President addresses hack of Kaseya software that has affected hundreds of US businesses and shut down Swedish shops
Joe Biden said on Saturday he had directed US intelligence agencies to investigate a sophisticated ransomware attack that hit hundreds of American businesses as the Fourth of July holiday weekend began and aroused suspicions of Russian gang involvement.
Related: Joe Biden cherry-picks audience to promote bipartisan infrastructure deal
Continue reading...Over the past year, one of New Zealand’s news giants ditched Facebook, pivoted to ‘trust’ and gave shares to employees. Can it survive?
The question of trust has dogged journalists for decades. “A kind of confidence man,” Janet Malcolm labels the journalist, in The Journalist and the Murderer, “preying on people’s vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them”. That view seems to resonate with the public. Asked to rank their trusted professions, people rank journalism in the murky depths – beaten to the bottom only by politicians.
For reporters who prefer to see themselves as truth-tellers, holding power to account, or at least providing a useful public service, that rankles. For others, trust becomes a point of fascination – the missing piece in the puzzle of how to make digital news pay for itself.
Continue reading...Two new payment transfer companies will be opening in the Pacific, where fees to send money are among the highest in the world
Kereni Vuai has carried a lot of people through the pandemic.
Vuai, 27, works full-time at a Sydney nursing home, which pays her AU$1500 a fortnight. She sends almost a third of that - $AU400 – back to family and friends in Fiji, many of whom have lost their jobs since coronavirus caused economic devastation in the tourism-dependent country.
Continue reading...Calls for president’s impeachment grow amid claims government sought to profit from Covid jabs
Huge crowds of protesters have returned to the streets of Brazil’s biggest cities to demand the removal of a president they blame for more than half a million coronavirus deaths.
Tens of thousands of demonstrators hit the streets of Rio de Janeiro on Saturday morning as calls for Jair Bolsonaro’s impeachment intensified after allegations that members of his government had sought to illegally profit from the purchase of Covid vaccines.
Continue reading...Proposals to extend Covid jabs to children in west would delay worldwide rollout, say experts, and allow deadly variants to develop elsewhere
Rich nations are sharing vaccines with low-income countries too slowly to prevent the spread of the Delta variant of Covid, risking millions of lives, the head of the World Health Organization has warned.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the WHO, said the sharing of vaccines was “only a trickle, which is being outpaced by variants”, after it emerged that the Delta variant is now present in at least 98 countries.
Continue reading...Joe Biden has warned that although America has Covid-19 'on the run' the latest variant is of particular concern among those who remain unvaccinated – as the president’s goal of 70% of US adults receiving at least one shot of vaccine by the Fourth of July holiday looks set to fall short.
'I’m not concerned there’s going to be a major outbreak … another epidemic nationwide. But I am concerned lives will be lost,' he said.
Boat carrying migrants from Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea and Bangladesh was heading towards Italy from Libya when it sank
At least 43 people have drowned in a shipwreck off Tunisia as they tried to cross the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy, while another 84 were rescued, humanitarian organisation the Tunisian Red Crescent has said.
The boat had set off from Zuwara, on Libya’s north-west coast, carrying migrants from Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea and Bangladesh, the humanitarian organisation said.
Continue reading...BMA chair says easing restrictions not an ‘all or nothing decision’; Indonesia locks down Bali and Java in effort to curb surging infections
The UK government has confirmed that proposals to end the requirement to self-isolate for those who have received two doses of a coronavirus vaccine are under “consideration”.
Downing Street said it was looking at whether to drop all legal self-isolation measures for fully vaccinated people who come into contact with someone who is infected “as part of the post-Step 4 world”.
Hundreds of healthcare workers in Italy have launched a legal bid against the requirement that they get the Covid-19 vaccination, according to media reports.
The case, brought by professionals throughout northern Italy, will be heard on 14 July.
Continue reading...Tehran classified as ‘red zone’ as authorities struggle to import vaccines due to US sanctions
Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, has expressed fears that Iran will be hit by a new wave of Covid-19 due to an outbreak of the Delta variant in the Middle East’s hardest-hit country.
“It is feared that we are on the way to a fifth wave throughout the country,” Rouhani told a meeting of Iran’s anti-virus taskforce, warning the public to be careful as the Delta variant had entered the country from the south and south-east.
Continue reading...Governor announces intent to make Rolf Kaestel, who robbed a Fort Smith shop of $264 in 1981, eligible for parole
The governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, has said he intends to commute the sentence of a man serving life in prison for robbing a taco shop in 1981 with a water pistol.
Hutchinson announced he intended to make Rolf Kaestel immediately eligible for parole. There is a 30-day waiting period to receive public feedback before the governor’s decision can become final.
Continue reading...Left-leaning states had focused on how global heating would affect others. Then the ‘heat dome’ arrived
The record heatwave in the Pacific north-west is forcing a reckoning on the climate crisis, as many living in the typically mild region consider what rising temperatures mean for the future.
A “heat dome” without parallel trapped hot air over much of the states of Oregon and Washington in the United States, and southern British Columbia in Canada, in past days, shattering weather records in the usually temperate region.
Continue reading...Ravil Mingazov, who spent 15 years in the US prison camp, could be sent to Russia where ‘he will not be free for the rest of his life,’ experts warn
A former Guantánamo detainee is facing forced repatriation from the United Arab Emirates to Russia where he faces a “substantial risk of torture” according to UN human rights experts.
Ravil Mingazov is a Muslim Tartar who spent 15 years without charge in the US prison camp on Guantánamo Bay before being transferred to the UAE in January 2017. The conditions of the transfer were kept secret, but his family and legal team were given assurances that he would be freed after a few months. Those assurances were not kept.
Continue reading...Twenty people are still missing and two are dead after houses were obliterated in the mudslide
More than 1,000 rescuers have arrived at a Japanese town hit by a deadly landslide on Saturday that killed two people.
The rescuers climbed onto cracked roofs and searched cars thrown onto engulfed buildings, as more rain lashed the area.
Continue reading...Health authorities reported more than 6,200 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, setting a record for a third straight day
Health authorities in Thailand reported more than 6,200 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, setting a record for a third straight day, as concerns mounted over shortages of treatment facilities and vaccine supplies.
Officials also reported 41 deaths, bringing the total to 2,181.
Continue reading...Flames that raged near a Pemex oil platform took more than five hours to extinguish
A fire on the ocean surface west of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula has been extinguished, state oil company Pemex said, blaming a gas leak from an underwater pipeline for sparking the blaze captured in videos that went viral.
Bright orange flames jumping out of water resembling molten lava was dubbed an “eye of fire” on social media due to the blaze’s circular shape, as it raged a short distance from a Pemex oil platform early on Friday.
Continue reading...Female troops were photographed practising for a parade wearing high heels, sparking outrage among lawmakers
Ukrainian authorities have found themselves buried in controversy after official pictures showed female soldiers practising for a parade in heels.
Ukraine is preparing to stage a military parade next month to mark 30 years of independence following the Soviet Union’s breakup, and the defence ministry on Friday released photographs of fatigue-clad women soldiers marching in mid-heel black pumps.
Continue reading...Another 1.8 million people are on the brink, officials say, and 33,000 children are severely malnourished
Top UN officials have warned the Security Council that more than 400,000 people in Ethiopia’s Tigray are now in famine and that there was a risk of more clashes in the region despite a unilateral ceasefire by the federal government.
After six private discussions on Friday, the Security Council held its first public meeting since fighting broke out in November between government forces, backed by troops from neighbouring Eritrea, and TPLF fighters with Tigray’s former ruling party.
Continue reading...British Columbia reports jump in number of ‘sudden and unexpected deaths’ and links them to extreme weather
Nearly 500 people may have been killed by record-breaking temperatures in Canada’s westernmost province, as officials warn the grim toll from “heat dome” could rise again as more deaths are reported.
On Friday, British Columbia’s chief coroner said that 719 “sudden and unexpected deaths” had been reported over the past week – triple the number during a similar period in a typical year.
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Two-thirds of Americans believe democracy is under threat, polls finds
This is Lois Beckett, picking up our live US politics coverage from Los Angeles.
NEW: Two-thirds of U.S. adults believe that American democracy is under threat according to the latest @NewsHour/@NPR/@maristpoll. https://t.co/TnYS66pXqA
That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Lois Beckett, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
Continue reading...Can New Zealand escape the resurgences that have hit other ‘elimination success story’ countries?
Last week was a sharp reminder for Dr Siouxsie Wiles, one of New Zealand’s most prominent pandemic communicators, of how close the country’s recent brush with Covid was. A Sydney tourist, infected with the Delta variant of Covid-19 had visited more than a dozen busy Wellington cafes, museums and eateries over the course of a weekend. As contact tracers went to work, Wiles’s own phone pinged: she was a potential contact, having stayed, like the tourist, at the Rydges Hotel.
In Wiles’s case, it emerged she had checked in hours after the man had checked out. The rest of the city has also emerged unscathed so far: despite 2,600 contacts identified, no infections have been reported. But the experience brought home once again, Wiles says, what a careful tightrope New Zealand is walking.
Continue reading...