Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
On Thursday, 110 people from Taiwan will be able to enjoy the thing so many around the world have been dreaming of since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic: an international holiday to a tropical island paradise.
The tiny Pacific country of Palau, in the north-west corner of the Pacific with a population of around 20,000 people, will this week begin welcoming tourists from Taiwan as part of a travel bubble.
During her press briefing this afternoon, Jen Psaki also criticized the World Health Organization’s report on the origins of coronavirus.
The White House press secretary said China had “not been transparent” about the early days of its coronavirus outbreak.
WATCH: @PressSec says the @WHO COVID-19 origins report "doesn't lead us to a closer understanding or greater knowledge than six months ago about the origins", adding that China has "not been transparent, they have not provided underlying data" on the virus. pic.twitter.com/6KRK7112zn
The German chancellor Angela Merkel has said she is open to being vaccinated with the Oxford/Astrazeneca Covid-19 jab.
“I have said when it is my turn, I will get vaccinated, also with AstraZeneca,” Merkel, 66, told a news conference on Germany’s decision to limit the use of the British-Swedish firm’s vaccine over health concerns. “The possibility of me being vaccinated is nearing.”
On the basis of the currently available, but still limited, evidence and taking into account the current pandemic situation, the Stiko recommends using the Covid-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca for people over the age of 60.
Their use below this age limit, however, remains possible at the medical discretion and with individual risk acceptance after careful explanation.
South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa announced a four-day ban on take-away alcohol consumption over the Easter weekend, over fears of a possible third wave of coronavirus infections, AFP reports.
The country, which has recorded over 1.5 million cases, has seen infection rates stabilising in recent weeks at an average of 1,200 per day, according to the president.
In a keenly awaited memoir, Joe Biden’s son Hunter attacks Donald Trump as “a vile man with a vile mission” who plumbed “unprecedented depths” in last year’s US presidential election.
The Securities Exchange Commission is said to have requested further information from major US banks Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley, as well as Japan’s Nomura and Swiss lender Credit Suisse about a meeting with Archegos founder Bill Hwang on Thursday.
Figure is many times higher than the five fatalities initially announced after 21 March disaster
A stampede at a Tanzanian stadium crushed 45 people to death as mourners paid last respects to the late President John Magufuli, police said on Tuesday – many times more than the five fatalities initially announced after the disaster on 21 March.
Police in the port city of Dar es Salaam, where the stampede occurred, attributed some of the deaths to people being starved of oxygen at the event due to overcrowding.
UN group of experts deeply disturbed by connections between Wagner Group and violence since election
Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group, a private military contractor, have committed human rights abuses in the Central African Republic while fighting alongside government forces, according to a group of independent UN experts.
The UN working group said it was “deeply disturbed” by the connections between Russian mercenaries and a series of violent attacks that have taken place in the CAR since elections in December.
The US and the UK have sharply criticised a World Health Organization report into the beginnings of the coronavirus pandemic in Wuhan, implicitly accusing China of “withholding access to complete, original data and samples”.
The statement, also signed by 12 other countries including Australia and Canada, came hard on the heels of an admission on Tuesday by the head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, that the investigation was “not extensive enough” and experts had struggled to access raw information during their four-week visit to Wuhan in January.
Soldiers, three vehicles and 17 guns released after Mexican officials agreed to economic reparations and legal proceedings
Fifteen Mexican troops were held for hours by angry villagers in a remote border zone and held captive for hours after one of the soldiers shot and killed a Guatemalan citizen at a checkpoint.
The Mexican defense secretary, Luis Cresencio Sandoval, said on Tuesday that the events stemmed from “an erroneous reaction on the part of military personnel” who fired on a vehicle reversing away from a checkpoint on Monday.
Many readers say last week’s announcement will have little impact on their – or their children’s – ability to buy a house
Last week we asked Guardian readers about the government’s attempt to rein in New Zealand’s runaway house prices. We heard from investors and renters, first-home buyers and retirees. While some readers – including investors – were supportive, many felt the policy changes didn’t go far enough.
Some pointed out that beefed-up grants to first-home buyers would make little impact in markets such as Wellington and Auckland, with young people still despairing of ever getting a foot on the housing ladder. Many said that the effect on renters had been overlooked, arguing in favour of German-style rent control. Others said they were afraid for their children’s future, while some wrote that they feared they would never be able to afford children.
The government has broken its promises and handed them to the opposition on a golden platter
As the first majority government in New Zealand’s MMP history, with an extraordinarily popular prime minister, many have urged Labour to spend its “political capital.” This is the buffer that enables popular governments to take bold actions that might lose them some voters, while retaining most of their solid support in a metaphorical bank.
Last week Labour spent some of its political capital. In a surprise announcement it said it would extend the brightline test (taxing any financial gain made on the sale of an investment property) from five to ten years and remove mortgage interest as a rental property tax deduction, as part of a suite of housing policy and funding changes.
Reduced £205m offer at UN pledging conference comes with 90% of Syrians living in poverty
Syrians and aid organisations have warned that “lives will be lost” as a result of the UK’s decision to cut aid funding to the conflict-stricken country.
The UN hoped to raise $10bn (£7.3bn) from governments and donors at a virtual two-day pledging conference for Syria – the biggest appeal yet to help both people inside and those displaced outside the country.
Commission security proposal would restrict UK access to Horizon Europe quantum computing project
Britain will join China in being locked out of research with the EU on cutting-edge quantum technology, such as new breeds of supercomputers, due to security concerns under a European commission proposal opposed by academics and 19 member states.
At a meeting on Friday, commission officials said the EU needed to keep control of intellectual property on key projects and that working with even close allies such as the UK and Switzerland opened up an unacceptable risk.
Murders of two volunteers and a nurse come one day after relaunch of national vaccination campaign
Two female volunteers and a nurse working door to door to vaccinate children against polio were shot dead by gunmen in two separate incidents in the Afghan city of Jalalabad on Tuesday.
On the same day, government officials confirmed that an explosion had rocked Jalalabad’s health ministry headquarters but no casualties were reported.
Political earthquake rattles country already grappling with one of the world’s worst coronavirus outbreaks
Jair Bolsonaro’s crisis-stricken administration has been rocked by the sudden sacking of Brazil’s defence minister and the subsequent resignation of the heads of all three branches of the armed forces.
The commanders of the Brazilian army, navy and air force – Gen Edson Leal Pujol, Adm Ilques Barbosa and Lt-Brig Antônio Carlos Bermudez – met with the president’s new minister on Tuesday morning and reportedly tendered their resignations during a dramatic and heated encounter. On Tuesday afternoon the defence ministry confirmed all three would be replaced, a political earthquake that rattled a country already grappling with one of the world’s worst coronavirus outbreaks.
Ship likely to be centre of protracted legal battle over what caused it to run aground in the Suez and who is to blame
After hauling its 220,000-ton bulk down the Suez canal a week after blocking the essential waterway, the Ever Given container ship is likely to become the centre of a protracted battle over who will pay for its rescue.
The 400-metre-long vessel was aground on the banks of the Suez canal for a week, causing an estimated £7bn loss each day in trade owing to ships stuck on either side, and up to £10.9m a day for the canal. “We managed to refloat the ship in record time. If such a crisis had occurred anywhere else in the world, it would have taken three months to be solved,” said Osama Rabie, the head of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA).
People joked it could be nuclear code but real explanation is every social media manager’s nightmare
The perils of working from home while managing the social media account of a major military power have been thrown into sharp relief after the US Strategic Command tweeted a confusing string of gibberish.
Thirteen mysterious characters long, the tweet – “;l;;gmlxzssaw” – prompted some on social media to jokingly suggest it was confidential information, for example a password or a nuclear launch code, that had accidentally been leaked.
Banned firm Top Glove also supplied NHS hospitals, prompting calls for guarantees on PPE sources
Top Glove, the world’s largest manufacturer of rubber gloves, has been banned from exporting its products from Malaysia to the United States after the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) made a finding that its products are made using forced and indentured labour.
Rubber medical gloves from a Malaysian manufacturer will be seized if they enter the US due to “conclusive evidence” they are being made by workers under conditions of modern slavery, the CBP said.
The director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said a pandemic treaty would help to tackle gaps exposed by Covid-19, strengthen implementation of international health regulations and provide a framework for cooperation in areas such as pandemic prevention and response.
He underlined the importance of taking action now, saying that 'the world cannot afford to wait until the pandemic is over to start planning for the next one'.
Latin American countries scramble to protect themselves from a country where nearly 60,000 people are expected to die in March alone
It has long been regarded as a soft power superpower, the sun-kissed, culturally blessed land of Bossa Nova, Capoeira and Pelé.
But Brazil’s shambolic response to coronavirus under far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has cast Latin America’s largest country in an unfamiliar and unpleasant role: that of a Covid-riddled, science-shunning, politically-unstable outcast on whom many regional neighbors are now shutting the door.