Extremely heavy ashfall rained down on parts of the Caribbean island of St Vincent on Saturday and a strong sulfur smell enveloped communities, a day after a powerful explosion at La Soufriere volcano uprooted the lives of thousands who evacuated under government orders.
Related: Caribbean volcanoes rumble to life as scientists study activity not seen in years
Continue reading...As daily inoculations hit record figures, warning comes of new delays
Vaccine rollouts in France and Germany have finally begun to pick up speed, after a slow start and problems with supplies and bureaucracy.
France continues to struggle to contain a third Covid-19 wave, but announced it had hit its 10 million inoculations target a week earlier than expected, while Germany doubled the number of vaccinations, administering a record 720,000 doses on Thursday after the rollout was extended to family doctors.
Continue reading...Medics tell of attacks on staff and ambulances to stop treatment of patients and punish those who took part in national strike
Htet Htet Win and her husband were late returning home on Sunday night. It was past the junta-imposed 8pm curfew when their motorbike passed through the streets of eastern Mandalay. The security forces reportedly shouted for them to stop, and then opened fire when they did not do so. Her husband was hit but managed to get away. She was knocked to the ground.
A grainy photograph, taken by an onlooker, shows her lying face down on the concrete, her arms reaching above her head, her purple top and bottoms marked with dark patches.
Continue reading...India records 145,384 new Covid-19 cases and 794 deaths, the highest number of fatalities in more than five months; lockdown ordered in Iran
The British Retail Consortium estimated that lockdowns in 2020 cost non-essential retail £22bn in lost sales. So with non-essential shops allowed to open again on Monday after nearly four months, retailers have concocted plans to make real-life shopping trips a pastime once again.
Lauren Cochrane looks at how different shops are adapting:
Related: Lockdowns have cost £22bn in lost sales, say British retailers
According to a tally compiled by AFP, at least 2,917,316 people have died from Covid-19 worldwide since the virus first emerged in December 2019.
The US is the worst-affected country with 561,074 deaths, followed by Brazil at 348,718, Mexico with 207,020, India with 168,436 and Britain with 127,040.
Continue reading...The Florida congressman Matt Gaetz insisted on Friday “the truth will prevail” over allegations of sex trafficking and illegal drug use which have pitched him into the centre of a congressional scandal.
Related: Republican Matt Gaetz faces calls to resign from member of his own party
Continue reading...Trump and his allies foresaw a ticking timebomb centred on the president’s son – but it has not turned out that way
Where’s Hunter?
The rhetorical question about Joe Biden’s troubled son was posed time and again by Donald Trump during last year’s US presidential election but never caught fire in the way “Lock her up!” did against Hillary Clinton.
Continue reading...About 28% of Peruvians wouldn’t choose any of the candidates, poll shows ahead of Sunday’s vote
An ultra-conservative millionaire who admits to scourging himself daily to repress sexual desire is just one of an assortment of low-polling candidates who all have a shot at becoming Peru’s next president.
Rafael López Aliaga is technically tied with five other contenders in an unpredictable contest to make a runoff vote in June, including a former goalkeeper, a Sorbonne-educated socialist and the daughter of the country’s jailed former leader Alberto Fujimori.
Continue reading...On 23rd anniversary of Good Friday agreement, Martin says onus on political leaders ‘to step forward’
The Irish taoiseach Micheál Martin has said that political leaders must not allow Northern Ireland to “spiral back to that dark place of sectarian murders and political discord” after the region was marred by another night of disorder.
On the anniversary of the Good Friday agreement 23 years ago, the taoiseach said there was “a particular onus on those of us who currently hold the responsibility of political leadership to step forward and play our part and ensure that this cannot happen”.
Continue reading...Revealed: groups banned from other sites fundraising on GiveSendGo as data breach identifies high-dollar donors
A data breach from Christian crowdfunding site GiveSendGo has revealed that millions of dollars have been raised on the site for far-right causes and groups, many of whom are banned from raising funds on other platforms.
Related: How the far-right group ‘Oath Enforcers’ plans to harass political enemies
Continue reading...Former president tells Guardian Brazil faces perhaps gravest moment in its history and is ‘adrift on an ocean of hunger and disease’
Jair Bolsonaro’s perverse and “genocidal” response to one of the world’s deadliest Covid outbreaks has left Brazil “adrift on an ocean of hunger and disease”, the country’s former president Dilma Rousseff has claimed.
Speaking to the Guardian this week – as Brazil’s coronavirus death toll hit devastating new heights, with more than 12,000 deaths in the last three days – Rousseff said her country faced perhaps the gravest moment in its history.
Continue reading...The world has turned a blind eye to Denis Sassou Nguesso’s controversial re-election, which will extend his iron-fisted reign to more than 40 years
The result of last month’s presidential election in Congo-Brazzaville brought no surprises. After 36 years in power, Denis Sassou Nguesso, 77, clinched 88% of the vote with a turnout of more than 67%. Accusations of vote irregularities, including ballot box stuffing, were widespread. His closest rival, who had urged for a “vote for change” died of Covid on the day of the vote.
Television showed a triumphant Sassou at home with his smiling henchmen, as the interior minister, Raymond Zéphirin Mboulou – instead of the head of the electoral commission – announced the win. The question now is whether or not the African Union, the US, the EU, the UK and former colonial power France will simply turn a blind eye to another disputed election result while Congolese are dying from extreme poverty?
Continue reading...A round-up of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Mexico to China
Continue reading...In Kupang, Indonesia, residents wait for aid after torrential rain, destructive winds and flooding forced thousands into shelters
On Sunday at midnight, Linda Tagie, 29, rested her three-year-old baby on the bed. Linda, who lives together with her husband, 79-year-old mother-in-law and only child in Sikumana, Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara province of Indonesia, was shocked by a strong wind and heavy rain. The electricity suddenly went off.
“I prayed and prayed in the dark,” she said. The wind eventually stopped on Monday morning. She walked out of the house and found the roof gone from the back part of the house. “Electricity cables, tin roofs, and trees lie on the street in front of our house,” she said.
Continue reading...Platform co-founded by Jack Ma, who has criticised Chinese authorities, misused its dominance, say state regulators
Chinese regulators have hit e-commerce company Alibaba with a fine of 18.2bn yuan (US$2.78bn) over practices deemed to be an abuse of its dominant market position, according to state-run media.
The Xinhua news agency said the state administration for market regulation had assessed the fine after concluding an investigation into Alibaba that began in December.
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The FBI has arrested a man involved in the Jan.6 attack on the US Capitol, who allegedly had plans to detonate a bomb to take down the FBI, CIA, and other agencies, the Washington Post reports.
Seth Aaron Pendley was arrested Thursday, Justice Department officials said, after he allegedly sought materials for explosives from an undercover FBI agent. His plans, according to a criminal complaint, hinged on bombing the Amazon Web Services building in Ashburn, Va, in an attempt to disable Internet access in key government agencies, hinder operations, and upset “the oligarchy”.
Feds just charged Seth Aaron Pendley, 28, of Wichita Falls, with trying to blow up a data center in Virginia. Allege he tried to buy an explosive device from an undercover FBI employee in Ft. Worth, bragged to friends on Facebook he was at Jan. 6 Capitol attack @CourthouseNews pic.twitter.com/EHMk5z3QFH
The case highlights a growing concern among law enforcement and terrorism experts that the insurrection could inspire further domestic terrorist attacks, and officials praised the unidentified person who first alerted them to Pendley’s online posts.
‘We are indebted to the concerned citizen who came forward to report the defendant’s alarming online rhetoric, said Prerak Shah, the acting U.S. attorney in Dallas. “In flagging his posts to the FBI, this individual may have saved the lives of a number of tech workers’”.
As the Biden Administration scrambles to make space for the growing number of people crossing the US-Mexico border, officials announced that migrant families will now be held at hotels in Arizona, the Associated Press reports.
According to a statement from Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement will takeover several hotels in the Phoenix area along the southwest border.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — which places unaccompanied children with “sponsors,” most often parents and close relatives — has found space in convention centers, military bases and other large venues. Los Angeles County officials said Friday that its fairgrounds will be used to temporarily house up to 2,500 unaccompanied children.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican and frequent Biden critic, asked the administration to close a holding facility for unaccompanied children at the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio, citing allegations that they aren’t getting enough to eat and boys are unsupervised in showers.
Continue reading...Adam Kinzinger tweeted that congressman ‘needs to resign’ and linked to article claiming Gaetz paid $900 to accused sex trafficker
The House ethics committee on Friday announced it will open an investigation into the Republican congressman Matt Gaetz, amid a widening scandal involving allegations related to sex trafficking.
In a statement the committee said it was aware of the public allegations that Gaetz may have engaged in “sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift, in violation of House Rules, laws, or other standards of conduct.”
Continue reading...An explosive eruption rocked La Soufrière volcano on the eastern Caribbean island of St Vincent on Friday following mandatory evacuation orders from the local government. There were no immediate reports of casualties from the burst that occurred just four days short of the 42nd anniversary of the last eruption.
Continue reading...National Emergency Management Organisation warned residents to leave and said ash plume had reached 20,000ft
The Caribbean island of St Vincent has been rocked by a string of explosive eruptions at La Soufrière volcano, which spewed clouds of ash miles into the air a day and forced thousands to flee for safety.
Related: Saint Vincent orders evacuations as volcanic eruption appears imminent
Continue reading...Government says killing of Giorgos Karaivaz, reportedly by two men on a motorbike, has ‘shocked us all’
A prominent Greek crime journalist has been shot dead in what was described as an “execution-style” murder near his home in Athens.
Giorgos Karaivaz, who sought to illuminate Greece’s seamier underside with his coverage of law and order stories on the private Star TV channel, died of gunshot wounds outside his home in the south of the city.
Continue reading...Government prepares rescue package as rare freezing temperatures damage crops and vines
Winemakers across France are counting the cost of several nights of frost this week that threaten to decimate grape harvests in some of the country’s best-known and prestigious wine-producing regions.
The government is readying an emergency rescue package after rare freezing temperatures that could cause some of the worst damage in decades to crops and vines.
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