Russian president, 68, self-isolating after announcing outbreak among members of his entourage
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has said dozens of people in his inner circle at the Kremlin have tested positive for coronavirus, which has affected more than 7 million people in the badly-hit country.
Earlier this week, the 68-year-old Putin said he was self-isolating after announcing an outbreak among members of his entourage.
Continue reading...Australia didn’t announce the ‘forever partnership’ while Donald Trump was in the White House. What happens if he returns?
Ever flexible, ever the pragmatist, Scott Morrison started thinking about his new “forever partnership” with the United States and Britain 18 months ago while Australia was still tied to a $90bn contract with France to build submarines.
Australia looked to America because of a practical consideration. If the Morrison government was going to jettison the troubled French proposal, and countenance the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines, the US possessed the technology that would suit Australia’s purposes.
Continue reading...Aukus described as ‘exclusionary’ amid French anger at scrapping of $90bn submarine deal with Australia
China has told the US, the UK and Australia to abandon their “cold war” mentality or risk harming their own interests after the three countries unveiled a new defence cooperation pact.
The trilateral security partnership, named Aukus, was announced on Thursday by the three nations’ leaders via video link, and will include an 18-month plan to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.
Continue reading...Airline has also said it will create 5,000 new jobs across Europe over five-year period
Ryanair has said itplans to fly an extra 25 million passengers a year by 2026, as the no-frills airline tries to take advantage of the industry’s slow recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
The Irish airline said it hopes to carry 225 million passengers annually by March 2026, 25 million higher than its previous target of 200 million, as it prepared for its annual meeting in Dublin on Thursday.
Continue reading...Thousands of unvaccinated French health workers suspended without pay; Israel experts say data suggests boosters stem rise in serious cases
Thousands of health workers in France who did not get vaccinated against Covid-19 ahead of a deadline this week have been suspended without pay, the health minister has said.
“Some 3,000 suspensions were notified yesterday to employees at health centres and clinics who have not yet been vaccinated,” Olivier Veran told RTL radio. “Several dozens” had turned in their resignations rather than take vaccines, he added.
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Blinded by medical intervention as a baby, Billups became one of the leaders of a groundbreaking, world-shaking 1977 protest. He talks about what drives him and why Barack Obama loves his energy
“My mother used to tell us we had to be really good,” says Dennis Billups. “There were always two strikes against us – so you had to hit the third strike out of the park.” The “strikes” were being Black and being blind. And growing up in San Francisco in the 1960s and 70s, both were potential sources of open discrimination. “There were times when, even walking in our own neighbourhood, we would get: ‘You’re supposed to stay inside.’ ‘Don’t you have a dog?’ ‘Don’t you have a cane?’” At times this could turn physical. “Some neighbours would turn water on us and stuff like that.” Finding employment was also a challenge. “Being blind, they didn’t have to do too much except say: ‘We’re not going to hire you,’ or: ‘We don’t think you can do this.’ So it was a glass ceiling, more or less. I’m sure with my twin sister there was a lot more, being a woman, African American and blind as well, but she was a hell of a fighter.”
Billups is a fighter, too, albeit one whose principal weapons are determination, congeniality, optimism – and a mellifluous voice. Now in his late 60s, speaking on Zoom from the San Francisco public library, he still radiates an infectious positivity that helped him as a young man when he played a key role in a lesser-known battle for civil rights.
Continue reading...China has launched an emergency response after a 6.0-magnitude earthquake jolted the south-western province of Sichuan on Thursday, killing at least three people. A total of 6,904 people have been evacuated and dozens injured, according to state media reports
Continue reading...One was a young footballer, another a dentist. Their shocking deaths haunt the families who could not stop their desperate bids to escape
When Zaki Anwari scaled the fence of Kabul airport, he was determined to escape. The 17-year-old footballer with the Afghan national youth team had taken a break from studying maths for his exams to accompany his brother as he tried to catch a flight. Zaki had always told his family he was not interested in going abroad, unless he could return to Afghanistan.
But the Taliban takeover had changed things. Zaki did not have a passport but, as night fell on Kabul after the Taliban took control of the city, he told his brother Zakir that he wanted to leave. Zakir did his best to talk him out of it, but he would not let go of the idea.
Continue reading...New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern says her country was ‘not approached’ to be part of a new security pact between Australia, the UK and US. ‘Nor would I expect us to be,’ she adds. ‘The anchor of this arrangement are nuclear-powered submarines and it will be very clear to all New Zealanders and to Australia why New Zealand would not wish to be a part of that project.' Since the mid-1980s, New Zealand has had a strict policy keeping its territorial sea, land and airspace as nuclear-free zones
Covid-19 has shown the effectiveness of local partners. If the sector is to respond and rebuild, it must redistribute power
The UK’s cut to its aid budget comes to about £4bn a year. Such a dramatic reduction is a blow to many, but most of all to the local organisations who perpetually find themselves last in line for funding.
New research by the Vodafone Foundation reveals that, too often, only a small proportion of philanthropic funding earmarked for African development reaches local, African-led civil society organisations. Instead, most development funding favours intermediaries in the global north and international organisations.
Continue reading...Government has prioritised rescue of current scholars but estimated 70 alumni are still in country
A group of former Chevening scholars have accused the British government of abandoning them in Afghanistan, where they say their lives are at grave risk from the Taliban.
The UK government has prioritised the rescue of 35 current Chevening scholars who were due to embark on their studies in the UK before the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, but an estimated 70 former scholars are also thought to still be in the country.
Continue reading...Analysis: military alliance is more wide-ranging than Five Eyes agreement and may come to define future approach to Indo-Pacific security
For those who study the history of the cold war, Washington’s new initiative with London and Canberra – known by its acronym “Aukus” – has eery echoes of an intelligence-sharing agreement signed 75 years ago. This agreement is now more commonly known as the Five Eyes partnership.
When the seven-page full text of UKUSA agreement – as it was originally known – was finally released in June 2010, Time magazine called it one of the cold war’s most important documents that “reveals one of the foundations of the special relationship the UK and the US still hold dear”.
Continue reading...Investigators found what appeared to be more 8.5 million images and videos on dark web servers created by Eric Eoin Marques
A man described by US authorities as the world’s most prolific purveyor of child sexual abuse images at the time of his arrest in Ireland has been sentenced to 27 years in federal prison.
Eric Eoin Marques, 36, created and operated computer servers on the dark web that enabled users to anonymously access millions of illegal images and videos, many depicting the rape and torture of infants and toddlers. Law enforcement had never seen many of those images before finding them on Marques’ servers, according to prosecutors.
Continue reading...The US, the UK and Australia have announced they are setting up a trilateral security partnership aimed at confronting China, which will include helping Australia to build nuclear-powered submarines. US President Joe Biden, UK prime minister Boris Johnson and Australian prime minister Scott Morrison announced the deal together virtually
Minister says health officials found no evidence that any patient reported such side effects: ‘We wasted so much time running down this false claim’
Trinidad and Tobago’s health minister has dismissed claims by the rapper Nicki Minaj that a cousin’s friend had become impotent after receiving the Covid-19 vaccine, saying that health officials in the Caribbean country had found no evidence that any patient had reported such side-effects.
“As we stand now, there is absolutely no reported side effect or adverse event of testicular swelling in Trinidad … and none that we know of anywhere in the world,” the minister, Terrence Deyalsingh, said in a press conference on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Didier Reynders condemns hacking of political opponents and journalists and says bloc closely watching Hungary investigation
The EU must swiftly legislate to further protect the rights of activists, journalists and politicians following the Pegasus spyware scandal, and the perpetrators of illegal tapping must be prosecuted, the bloc’s justice commissioner has told the European parliament.
Didier Reynders told MEPs that the European Commission “totally condemned” alleged attempts by national security services to illegally access information on political opponents through their phones.
Continue reading...CBS programme has caused a social media storm for its crass choice of format and ill-qualified judges
Producers have billed it as an exciting new twist on reality television: an X-Factor style competition between campaigners that will give them the chance to lobby world leaders at the G20.
But The Activist, a show announced last week by the American network CBS, has already learned to its cost that people power can be unpredictable, ruthless and highly effective.
Continue reading...After Merkel, the incoming coalition will have to prove that democracy can meet Europe’s great challenges
In Brussels last week, I found everyone waiting for Berlin. In Berlin, I found everyone electrified by an unexpectedly wide-open election. One thing, however, is clear: the new German government will be a coalition, and almost certainly of three, rather than two, parties.
That points to the deepest question underlying this pivotal European event: can democracy deliver? More precisely: can the European model of change through democratic consensus, of which Germany is a prime example, produce the actions Europe badly needs if it is to hold its own in the 21st century?
Continue reading...Four-person Inspiration4 mission will orbit Earth for up to four days and marks latest step in space tourism
The world’s first crew of “amateur astronauts” is preparing to blast off on a mission that will carry them into orbit around Earth before bringing them back home at the weekend.
The four civilians, who have spent the past few months on an astronaut training crash course, are due to launch on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 8.02pm local time on Wednesday (1.02am UK time on Thursday).
Continue reading...EU to share millions of jabs to speed up global immunisation; Italy set to make a vaccination pass mandatory for both public and private sector workers
Covid restrictions will return if the virus gets “out of control” again this year, the UK health secretary has said, with a dangerous new variant or the NHS at risk of being overwhelmed identified as the moment “plan B” could be triggered.
Sajid Javid said he thought another lockdown was unlikely but admitted it would be “irresponsible” to rule out ordering people stay at home in England for a fourth time since the pandemic began.
Related: Javid: Covid curbs will return in England if cases get out of control
Cuba is seeking approval from the World Health Organization (WHO) for three Covid-19 vaccines, according to the state-run corporation that produces them, even as it begins administering shots en masse to toddlers.
Rolando Perez Rodriguez, director of research and development at BioCubaFarma, made the announcement during a discussion broadcast by state media on Tuesday evening on a vaccination campaign that aims to immunize more than 90% of the population by November, Reuters reports.
There have already been some exchanges in Havana and at the office in Geneva. Now begins a procedure and exchange to evaluate the documentation delivered.
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