Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
African-led study expected to involve 1,600 people over next three years in Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa
The first trial in Africa to test two new vaccines to protect against HIV got under way in Uganda this week, raising hopes of an end to the epidemic that affects millions of people across the continent.
The African-led PrEPVacc study will test two experimental combination vaccines to see if they can provide any protection against HIV in people most at risk of infection.
Last week it was revealed that more than $300,000 from the public purse was spent in defamation proceedings after the speaker of the New Zealand parliament, Trevor Mallard, wrongly accused a former parliamentary staffer of being a rapist. On Wednesday Mallard fronted up to parliament’s governance and administration committee and apologised to the house and all New Zealanders for his “mistake”, a word he used three times in the first 90 seconds of the hearing.
Reading from a prepared statement, Mallard acknowledged his mistake was in saying that the allegations against the individual, in the context of the 2019 Francis review into bullying and harassment of staff at parliament, amounted to rape, that his understanding of the definition of rape at that time was incorrect and that the alleged conduct did not amount to rape.
The United States on Thursday surpassed a total of 17m coronavirus cases, with infections rising by more than a million a week during the early winter surge – while at the start of the year it took three months for the US to accumulate its first million cases.
Nearly a quarter of a million new coronavirus infections and more than 3,600 deaths had been reported just on Wednesday, shattering previous records as the national vaccination campaign against Covid-19 began rolling out across the country this week.
To Australia (where your correspondent currently sits):
The state of Victoria has imposed a ‘traffic light’ restriction system on travellers from New South Wales from tonight.
We are very strongly advising all Victorians not to travel to Sydney. As conditions are expected to deteriorate, and you may not be able to re-enter Victoria without undertaking quarantining for 14 days.
Don’t come from Sydney if you’re planning to come to Melbourne... it won’t be a holiday. It won’t be a Christmas. It won’t be the Christmas or the holiday you were planning. The situation in NSW and Sydney is rapidly evolving.
There are no restrictions on movement in the northern beaches in Sydney, but here is an indication people are complying with requests to stay home, from the MP for Mackellar.
Over the decades many of the city’s stone markers have been submerged in concrete, but a plan is underway to restore them
Buried for years under Mumbai’s new roads and ever-increasing layers of development, the British passion for cartography is set to rise up on the city’s streets again thanks to a project to preserve its colonial milestones.
When workers from Mumbai municipal corporation (BMC) were demolishing unauthorised buildings three years ago, they unearthed a basalt stone marker with a pyramidal top and a Roman numeral on it – a British milestone and one of 16 laid out in the early 19th century on the road between Horniman Circle and Sion, then the city’s outer limit.
Twenty houses and a community hall destroyed on Vanua Levu in second category-5 storm to hit country in 2020
At least two people have died and an unknown number of homes and buildings were destroyed when category-5 Cyclone Yasa tore through Fiji’s second-largest island Vanua Levu on Thursday night.
By Friday morning the full extent of the damage was yet to be revealed as many parts of the affected island remained without communications and were cut off by flood waters.
Wildlife photographer Lee-Anne Carver is trying to share Carrot’s plight in hopes of saving injured deer
The Canadian winter can be tough for deer, as temperatures plummet and food becomes scarce. But Carrot, a whitetail buck living in northern Ontario, faces an additional challenge: he has an arrow sticking out of his head.
“It’s been really tough to see,” said Lee-Anne Carver, a wildlife photographer in the city of Kenora, who named the young animal. “I’ve been photographing animals for years and there’s something special about Carrot. He’s unlike any deer I’ve ever met.”
Finnegan Lee Elder and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth are on trial for the death of Mario Cerciello Rega in Rome
The US student who admitted stabbing a policeman in Rome last year was shaking and crying inside a police station after learning the attack was fatal, his mother has testified at his trial.
Finnegan Lee Elder, 20, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 19, face life sentences for the July 2019 death of police officer Mario Cerciello Rega during a botched drug bust in Rome while they were on holiday.
Katsina state governor reveals rescue in televised interview, after abduction claimed by Boko Haram
More than 300 schoolboys kidnapped in northern Nigeria have been rescued, the Katsina state governor has said.
The 344 boys, whose abduction was claimed by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, were on their way back to Katsina, Aminu Masari told the state broadcaster on Thursday.
US confirmed 247,403 new cases on Wednesday and 3,656 Americans died of the coronavirus in a single day
The United States on Thursday surpassed a total of 17m coronavirus cases, with infections rising by more than a million a week during the early winter surge – while at the start of the year it took three months for the US to accumulate its first million cases.
Nearly a quarter million new coronavirus infections and more than 3,600 deaths had been reported just on Wednesday, shattering previous records as the national vaccination campaign against Covid-19 began rolling out across the country this week.
One in three on Aegean isles have contemplated suicide amid EU containment policies, report reveals
Years of entrapment on Aegean islands has resulted in a mental health crisis for thousands of refugees, with one in three contemplating suicide, a report compiled by psychosocial support experts has revealed.
Containment policies pursued by the EU have also spurred ever more people to attempt to end their lives, according to the report released by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) on Thursday.
Analysis: amid constitutional changes and Navalny poisoning, Russian president strives to maintain power
For a man who has spent much of 2020 in social isolation, it has been a busy year for Vladimir Putin. He changed Russia’s constitution to allow himself to stay in power potentially until 2036; acted to retain influence over his “near abroad” as protests erupted in Belarus and conflict flared in Nagorno-Karabakh; and, according to a wealth of evidence released this week, ordered the assassination of his leading political opponent with a chemical weapon.
As news breaks of one of the biggest and most significant hacks of the US government in history, with Russia the prime suspect, it seems that Putin and his intelligence services may have retained their appetite for audacious, controversial moves, six years after the annexation of Crimea and four years after the alleged interference to aid Donald Trump’s election campaign.
Poland will enter a national quarantine from 28 December to 17 January, during which all hotels, ski slopes and shopping malls will close, the health minister, Adam Niedzielski, said on Thursday.
“I call on every Pole to be responsible for themselves and their loved ones. But I know that calls won’t help,” Niedzielski told a news conference.
One of Ukraine’s best known veteran politicians, Gennady Kernes, died in Germany early on Thursday from Covid-19 complications, local authorities and members of his family said.
Mayor of the largest eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, Kernes, 61, went into politics after making his fortune in the post-communist 1990s.
Member states blame uncertainty over Brexit as reason for breach of next year’s limits
Fish populations will continue to be over-exploited in EU waters, partly as a result of Brexit, after a decision on next year’s fishing quotas among EU countries fell well short of scientific advice.
Fishing limits are set to exceed scientific advice for about a third of EU fish stocks, after EU ministers met on Thursday morning, with EU member states citing the uncertainty regarding fishing rights after Brexit as a reason for breaching limits on sustainable catches.
The king of Sweden said his country's handling of the coronavirus pandemic had been a failure and sharply criticised policies partly blamed for a high death toll among elderly people.
Carl XVI Gustaf used an annual royal Christmas television address to highlight the growing impact of the virus as hospitals in the Stockholm region warned they were struggling to cope with a surge in cases and polls showed public confidence in the authorities had plunged
Vladimir Putin has denied Russia was behind the poisoning of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, calling a recent investigation by Bellingcat a “falsification”.
“Who needs to poison him,” he said during a nationally televised press conference, denying that Russia’s FSB spy agency was involved. “If they’d wanted to [poison him] then they probably would have finished the job.”
Release of 18 men seized by Khalifa Haftar’s forces ends standoff between countries
Eighteen Italian fishermen, held captive in Libya for more than 100 days, have been freed, ending a political standoff between the two countries over the fate of the men.
The prolonged imprisonment of the group had become an embarrassment for Italy’s government, with critics accusing ministers of failing to stand up to Khalifa Haftar, the military commander who holds sway in eastern Libya.
Emmanuel Macron has been diagnosed with Covid-19 after developing symptoms, the Élysée Palace has announced, forcing several other European leaders who had recently met the French president into self-isolation.
In a brief statement on Thursday, the palace said Macron had a PCR test as soon as the symptoms had appeared and would “self-isolate for seven days in line with the health protocol applicable to everyone”.