Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Public health groups are lobbying countries to commit a portion of their Covid-19 vaccine supplies to a “humanitarian buffer” that would be used to inoculate people living in rebel-held territories, those in asylum-seeker camps and others unlikely to receive vaccinations from their governments.
The emergency stockpile is intended to act as a safety net to ensure the global effort to end the Covid-19 pandemic is not sabotaged by governments using vaccines as bargaining chip with restive populations, or simply denying it to some marginalised groups.
At this weekend’s meeting in Riyadh, leaders will urge action to free up resources to help stricken developing countries combat Covid-19
From his house in Nairobi, banker turned financial vlogger James Mumo contemplated the state of Kenya’s post-pandemic economy. “It’s hopeless for a normal businessperson just trying to make a living for their family,” he says.
The economic crisis caused by the pandemic and ensuing lockdowns has left many struggling: 1.7 million Kenyans lost their jobs between April and June 2020, while 20.8 million borrowed funds using a programme provided by popular mobile carrier Safaricom, double last year’s number. One financial services conglomerate headquartered in Nairobi bought a yard to store all the cars it had repossessed after customers couldn’t repay their loans.
With potential injectable vaccines estimated to be out of reach for two-thirds of world’s population, scientists hope to find less-heat-sensitive formulations
News that one of the potential coronavirus vaccines had at least a 90% efficacy rate was a “victory for science”, said K Srinath Reddy, a cardiologist and president of the Public Health Foundation of India. But it meant little to his country’s 1.3 billion citizens.
“For us, the Pfizer vaccine is more of a scientific curiosity than a practical possibility,” Reddy said.
Marshall is asked if he admits there have been shortcomings in South Australia’s hotel quarantine system.
“Not at all. There will be a thorough investigation but what we have said since day one is this is a highly contagious disease ... we know that, very highly trained nurses and with all of their PPE, they have been able to contract the disease, so we know there is a risk associated with every time we bring somebody into this country,” he says.
Al-Hudood (the Limits) has attracted ire of authorities in Middle East since 2013
A groundbreaking Arabic satirical news site that skewers the Middle East’s politicians and pieties – dodging the ire of hostile governments and their online supporters – has launched an English language edition.
Inflatables taken on marches to mock authorities protect protesters from police violence
On the frontline of Thailand’s pro-democracy protests a new and unlikely mascot has emerged: a giant, inflatable duck.
When demonstrators tried to get past concrete barricades and gather outside parliament on Tuesday, they faced a police response that rights groups have described as unnecessary and excessive. The protesters, who are calling for democratic reforms including curbs on the power of the monarchy, were repeatedly fired at with teargas and water cannon. Some of the water blasts contained chemical irritants.
Isolated from the rest of the planet since February, group learned about virus sweeping the globe but have escaped its impact – until now
In February, just as the coronavirus pandemic began to take hold, four people set sail for one of the most remote places on Earth — a small camp on Kure Atoll, at the edge of the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
There, more than 2,200km from Honolulu, they lived in isolation for nearly nine months while working to restore the island’s environment.
US left with few allies as it tries to change wording on topic of reproductive healthcare
The outgoing Trump administration’s final days at the United Nations have resulted in a deepening of US isolation on social and health issues, with only a handful of allies including Russia, Belarus and Syria.
In one vote this week, the US was entirely alone in backing its own amendment to a seemingly uncontroversial resolution about efforts to treat medical complications from childbirth. It called for the removal of references to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Population Fund.
Hundreds have already died. The dangers are multiplying for the country and the region
On Tuesday, two weeks after launching military action, the Ethiopian prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, announced a “final and conclusive” push against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. Few expect it to be so easy. The TPLF, which dominated Ethiopian politics for years but has been sidelined since Mr Abiy rose to power, has a long history of guerrilla warfare and heavily armed forces.
While each side blames the other for the conflict, civilians are bearing the brunt. Tens of thousands of people have fled from Tigray to Sudan. Hundreds are reported dead, though the severing of communications with the north-west region means that news from there is sporadic and unreliable. Refugees have described both sides committing atrocities against civilians. Aid workers leaving the region report a chaotic and rapidly shifting situation; their departure from an area where many already went hungry will deepen suffering.
Thousands of protesters rallied for a second day in Bangkok to condemn police use of teargas and chemical-laced water cannon jets against them. Demonstrators gathered outside the national police headquarters, hurling blue and yellow paint and spraying graffiti fiercely critical of the country's king. More than 50 people were injured during the violent clashes with police earlier in the week sparking calls for changes to the constitution, reform of the monarchy and the removal of the prime minister
Hundreds have been killed and tens of thousands forced to flee their homes in Ethiopia, Africa's second most populous country, as federal troops battle rebels in the northern Tigray region.
The Guardian's Jason Burke explains what sparked the conflict, why it threatens to destabilise the Horn of Africa – and examines how the prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, the continent's youngest leader, has gone from winning a Nobel peace prize to presiding over a bloody conflict against the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF)
The trips on Wednesday and Thursday marked the first time a US secretary of state had officially visited settlements, a deeply provocative move that previous American administrations went to lengths to avoid.
After single sighting in 20 years of surveys, new expedition and analysis bring 58
When the Antarctic blue whale – the largest and loudest animal on the planet – was all but wiped out by whaling 50 years ago, the waters around South Georgia fell silent.
Twenty years of dedicated whale surveys from ships off the sub-Antarctic island between 1998 and 2018 resulted in only a single blue whale sighting. But a whale expedition this year and analysis by an international research team resulted in 58 blue whale sightings and numerous acoustic detections, raising hopes that the critically endangered mammal is finally recovering five decades after whaling was banned.
Letting the virus that causes Covid-19 circulate more-or-less freely is dangerous not only because it risks overwhelming hospitals and so endangering lives unnecessarily, but also because it could delay the evolution of the virus to a more benign form and potentially even make it more lethal.
Though the data is still sketchy and the measures crude, this effect may already be influencing the difference in death rates between Sweden – which took a relaxed approach to containment until recently – and Norway, whose measures have been much stricter. Sweden has more than three times as many deaths per 100 cases as its neighbour.
When you serve in the executive branch, you are required to take an oath of office on your first day. Your oath is not to the president of the United States but to the Constitution and the American people. When Emily accepted this leadership role, she also accepted the responsibility to make the tough choices. This is one of those times.
Make no mistake, I absolutely want the Trump campaign to expose fraud, if it is there. As a father, small business owner and lifelong Republican, I do not want a Joe Biden presidency. I simply do not agree with Joe Biden on how to move America forward. But, as an American, I know elections have consequences and my support of our Constitution outweighs my distress at who will be in the Oval Office.
New claims for unemployment benefits in the US rose to 742,000 last week. It is the first increase since early October, as a surge in coronavirus cases keeps a tight check on the US economic recovery.
More than 21 million Americans are currently claiming some form of unemployment insurance.
Even with news of two promising vaccines, the consumer spending that powers the nation’s economic growth could shrivel amid extended business closures.
While the holiday season traditionally brings enormous sales volume for retailers, restaurants, and movie theaters, many are facing a challenging season. Travel is at a near-standstill, consumers’ wallets are already tightly squeezed, and extended pandemic unemployment assistance is set to expire by the end of December.
The economic pain from the coronavirus pandemic continues. The U.S. Department of Labor just reported that another 742,000 unemployed Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits just last week. Meanwhile, there’s still no badly needed Covid-19 economic stimulus package.
Red flag: 4.4 million Americans are receiving "Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation," up from 1.4 million in August.
That's the program for people who have been unemployed for months and exhausted their regular UI.
Lord Goldsmith says Britain, the second biggest per capita producer of plastic waste, could play leading role in tackling crisis
Britain has thrown its weight behind a new global agreement to tackle the plastic pollution crisis, which Lord Goldsmith said would go “far beyond” existing international agreements.
This week, the Guardian revealed there is growing support for such a treaty internationally, but that neither the UK nor the US, the world’s biggest per capita producers of plastic waste, had yet pledged their support.
Exclusive: three years on, some of the Saudi detainees reveal what they say took place
In early November 2017, nearly 400 of Saudi Arabia’s most powerful people, among them princes, tycoons and ministers, were rounded up and detained in the Ritz-Carlton hotel, in what became the biggest and most contentious purge in the modern kingdom’s history.
The arrests shook the foundations of Saudi society, in an instant turning untouchable establishment figures into targets for arrest. Statuses were discarded, assets seized and business empires upended. A conventional pact between the state and its influential elite was shredded overnight.
BLM protests and fresh historical evidence are raising questions over the legacy of the founder of modern Switzerland, Alfred Escher
Alfred Escher wielded so much power and influence during his lifetime that he was nicknamed King Alfred I. An immense bronze statue of modern Switzerland’s founding father stands, fittingly, in front of Zurich’s main train station. Escher was a politician, but he was also an entrepreneur who founded the country’s railway network along with its leading university and the banking giant Credit Suisse.
The statue in Zurich has memorialised Escher for more than 100 years, but it may not be there much longer. A recently published study on Zurich’s involvement in slavery details problematic connections to Escher. The Escher dynasty owned a coffee plantation in Cuba with more than 80 slaves and Escher himself was involved in its sale.
Second devastating hurricane in two weeks lashes fragile nation and leaves villages submerged
Nery Benitez was working shifts as a baggage handler at San Pedro Sula’s airport when it got flooded by Hurricane Eta. This week it was inundated again as Hurricane Iota struck.
“I had gone seven months without work and three days after I got called back this flooding happened,” the 50-year-old said. “We have family and children. How are we going to feed them?”