans fuel boom in travel to Serbia for authorised Covid vaccinations
When Denis Ovchinnikov read the news this summer that his Russian Sputnik V vaccine would not be recognised in Europe, he decided to take matters into his own hands and planned a trip to Belgrade.
“I contacted a travel agency that sorted everything out. It was very easy. I made a little holiday out of it too, in between getting the two Pfizer shots,” Ovchinnikov, who works at a PR agency in St Petersburg, said.
Continue reading...Large numbers linked to previous administration are stranded in Afghanistan, with calls for the UK to broker rapid mass evacuation
Calls for the government to speed up the evacuation of gay, lesbian and transgender Afghans intensified on Saturday after the first LGBTQ+ group arrived safely in Britain but left many behind to face an uncertain fate.
The group of 29 is “hoped to be the first of many” in the coming months, the Foreign Office said, hours after the Taliban announced LGBTQ+ rights would not be respected.
Continue reading...Martin Indyk’s well-woven biography is sympathetic to the preacher of realpolitik condemned by many as a war criminal
As secretary of state, Henry Kissinger nursed the 1973 Arab-Israeli war to a close. The disengagement agreements between Egypt and Israel ultimately yielded a peace treaty. The Syrian border remains tensely quiet. Unlike Vietnam, in the Middle East Kissinger’s handiwork holds.
The Sunni Arab world has gradually come to terms with the existence of the Jewish state. Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan have diplomatic ties with Jerusalem. Relations with Saudi Arabia are possible.
Continue reading...Footage shared on social media blamed for igniting violence between communities that left seven dead, buildings torched and many living in fear
It was early morning when Achintya Das, a 55-year-old teacher in the city of Cumilla in Bangladesh, was woken by the ringing of his mobile phone. On the other end of the line was a fearful, stricken voice. Come quickly, the local told him, something very grave had happened. A Qur’an had been found in the shrine they had recently erected for the upcoming Hindu festival of Durga Puja. The Islamic holy book had been placed on a statue of the Hindu god Hanuman.
Das, a Hindu who organised the festival in Cumilla, felt dread rise up in him at the news of the desecration of Muslim holy scripture in their shrine. “It didn’t even take me a second to understand the gravity of the situation. I rushed there immediately,” he said.
Continue reading...UK figures down from 43,467 new infections and 186 deaths on Friday; authorities in Thailand issue order as country prepares to open to tourists
People observe tributes to the nearly 300,000 Mexicans who have died in the pandemic as the official global death toll approaches 5 million:
Tonga – formerly one of the last countries in the world to have remained Covid-free – has recorded its first coronavirus case.
“The reason the lockdown won’t happen this weekend is because I have been advised that the virus will take more than three days to develop in someone who catches it before they become contagious,” Tuionetoa said.
“We should use this time to get ready in case more people are confirmed they have the virus.”
Continue reading...Actor tells reporter ‘this is a one-in-a-trillion episode’, in first remarks since fatal shooting of Halyna Hutchins on film set
In his first public comments since accidentally fatally shooting the cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of a film, Rust, in New Mexico earlier this month, Alec Baldwin said on Saturday: “She was my friend.”
The actor spoke to BackGrid, a “global celebrity news agency”, in Vermont, where he was photographed having lunch with his wife.
Continue reading...Attack in interim capital comes weeks after car bomb targeted Aden’s governor
At least 12 civilians have been killed in a blast near the airport of Aden, the Yemeni government’s interim capital, a senior security official told AFP.
There were also serious injuries, said the official, adding that the cause of the blast on Saturday was unknown. Another security official confirmed the death toll.
Continue reading...Killers said they were Taliban but government denies responsibility and says two of them have been arrested
Gunmen presenting themselves as Taliban attacked a wedding in eastern Afghanistan to stop music being played and killed at least three people, the government has said.
Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Saturday that two of the three attackers had been arrested, and denied they were acting on behalf of the Islamist movement.
Continue reading...Expulsion ordered a day after similar move by Saudi Arabia in response to criticism of the Riyadh-led intervention
Kuwait has given Lebanon’s envoy to the emirate 48 hours to leave, a day after Saudi Arabia made a similar move over a minister’s criticism of the Riyadh-led military intervention in Yemen.
The diplomatic row, in which Saudi Arabia has also suspended imports from Lebanon and Bahrain has expelled Beirut’s envoy to Manama, is another blow for a country already in the grip of crippling political and economic crises.
Continue reading...Chris Riddell on ghouls, Brexit and the budget
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Continue reading...At least two protesters were killed as hundreds of thousands marched against the military coup in Sudan. The fatalities were reported by Sudan’s Doctors Committee after the security forces fired bullets and teargas outside the parliament building in Omdurman. The protests came almost a week after the military detained Sudan’s civilian leadership, dissolved the government and declared a state of emergency, drawing a chorus of international condemnation
Continue reading...Speaking to the G20 summit by video, China’s president stresses vaccine cooperation and economic stability
China’s president, Xi Jinping, has called for mutual recognition of Covid-19 vaccines based on the World Health Organization’s emergency use list, according to a transcript of his remarks delivered to leaders of the Group of 20 leaders’ summit, published by the official Xinhua news agency.
Speaking to the participants in Rome via video link, Xi said China had provided more than 1.6bn Covid shots to the world, and was working with 16 nations to cooperate on manufacturing doses.
Continue reading...Leaders of the world’s 20 biggest economies will endorse a US proposal for a global minimum corporate tax of 15%, draft conclusions of the two-day G20 summit in Rome showed on Saturday.
The G20 plans to have the rules in force in 2023.
Continue reading...As Emmanuel Macron opens a museum dedicated to the exonerated Jewish soldier, ultra-nationalists led by Éric Zemmour again question his innocence
More than a century after he was exonerated, Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish army officer whose false conviction for treason sparked bitter controversy, has erupted into France’s presidential race amid far-right attempts to question his innocence.
Emmanuel Macron last week personally inaugurated the first museum dedicated to the Dreyfus affair, a historical collection exhibited in the house of Émile Zola, the writer and best-known defender of the persecuted officer, in Médan west of Paris.
Continue reading...Statues and ruins of a 2,000-year-old resort, famed for luxury and vice, are now a marine visitor attraction
Fish flit around Enrico Gallochio as he gently brushes away a layer of sand to reveal an ornate mosaic floor on which Roman nobility would have hosted non-stop parties in Baiae, an ancient resort in the gulf of Pozzuoli, close to Naples. Four metres below the surface of the water, Gallochio passes more mosaic pavements and the remains of walls that once surrounded a spa.
The mosaics date from the third century and are just a small part of the remains uncovered since Baiae, now a vast undersea archaeological park, began to emerge from its watery grave. The site has become an unlikely tourism destination, even as work continues to uncover more ruins.
Continue reading...Boat was discovered in freshwater pool during construction of a tourist train to the ruins of Maya city
A wooden canoe used by the ancient Maya and believed to be more than 1,000 years old has turned up in southern Mexico almost completely intact, officials have said.
The extremely rare canoe was found submerged in a freshwater pool known as a cenote, thousands of which dot Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula, near the ruins of Chichén Itzá, once a major Maya city featuring elaborately carved temples and towering pyramids.
Continue reading...TPLF fighters say they have captured Dessie, the furthest south they have reached since July
Tigrayan forces said on Saturday that they had seized the strategic town of Dessie in Ethiopia’s Amhara region where tens of thousands of people have sought refuge from an escalation in the conflict.
Fighters with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) had pushed Ethiopian government forces from Dessie and were advancing toward the town of Kombolcha, a TPLF spokesman, Getachew Reda, said by satellite phone from an undisclosed location.
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