Milestone ruling follows campaign for justice after township violence in wake of 2019 presidential elections
The supreme court of Malawi has ordered that police authorities pay compensation to 18 women allegedly raped by officers during post-election violence two years ago.
The decision is seen as a milestone development in women’s rights in the country.
Continue reading...Strict rules to be gradually relaxed from next week; situation in French capital ‘especially worrying’ says health minister
Romanian authorities have temporarily stopped vaccinating people with one batch of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine as an “extreme precaution” while deaths in Italy are investigated, but are continuing to use other doses from the company, a health agency said.
Italian health authorities have ordered the withdrawal of a batch of AstraZeneca’s vaccine following the deaths of two men in Sicily who were recently inoculated, a source close to the matter said.
This decision was made as a measure of extreme precaution without there being a scientific argument present in Romania to justify it,” Romania’s national committee in charge of COVID-19 vaccination said in a statement.
The decision to quarantine the respective batch was made exclusively based on the event reported in Italy.”
Novavax Inc’s Covid-19 vaccine was 96% effective in preventing cases caused by the original version of the coronavirus in a late-stage trial conducted in the UK, the company said, moving it a step closer to regulatory approval.
The vaccine was also about 86% effective in protecting against the more contagious virus variant first discovered and now prevalent in the UK.
Related: Novavax Covid vaccine shows nearly 90% efficacy in UK trial
Continue reading...UK foreign secretary Dominic Raab accuses Beijing of hollowing out the space for democratic debate
China’s rubber stamping parliamentary body has unanimously – bar one abstention and to sustained and loud applause – approved new laws ensuring that only people it deems “patriots” can govern Hong Kong, in a move critics say signals the end of the city’s remaining autonomy.
The final meeting of the National People’s Congress (NPC) at the annual “two sessions” political gathering also approved new domestic amendments and budgets, and the 14th five-year-plan, intended to strengthen and expand China’s domestic technology industry and market, and reach new GDP and population targets amid economic uncertainty and declining birth rates.
Continue reading...British-drafted UN statement watered down by China, Russia, India and Vietnam, as Amnesty says military using battlefield weapons on protesters
The United Nations has condemned the Myanmar military’s violent crackdown against anti-coup demonstrators as seven more people were reported shot dead in protests on Thursday.
Local media, witnesses and medics said six people were shot dead in the central town of Myaing when security forces opened fire on anti-junta protests and domestic media said one man was killed in the North Dagon district of Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city.
Continue reading...The collapse of ecotourism during the pandemic and moves to lease land to big farms threaten vital conservation corridors
Kenyan elephants risk a slow extinction in a bleak, ever-shrinking “ecological island” in one of the country’s most picturesque and photographed landscapes, according to a government report.
The animals face a grim future as habitat loss is exacerbated by the pandemic’s impact on tourism, which is pushing landowners to sell off areas for development, and a growing trend towards a sedentary lifestyle among the pastoralist Maasai people, says the new 10-year management plan.
Continue reading...An insomniac student is haunted by a demonic figure in this flamboyant and stylised waking dream of a film
There is something visionary about this near-nonsensical, kitsch but atmospheric techno-thriller from Canadian director Anthony Scott Burns. Drawn along on dark somnambulic rhythms, it incorporates elements of fantasy, horror and 80s synthwave aesthetics without giving itself over completely to any of them.
A wordless first 10 minutes introduces us to Sarah (Julia Sarah Stone), a runaway student apparently unwelcome or unwilling to return home, waking in spectrally lit parks and falling asleep in coffee shops. Dropping suddenly into surrealistic CGI dreams that track inexorably towards a demonic figure who, if approached too closely, wakes her with a start. Sarah decides to try and climb out of this insomniac bath by enrolling in a university sleep study. It is overseen by Dr Meyer, a Cronenbergian academic in big glasses, but run by a trio of researchers who, like the memory technicians in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, have a loose relationship with scientific protocol. Becoming close to Jeremy (Landon Liboiron), she learns that they are using pioneering technology to observe the subjects’ dreams – and that the same shadowy presence manifests in all of them.
Continue reading...Huge waves swept across swathes of the north-east coast after one of the strongest quakes ever recorded, triggering a nuclear meltdown
Japan has observed a moment’s silence to mark the 10th anniversary of an earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 18,000 people and triggered a nuclear meltdown in Fukushima.
At 2:46 pm, the moment Japan’s north-east coast was struck by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake on 11 March 2011, people attending private and public service across the affected region bowed and fell silent, some clasping their hands in prayer.
Continue reading...As the George Floyd murder trial opens in Minneapolis, the city councillor talks about coming out as trans, the prejudices she has had to overcome – and how policing must change
Andrea Jenkins lives just a few blocks away from 38th and Chicago, the crossroads in Minneapolis where George Floyd was killed on 25 May last year. She spent two decades of her life working to revitalise the community there, and kicked off her 2017 campaign for the city council’s Eighth ward in an arts centre a few yards away.
After Floyd’s death, when the crossroads became a space for collective mourning, Jenkins visited every day. But in the midst of a bitter Minneapolis winter and with the neighbourhood reeling from the long-term effects of Floyd’s death, Jenkins hasn’t been in months.
Continue reading...Everything from online news to social media and streaming platforms are captured by the regulations, branded ‘palpably illegal’ by opponents
Not long before he was elected as India’s prime minister in 2014, Narendra Modi spoke of his dreams of a “digital India”, where “access to information knows no barriers”.
But this week, unprecedented barriers on every form of digital content, from online news to social media and films and television on streaming platforms, came into force, making India’s digital realm one of the most heavily regulated of any major democracy.
Continue reading...Researchers in Murcia find exquisite objects at women’s graves later used as sites for elite warrior burials
A burial site found in Spain – described by archaeologists as one of the most lavish bronze age graves discovered to date in Europe – has sparked speculation that women may have been among the rulers of a highly stratified society that flourished on the Iberian peninsula until 1550BC.
Since 2013, a team of more than a dozen researchers have been investigating the site of La Almoloya in the southern Spanish region of Murcia.
Continue reading...Final tally was 220 to 211, with one Democrat and all Republicans voting against the measure
A deeply divided Congress passed a landmark $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill on Wednesday, delivering the first major legislative victory of Joe Biden’s presidency and a sweeping promise to raise millions of Americans out of poverty.
Continue reading...Victor Obiols told he had wrong ‘profile’, the second case after Dutch writer resigned from same role
The Catalan translator for the poem that American writer Amanda Gorman read at US president Joe Biden’s inauguration has said he has been removed from the job because he had the wrong “profile”.
It was the second such case in Europe after Dutch writer Marieke Lucas Rijneveld resigned from the job of translating Gorman’s work following criticism that a black writer was not chosen.
Continue reading...Addressing the nation, Brazil’s former president left no doubt that his political fightback had begun
Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has excoriated Jair Bolsonaro’s “moronic” and bungling response to the coronavirus pandemic, in a stirring and potentially historic address widely seen as the start of a bid to wrestle the presidency back from his far-right nemesis.
The veteran leftist, who led Latin America’s top economy through some of the brightest years in its modern history, was catapulted back onto the frontline of Brazilian politics on Monday by the surprise decision to quash the corruption convictions that scuppered his bid to reclaim the presidency in 2018. On Tuesday a supreme court judge branded the anti-corruption operation that forced Lula from that year’s election “the greatest judicial scandal” in Brazilian history.
Continue reading...Internal figures leaked amid tit-for-tat with Boris Johnson over claims UK had export ban in place
A total of 34m doses of coronavirus vaccine have been exported from the EU despite shortages for people living in the bloc, including 9m sent to the UK and 1m to the US, which has a ban on sales abroad.
The internal figures were leaked as the EU was embroiled in a tit-for-tat with Boris Johnson over claims that the UK had an export ban in place.
Continue reading...Developers built windfarms with a total capacity of almost 100GW in 2020, a rise of nearly 60% on previous year
China built more new windfarm capacity in 2020 than the whole world combined in the year before, leading to an annual record for windfarm installations despite the Covid-19 pandemic.
A study has revealed that China led the world’s biggest ever increase in wind power capacity as developers built almost 100GW worth of windfarms last year – enough to power almost three times the number of homes in the UK and a rise of nearly 60% on the previous year.
Continue reading...Move follows almost a decade of division, with no stable government since fall of Gaddafi in 2011
Libya’s parliament has brushed aside allegations of corruption to endorse a new, unified government in which a woman was appointed as foreign minister for the first time.
Libya has been unable to form a stable unified government since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, with divisions between the east and west of the country leading to fighting and institutionalised division.
Continue reading...The bill passed by the House includes sweeping measures to try to tackle deep-rooted racial, gender and class inequalities in the US
The US House on Wednesday passed the huge $1.9tn coronavirus relief and economic stimulus package that represents Joe Biden’s first major legislative victory.
Related: Biden poised for first major legislative victory with House vote on $1.9tn Covid relief – live
Continue reading...Prospect of green focus for rescuing economies in danger unless swift action is taken, environment chief says
Governments around the world are failing to match their green rhetoric with action in rescuing their economies from the Covid-19 pandemic, the UN has warned, with prospects for a “green recovery” in danger unless swift action is taken.
Countries are spending an unprecedented $14.6tn (£10.5tn) on trying to prevent economic collapse, seeking to protect jobs and save businesses on the brink of ruin. However, a UN-backed analysis of 50 leading economies has found only $368bn, or about 18%, of the rescue spending so far can be regarded as green.
Continue reading...Demonstrators in North Okkalapa flee under fire, and junta units raid striking rail workers’ district
Police in Myanmar have surrounded and arrested at least 200 students and civilians protesting against the military coup on the outskirts of Yangon, according to witnesses who said those detained were driven away in unmarked trucks.
Video footage from North Okkalapa showed protesters fleeing under fire. At least one person appeared to be seriously wounded.
Continue reading...Exclusive: hopes raised for vaccine safety, although children, some of whom have cystic fibrosis, were not part of a clinical trial
Hundreds of children between the ages of 12 and 16 who have been given the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccination in Israel experienced no serious side-effects, a senior official has told the Guardian, one of the first signs that Covid-19 inoculations could be safe for minors before clinical trial results.
Israel’s health ministry has recommended vaccinating some teenagers if they suffer from underlying conditions that make them vulnerable to coronavirus.
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