Biden calls for quicker distribution of Covid vaccines, while Trump points out he predicted vaccine’s arrival
In a New Year’s Eve message, Donald Trump reflected on his accomplishments in office, calling them “historic victories”, while his incoming successor, Joe Biden, struck an upbeat tone in looking ahead to 2021.
After weeks of fighting to remain in office, Trump said in a video posted on Twitter: “We have to be remembered for what’s been done.”
Continue reading...Criminal networks are depending on the chaos of Covid and Brexit. Now more than ever we need focus and international cooperation to prevent further tragedies
Trials in the UK of the drivers and haulage organisers involved in the Essex lorry tragedy in which 39 Vietnamese migrants perished ended in guilty pleas and convictions. Vietnam also convicted the agents who brokered the victims’ journeys to the UK and sentenced them to terms of imprisonment.
While these are positive developments in achieving some measure of justice for the victims, they won’t do anything to stem the smuggling and trafficking of Vietnamese migrants to the UK. No justice system has reached the actual masterminds and profiteers behind this horrific crime: the organised crime groups.
Continue reading...In 2021, the world will slowly begin to fight back against Covid. But what else will change as the vaccines are administered? Here are the figures who will shape a vital year
Joe Biden United States
Continue reading...A popular actor was accused of harassment – now those who spoke against him are being charged under law meant to protect women
It takes a lot to rattle Leena Ghani. As an artist turned activist helping to raise the voices of Pakistan’s women, she has often fielded abuse, threats and harassment.
But when she learned, on a morning in late September, that police had charged her for criminal defamation, linked to Pakistan’s most high-profile #MeToo case, Ghani says she was shaken. “In terms of silencing and demonising people speaking out against sexual assault, it was a new low even for Pakistan,” she says.
Continue reading...Bangladesh authorities under pressure from rights activists including Bianca Jagger over detention of Abul Karam
Bangladesh authorities are facing calls to release a Rohingya man arrested while photographing the transfer of refugees to a controversial island camp this week.
Abul Kalam, 35, has been held since Monday morning when he was reportedly beaten before being taken to police barracks near the Kutupalong refugee camp, where he has lived since leaving Myanmar as a child refugee in the early 1990s.
Continue reading...The new year has been welcomed in parts of the world with mostly muted celebrations as coronavirus lockdowns and curfews quashed large gatherings. Sydney's famed fireworks display played out to a largely empty harbour, while Vietnam's success tackling Covid-19 saw large crowds meet in Hanoi. In Europe, Paris's famed streets were empty as the clock struck midnight, while Berlin's ban on fireworks was ignored by some. In London, Big Ben chimed at the start of 2021, just one hour after the same bells marked the UK's exit from the EU
Boy, 13, killed in Italy and fires across Berlin as people respond to public fireworks bans by letting them off at home
Banned from setting off fireworks in much of their city, some Berliners instead tried to launch them from their homes on New Year’s Eve, leading to dozens of fires across the German capital.
By six minutes after midnight, the Berlin fire service had been called to 18 fires, with more following. No one was initially reported seriously injured.
Continue reading...Tehran says it will defend itself forcefully as tensions rise ahead of anniversary of Suleimani killing
The Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on Thursday accused Donald Trump of attempting to fabricate a pretext to attack Iran, and said Tehran would defend itself forcefully.
Separately, a military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader warned Trump “not to turn the New Year into mourning for Americans”.
Continue reading...Rod Phillips steps down as finance minister of Canada’s most populous province, adding to pressure on the premier, Doug Ford
The finance minister for Canada’s most populous province has resigned after going on a Caribbean vacation during the pandemic and apparently trying to hide the fact by sending social media posts showing him in a sweater before a fireplace.
Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, said on Thursday he had accepted Rod Phillips’s resignation as minister hours after Phillips returned home from a more than two-week stay on the island of St Barts despite government guidelines urging people to avoid non-essential travel.
Continue reading...Latest updates: only 2.8 million Americans inoculated when target was 20 million by end of 2020; UK reports nearly 1,000 further deaths
France’s health minister, Olivier Véran, has said the country will open Covid-19 vaccination centres in cities before the start of February, amid growing criticism the programme is rolling out too slowly.
Véran said on Twitter the government had decided to “speed up protection of priority public”, meaning medical workers aged over 50 would get a vaccine from Monday.
Just under half of all major hospital trusts in England have more Covid-19 patients than at the peak of the first wave of the virus, latest figures show.
Some 64 out of 140 acute NHS trusts were recording a higher number of Covid-19 patients at 8am on 30 December than at any point between mid-March and the end of May.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson signed his post-Brexit trade deal with the European Union on Wednesday, adding his signature to that of EU chiefs after the document was flown from Brussels to London
Continue reading...Seizures of the synthetic opioid fentanyl by Mexican security forces have increased by at least 486% in 2020, the country’s defence secretary has announced.
Mexico’s military and police forces seized an estimated 1.3 tons of the synthetic opioid this year, compared to 222 kilograms in 2019.
Continue reading...The cover-up has to stop – and with it, the huge sums in aid for a country with oppressive policies towards Palestinians
Every recent US administration has performed a perverse ritual as it has come into office. All have agreed to undermine US law by signing secret letters stipulating they will not acknowledge something everyone knows: that Israel has a nuclear weapons arsenal.
Part of the reason for this is to stop people focusing on Israel’s capacity to turn dozens of cities to dust. This failure to face up to the threat posed by Israel’s horrific arsenal gives its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a sense of power and impunity, allowing Israel to dictate terms to others.
Continue reading...Twenty-six residents have died and 85 more have tested positive for coronavirus since visit in Mol
At least 26 residents of a Belgian retirement home have died since a visit by a volunteer dressed as Saint Nicholas who has since tested positive for Covid-19.
The deaths at the Hemelrijck home in Mol, near Antwerp, have prompted the local municipality to criticise the “completely irresponsible” organisers of the festive visit, although the cause of the infection is not yet certain.
Continue reading...British and Spanish negotiators have reached a draft agreement on the future of Gibraltar after Brexit. Spain’s foreign minister, Arancha González Laya, welcomed the deal which she said meant the British Overseas Territory on the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula would be able to join EU programmes and policies such as Schengen
Continue reading...Yolanda Coar was 40 when she died of Covid-19 in August this year in Augusta, Georgia. She was also a nurse manager, and one of nearly 3,000 frontline workers who have died in the US fighting this virus, according to an exclusive investigation by the Guardian and Kaiser Health News.
The Guardian has profiled hundreds of healthcare workers in a year-long project. Read their stories here
Continue reading...British overseas territory had been left out of deal announced on Christmas Eve
A last-minute deal between the UK and Spain – agreed just hours before Gibraltar was poised to become the only frontier marked by a hard Brexit – will allow for free movement between the British overseas territory and much of the EU.
“Today is a day for hope,” Spain’s foreign minister, Arancha González Laya, said on Thursday as she announced that an agreement in principle had been reached. “In the long history of our relations with the UK, related to Gibraltar, today we’re facing a turning point.”
Continue reading...Assault reportedly targeted Syrian regime soldiers returning to their posts in Deir ez-Zor, near Iraq border
At least 37 people in Syria have been killed in one of the biggest attacks carried out by Islamic State since the fall of the self-proclaimed caliphate last year.
The assault on Wednesday reportedly targeted a convoy of Syrian regime soldiers and militiamen returning from leave to their posts in Deir ez-Zor province, a mainly desert area on the border with Iraq.
Continue reading...From the racial wealth gap to the ‘forever chemicals’ poisoning our bodies, there is no shortage of stories that need to be told
It would be comforting to think that 2021 will offer a break from some of the challenges of 2020. There is an understandable yearning for some relief, some light, or at least a brief pause so that we can find a new equilibrium, whatever that may look like.
Related: Congressman-elect Kai Kahele represents an 'awakened generation' of Native Hawaiians
Continue reading...Multibillion-dollar project is unnecessary and damaging to wildlife, say scientists
Australia is planning to build Antarctica’s biggest infrastructure project: a new airport and runway that would increase the human footprint in the world’s greatest wilderness by an estimated 40%.
The mega-scheme is likely to involve blasting petrel rookeries, disturbing penguin colonies and encasing a stretch of the wilderness in more than 115,000 tonnes of concrete.
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