Category Archives: World News

Coronavirus live news: WHO says vaccines won’t prevent short-term surge; Putin orders start of mass inoculation

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Health body says there won’t be enough doses to prevent new wave in cases in next six months; Russian president says programme should start next week

Morocco hopes to launch an ambitious vaccination campaign against the coronavirus by year-end, but its efforts have sparked suspicion and rumours in the country, hard-hit by the pandemic.

The North African kingdom is hoping to immunise 20 million adults against Covid-19 within three months, using vaccinations from China’s Sinopharm and a UK-sourced shot developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University.

Boris Johnson might be persuaded to take a Covid-19 vaccination on television to show it is safe but he would not have one before those in greater need, his press secretary has said.

Johnson, 56, who spent time in intensive care earlier this year after contracting Covid-19, has hailed the UK approval of Pfizer’s vaccine as a global win and ray of hope.

I don’t think it would be something he would rule out.

But I think we also know that he wouldn’t want to take a jab that should be for someone who is extremely vulnerable, clinically vulnerable, and who should be getting it before him.

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US justice department investigating ‘bribery-for-pardon’ scheme – live

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What is it about the French Laundry?

Another California politician, San Francisco mayor London Breed, is under fire after it was revealed that she attended a birthday party at the three-star Michelin restaurant in Napa Valley – just one night after governor Gavin Newsom did the same.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention plans to shorten its recommendation for how long individuals should quarantine after being exposed to someone with Covid-19, the AP reports.

Since the pandemic began, the CDC has recommended that individuals quarantine for 14 days after exposure. The new recommendations, which could be released later tonight, will recommend that individuals quarantine for 10 days after exposure, or seven days if they test negative for the disease.

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No-kill, lab-grown meat to go on sale for first time

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Singapore’s approval of chicken cells grown in bioreactors is seen as landmark moment across industry

Cultured meat, produced in bioreactors without the slaughter of an animal, has been approved for sale by a regulatory authority for the first time. The development has been hailed as a landmark moment across the meat industry.

The “chicken bites”, produced by the US company Eat Just, have passed a safety review by the Singapore Food Agency and the approval could open the door to a future when all meat is produced without the killing of livestock, the company said.

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Elliot Page: star of X-Men and Juno announces he is transgender

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Actor takes aim at transphobic politicians and ‘those with a massive platform who continue to spew hostility’, saying they ‘have blood on [their] hands’

Elliot Page, who rose to fame as the lead in teen pregnancy comedy Juno as Ellen Page, has announced he is transgender.

“Hi friends,” he wrote on a variety of social media platforms, “I want to share with you that I am trans, my pronouns are he/they and my name is Elliot.”

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Swedish-Iranian scientist faces ‘imminent risk of execution’ in Iran

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Ahmadreza Djalali had been sentenced to death on espionage charges

A Swedish-Iranian scientist sentenced to death in Iran on espionage charges may face execution as early as Wednesday, human rights groups and his wife have warned.

Ahmadreza Djalali was due to be taken from Evin prison to Rajai Shahr prison on Tuesday, a normal preliminary to an execution. Death sentences in Iran are often carried out on Wednesdays.

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China to collect first moon rocks since 1970s after successful probe landing

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Chang’e-5 spacecraft completes 112-hour journey from Earth, according to Beijing’s space agency

A Chinese probe sent to the moon to bring back the first lunar samples in four decades has successfully landed, according to Beijing’s space agency.

China has poured billions into its military-run space programme, with hopes of having a crewed space station by 2022 and eventually sending humans to the moon.

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Trier mayor says he is ‘speechless’ after car drives into pedestrians in German city – video

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A car drove at high speed into a pedestrian zone in the south-western German city of Trier on Tuesday, killing four people, including a baby, and seriously injuring 15, officials said. The driver, identified as a 51-year-old German man from the area, was arrested at the scene. 'We see these pictures again and again on television, and we always think that this cannot happen in Trier,' the mayor, Wolfram Leibe, said after visiting the site. 'I'm speechless'

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Brazil: armed robbers raid banks in Criciúma leaving streets littered with banknotes – video

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Bank robbers armed with military-grade weapons have laid siege to a city in southern Brazil, torching vehicles, kidnapping government workers, blowing up a bank and engaging in a two-hour gun battle as the mayor begged residents to stay indoors.

Mobile phone footage taken by terrified residents showed gunmen patrolling the streets of Criciúma as gunfire echoed across the city. After the ordeal, which lasted over two hours, the group made off, leaving hundreds of thousands of reais in banknotes littering the streets.

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Russian museum director who exposed Soviets to hidden masterpieces dies at 98

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Irina Antonova, head of Pushkin Museum for 52 years, brought Mona Lisa to Moscow despite cold war

A longtime museum director dubbed the grande dame of the Russian art world has died at 98, prompting an outpouring of grief and admiration for the woman who brought the Mona Lisa to Moscow and returned masterpieces hidden for decades from the Soviet public to her museum’s exhibition halls.

Irina Antonova, whose work at the Pushkin Museum began under Joseph Stalin and ended under Vladimir Putin, died on Monday evening of complications from the coronavirus. Her death was confirmed by the press service of the museum, where she served as director for 52 years from 1961 to 2013.

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Right-wing Hungarian MEP resigns for attending ‘sex party’ that broke Belgian lockdown

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Politician in Viktor Orbán’s party apologises as Belgian police arrest 25 men over gathering

A Hungarian MEP in Viktor Orbán’s rightwing party, spotted fleeing along a gutter to escape police raiding a “sex party” above a Brussels bar, has apologised for breaching Belgium’s lockdown rules.

József Szájer, a senior member of the Fidesz party who helped write Hungary’s constitution in 2011, was one of about 20 people, mainly men and including at least two EU diplomats, who attended a party held near the Grand Place in the Belgian capital’s historical centre on Friday evening.

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Swedish police arrest woman suspected of confining son for decades

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Woman, whose adult son is being treated in hospital, held on suspicion of illegal detention and grievous bodily harm

Stockholm police have arrested a woman suspected of keeping her 41-year-old son confined to their flat for almost three decades, police and local media have said.

Emma Olsson, a public prosecutor in charge of the preliminary investigation, said the 70-year-old woman, who denies any wrongdoing, was being held on suspicion of illegal detention and causing grievous bodily harm.

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Russian man confesses to killing more than 25 women, investigators say

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Radik Tagirov, 38, is said to have confessed to murders after being identified using DNA evidence and shoe prints

Russian investigators claim to have caught the man responsible for more than 25 murders attributed to a perpetrator known for years only as the “Volga maniac”.

Russia’s Investigative Committee said that the suspect, a 38-year-old man named Radik Tagirov, confessed to a string of 26 murders of elderly women that had terrorised central Russia between 2011 and 2012. He had been identified using DNA evidence, shoe prints, and other evidence from crime scenes, investigators said.

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Trump lawyer: ex-election security chief Krebs should be ‘taken out and shot’

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Joe DiGenova condemned for ‘mob attorney’ remark made on podcast shown on conservative Newsmax TV

A former head of US election security who said Donald Trump’s defeat by Joe Biden was not subject to voter fraud should be “taken out at dawn and shot”, a Trump campaign lawyer said.

Related: Trump's fraud claims undermine democracy, ex-US election security chief says

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Coronavirus live news: US may begin vaccinations before Christmas; Vietnam sees first case in three months

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WHO ‘will do everything’ to find Covid origin; Mexico and Brazil seeing ‘alarming’ case surge; Scott Atlas resigns as special adviser to Trump on coronavirus

Russia has reported a record 569 deaths linked to Covid-19 today, bringing the official death toll to 40,464.

Authorities also reported 26,402 new coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours, including 6,524 in the capital Moscow, bringing the national cumulative tally to 2,322,056.

Thanks to regular reader Scott Lafferty, who has been in touch to remind us that the Netherlands has today finally made face masks mandatory in indoor public spaces.

Face masks will be compulsory in all public buildings, shops, and stations from tomorrow as the coronavirus law comes into effect, and people who refuse to wear one face a fine of €95, reports Dutch News.

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‘Moving mountains’: How Pakistan’s ‘invisible’ women won workers’ rights

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Home workers in Sindh province are celebrating new social security benefits, after being denied lockdown funding

Shamim Bano has been an invisible worker for 40 years. Working 12-hour days from home as a “cropper” in the port city of Karachi, she cuts the loose threads off clothing and makes samosas to sell at schools.

Bano is paid about 25 Pakistani rupees (£0.10) a day. It’s a precarious existence for Pakistan’s home-based workers, without access to social security benefits or pensions. Most of these informal workers are women.

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Photo reveals Australian soldier drinking beer out of dead Taliban fighter’s prosthetic leg

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Exclusive: Image obtained by Guardian Australia shows limb being used to down drinks in a special forces bar in Afghanistan

Senior Australian special forces soldiers drank beer out of the prosthetic leg of a dead Taliban soldier at an unauthorised bar in Afghanistan – with a photograph of the act being revealed for the first time by Guardian Australia.

A number of photographs obtained by the Guardian show one senior soldier – who is still serving – sculling from the leg in an unofficial bar known as the Fat Lady’s Arms, which was set up inside Australia’s special forces base in Tarin Kowt, the capital of Uruzgan province, in 2009.

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Melania Trump swaps horror for tradition with lighter approach to Christmas decor

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Outgoing first lady unveils ‘America the beautiful’ theme in White House, breaking with previous years that featured blood red trees and bare branches

Apart from the odd nod to a funerary urn, first lady Melania Trump broke with tradition this year with her White House Christmas decorations, opting for fairly normal green trees with red and gold ornaments instead of the blood-red foliage or Shining-esque ghost-white branches of previous years.

This year’s theme, unveiled on Monday, was “America the beautiful”, inspired, she said, by Americans’ shared appreciation “for our traditions, values and history”.

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Kylie Moore-Gilbert thanks supporters after Iran prison release: ‘My freedom is your victory’

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British-Australian academic was held on espionage charges for more than 800 days

Freed academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert has paid tribute to her family, friends and colleagues who campaigned for her release while she was held in Iranian prisons for more than two years.

After 804 days in prison on espionage charges widely dismissed as baseless, Moore-Gilbert was released last week in a complex and dramatic prisoner swap for three convicted Iranian bombers in prison in Thailand.

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Europeans urged to quickly set out roadmap on Iran nuclear deal

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Diplomats call on UK, France and Germany to map out task facing incoming Biden administration

France, Germany and the UK must move quickly to set out a roadmap for Iran and the incoming Biden administration in the US to come back into compliance with the nuclear deal, some of Europe’s leading diplomats have said.

They warn that unless the three countries, known as the E3, coordinate a joint public statement setting out what both sides must do to end the impasse, there is a real risk that Joe Biden will come to power facing only escalating tensions with Iran.

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‘Stealing our culture’: South Koreans upset after China claims kimchi as its own

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Agriculture ministry drawn in to row after state media prompts backlash with claims that China leads global kimchi industry

Social media users in China and South Korea are embroiled in another row, this time over the provenance of kimchi, the fermented cabbage dish that most people recognise as an essential part of the Korean diet.

Not, though, in China, where state media have sparked an online backlash after one of the country’s fermented dishes received certification from the International Organisation for Standardisation [ISO].

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