Biden meeting marks rare trip out of ‘bunker’ for Covid-cautious Putin

Rare sit-down talks come after Russian leader shut himself away for months to escape outbreak

For more than a year, people who have wanted to get within breathing distance of Vladimir Putin have performed a ritual, two-week quarantine in Russian hotels and sanatoriums to protect the 68-year-old president from falling ill with coronavirus.

Since March 2020, powerful business people, regional governors, his pilots and medical staff, volunteers at an economic conference, and even second world war veterans have shut themselves away to meet the Kremlin leader or even stand in his general vicinity.

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Why is Israel lifting Covid restrictions as England extends them?

Analysis: both are viewed as running successful vaccine campaigns, but case numbers are very different

Israel and the UK were viewed as world leaders in their coronavirus vaccine campaigns but whereas the former is lifting almost all pandemic limitations, the latter is now glumly extending its restrictions in England amid a sharp rise in infections.

Despite starting its mass inoculation programme after the UK in December, Israel has sped ahead and it reached a key milestone on Tuesday, scrapping a requirement to wear face masks indoors, one of the final Covid limitations.

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China set to administer 1bn Covid vaccine doses by end of this week

Cash incentives and gifts offered to fulfil target of vaccinating 40% of population by end of month

China is on track to administer 1bn vaccine doses by the end of this week, after bolstering production and distribution networks in an ambitious drive to vaccinate 40% of the population by this month.

Chinese authorities have been encouraging people to take the free and voluntary doses with cash incentives, gifts and colour-coded signage to laud or shame businesses depending on vaccination rates, as well as the promise of protection against Covid-19.

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UN put Rohingya ‘at risk’ by sharing data without consent, says rights group

Refugees tell Human Rights Watch they fear forced repatriation and persecution after personal details passed on to Myanmar

The UN may have put hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees at risk of persecution or involuntary repatriation back to Myanmar after improperly collecting and sharing refugees’ personal information with Bangladesh, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), which is urging an investigation.

Over the past three years, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has registered more than 800,000 Rohingya refugees living in Bangladeshi camps in order to provide them with identity cards needed to access essential aid and services.

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Protests over police violence spread through Tunisian capital

Demonstrators angry over footage showing officers stripping and beating man and death of another in custody

Tunisia’s capital has been rocked by a week of protests against police violence that began after the death of a man in police custody and footage that went viral of officers stripping and beating another man.

Six nights of demonstrations that began in the working-class districts of Sidi Hassine and Séjoumi in Tunis spread to other neighbourhoods on Monday night.

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South Korea says consensual sex act between male soldiers ‘bordered on rape’

Activists decry discrimination as court finds men guilty of indecency and hands down a six-month suspended sentence

A South Korean military court has been accused of discriminating against sexual minorities after it found two male soldiers guilty of indecency for engaging in consensual oral sex.

The ruling, which took place in March but emerged last week, found the soldiers’ actions “bordered on rape” and handed them a six-month suspended prison sentence by applying the controversial article 92-6 of the Military Criminal Act. This punishes “anal sex and other indecent acts” between military personnel with up to two years in prison.

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The sexual assault of sleeping women: the hidden, horrifying rape crisis in Britain’s bedrooms

A recent survey suggested a shockingly high proportion of women have been sexually assaulted by a partner as they slept. Now more and more are speaking out

Niamh Ní Dhomhnaill had been with her partner for almost a year when she discovered that he’d been raping her while she slept. At the time, she was 25, and a language teacher in a Dublin secondary school. Her partner, Magnus Meyer Hustveit, was Norwegian. The couple had moved in together within a few months of meeting, but things were tense. It wasn’t a happy relationship.

On that particular night, Ní Dhomhnaill had been out with Hustveit and other friends, but left early, alone, because she felt unwell. “I’d only drunk water but I’d gone to bed and was out for the count,” she says. “I didn’t hear Magnus come back, which is unusual because I’d always been a light sleeper.”

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Nicaragua rounds up president’s critics in sweeping pre-election crackdown

Arrests of opposition figures, including revered former guerrillas, represent ‘last gamble of a dictator’s family’

Nicaragua’s Sandinista rulers have launched an unprecedented crackdown on the country’s opposition, arresting a string of prominent critics of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice-President Rosario Murillo, in an apparent attempt to crush any serious challenge in November’s elections.

Six opposition figures were arrested at the weekend, including revered former guerrillas who fought alongside Ortega during the campaign to topple the dictator Anastasio Somoza and went on to serve in the first Sandinista government.

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Eradicating polio is finally within reach. Why is the UK taking its foot off the pedal? | Anne Wafula Strike

Instead of cutting the aid budget – including 95% from the plan to stamp out the disease – Britain should take a global lead

Despite the Covid pandemic, there have been just two recorded cases of wild polio in 2021 – in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the two remaining hiding places for the disease. But eradication is not guaranteed. Polio is virulent and spreads quickly. Even one case poses a threat to unvaccinated children everywhere, which is why a new strategy launched last week by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) outlines a plan to utilise this small window of opportunity for the world to end polio for good.

A 99.9% fall in polio cases globally in recent decades is thanks in large part to the GPEI and its supporters. The British government’s recent announcement that it will slash its contributions to the GPEI by more than 95% has been a body blow. The funding cut amounts to almost a quarter of the annual World Health Organization polio eradication budget.

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Brazil records 2,468 new Covid deaths – as it happened

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This blog is closed. Follow the latest updates on the pandemic from around the world:

Bars at full capacity. No masks for vaccinated Disneyland goers. Fans sitting side-by-side at Giants and Dodgers games.

California rolled back its major public health restrictions on Tuesday, 15 months after it became the first state in the US to shut down to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

Related: Goodbye masks, hello full bars: California lifts Covid rules in ‘grand reopening’

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Blood brother: the Kashmiri man who is India’s biggest donor

The ‘blood man’ of conflict-racked Kashmir has donated 174 pints of blood since 1980 but feels ‘crushed’ by his poverty

Shabir Hussain Khan was taking an afternoon nap when he heard a commotion outside his house. A friend had been injured in a football match and had lost a lot of blood. Khan, who did not have any transport, rushed to the hospital by foot to donate some. It was 4 July 1980. Yesterday the man known locally as the “blood man of Kashmir” donated his 174th pint of his blood to strangers at the public hospital close to his Srinagar home.

“Blood is not something you can buy in the market,” says Khan, who has an O-negative blood group. “In those days blood donation was not common, nor were blood banks. The way blood is available readily now, it was not like that before. Also there was no connectivity at that time. We only had radios and two or three landline phones in the entire locality.”

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Vaccines and oxygen run out as third wave of Covid hits Uganda

Vaccine thefts reported and hospitals unable to admit patients as cases leap 2,800% in a month

Uganda has all but run out of Covid-19 vaccines and oxygen as the country grapples with another wave of the pandemic.

Both private and public medical facilities in the capital, Kampala and in towns across the country – including regional hubs in Entebbe, Jinja, Soroti, Gulu and Masaka – have reported running out or having acute shortages of AstraZeneca vaccines and oxygen. Hospitals report they are no longer able to admit patients to intensive care.

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China prepares to send astronauts to new space station

Crew reportedly getting ready to blast off this week to the Tiangong on China’s longest crewed space mission to date

The first crew for China’s new space station has reportedly begun final preparations to blast off this week.

The mission is China’s first crewed spaceflight in nearly five years, and a matter of prestige for the government as it prepares to mark the 100th anniversary of the ruling Communist party on 1 July with a propaganda blitz.

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‘Miniature Pompeii’ found beneath former cinema in Verona

Ancient Roman building with ‘magnificent frescoed walls’ appears to have been survived a fire

An ancient Roman building has been found during excavations at a former cinema in the northern Italian city of Verona in what has been described as a “miniature Pompeii”.

The discovery was made during excavations in the basement of Astra cinema, which is undergoing renovation after lying abandoned for more than 20 years.

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One in five people in parts of EU pay bribes for healthcare, survey finds

Corruption report says third of EU residents used personal connections to access care during Covid crisis

Almost a third of residents in the EU relied on personal connections to access healthcare during the Covid crisis, and around one in five in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Lithuania paid a bribe for such services, a report on corruption has found.

Across the EU’s 27 member states, nearly two-thirds (62%) of the 40,000 respondents in a survey conducted by Transparency International said corruption in their government was a major problem and three-quarters (76%) said it had been stagnating or getting worse.

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No sign of thaw between Russia and US ahead of Geneva summit

Analysts say event will be ‘boring’ as both sides attempt a reboot following catastrophic meeting between Trump and Putin in 2017

On the 24-hour Russian state news channel, Thursday began as any other might: with a segment about the ageing president of the United States battling back cicadas and then giving a “confused” speech about his upcoming summit in Geneva with Vladimir Putin.

“I’ll let [Putin] know what I want him to know,’” said Biden after a cutaway shot of him swatting his neck before boarding Air Force One this week.

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Marjorie Taylor Greene apologises for comparing Covid-19 masks to Holocaust – video

Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene apologised for comparing Covid-19 mask requirements and vaccinations to the Nazi Holocaust that killed 6 million Jews. ‘I have made a mistake and it’s really bothered me for a couple of weeks now, and so I definitely want to own it,’ Taylor Greene said. Her apology on Monday came amid calls from some Democrats to censure her for the Holocaust remarks. Her comments had also been denounced by Republican congressional leaders

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What’s behind the mass protests in Colombia?

A demonstration against tax rises has morphed into a mass movement against the government, says Joe Parkin Daniels in Bogotá

An attempt by the Colombian government to introduce sweeping tax changes in response to the coronavirus crisis was met earlier this year by angry protests. Thousands of people flooded on to the streets throughout the country for four consecutive days. It was enough to prompt President Iván Duque to withdraw his tax plans, but by then it was too late to stop the protests.

Ever since, more and more Colombians have been coming out to protest. Joe Parkin Daniels, who has been reporting on the demonstrations for the Guardian for weeks, tells Rachel Humphreys that they now encompass people from all sections of Colombian society, with a multitude of causes. One thing ever present is a fury at the growing inequality that has been exacerbated by the Covid crisis. As police have cracked down hard on the protesters, more than 50 people have died, with no end to the protests in sight.

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Biden says Putin a ‘worthy adversary’ ahead of talks – video

Joe Biden said meeting with Vladimir Putin would be ‘critical’ and that he would offer to cooperate on areas of common interest if the Kremlin so choses. Biden warned that if Russia chose not to cooperate in areas like cybersecurity ‘then we will respond’. The US president also characterised Putin as ‘bright’, ‘tough’ and ‘a worthy adversary’. When questioned by reporters, Biden said the potential death of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, now jailed in Russia, would be a tragedy and would hurt Russian relations with the rest of the world and with the United States. The two men are meeting in Geneva on 16 June for the first time as presidents

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