Suspect, who is serving time for drug conviction, sustains two broken ribs in incident
A suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, the British toddler who vanished from a Portuguese resort 13 years ago, sustained two broken ribs in an incident in a German court, authorities have said.
The incident occurred after Christian Brückner, who is serving time for a drug conviction, was taken to Braunschweig state court on Monday for a routine hearing on that case.
Continue reading...Removing far-right president is top priority for many Brazilian leftists – but can they build the united front needed to defeat him?
When glad tidings of Donald Trump’s undoing reached Flávio Dino’s 18th-century palace in north-eastern Brazil, he felt delight.
“Trump was such a toxic figure,” said the Communist party governor of Maranhão state, a leading light of the Brazilian left. “Trump’s defeat is a victory for humanity.”
Continue reading...More than 1,600 officers involved in raids in Berlin following museum robbery last November
Police have raided apartments across Berlin and detained three people suspected of involvement in a jewel heist at a museum housing one of Europe’s greatest collections of treasures.
Thieves forced their way into the Grünes Gewölbe or Green Vault Museum in Dresden in November last year and got away with at least three sets of early 18th-century jewellery, including diamonds and rubies.
Continue reading...Man with right to asylum in Germany allegedly stripped of papers and expelled in ‘refugee pushback’ while searching for 11-year-old brother
In the latest allegation that Greek authorities are illegally expelling refugees , lawyers will this week file a case at the UN human rights committee on behalf of a Syrian man living in Germany, who says he was picked up and sent to Turkey while he searched for his brother in Greece.
The 26-year-old told the Guardian that he had been detained and forced into a boat to Turkey in November 2016. His papers were confiscated which meant he was not able to return to Germany, where he had been granted asylum, for three years.
Continue reading...Organisation says Black Lives Matter movement reaffirmed commitment to changing name to MSI Reproductive Choices
Marie Stopes International (MSI) is to change its name in an attempt to break its association with the family planning pioneer.
From Tuesday, the abortion and contraception provider, which operates in 37 countries, will abbreviate the initials and go by the name MSI Reproductive Choices.
Continue reading...Hamilton has just equalled the record of seven F1 world championships – many believe he is the greatest driver of all time. And this year, more than ever, he has been leading the fight against racism
At the end of 2019, Lewis Hamilton had a realisation about Formula One. “I was looking at pictures of all the teams – they do these team photos in front of the garage or on the track – and they’ve posted all these pictures and I’m like, there are no people of colour in any of these teams.”
Hamilton says he had always thought that his presence and his incredible success would “spark change”. Somewhat naively, he now acknowledges he thought his career as the world’s most successful racing driver – along with the presence of his dad, Anthony, and his racing driver brother, Nicolas – would be enough to “open up doorways” for others. The realisation that after all these years it wasn’t happening led him to rethink.
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According to the Wisconsin Elections Commission, if Donald Trump wants a statewide recount, he will have to pay $7.9m.
The president lost the state by more than 20,000 votes - which means a recount is very unlikely to change the fact that he lost. Even if a recount, miraculously, left Trump ahead in the state, Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes are not enough to change the election outcome.
Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, told the Washington Post that senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina was among several members of his party who pressured him to toss out legally cast ballots so that Trump could win the state.
From the Post:
In a wide-ranging interview about the 2020 election, Raffensperger expressed exasperation with a string of baseless allegations coming from Trump and his allies about the integrity of the Georgia results, including claims that Dominion Voting Systems, the Colorado-based manufacturer of Georgia’s voting machines, is a “leftist” company with ties to Venezuela that engineered thousands of Trump votes not to be counted.
The atmosphere has grown so contentious, Raffensperger said, that both he and his wife, Tricia, have received death threats in recent days, including a text to him that read, “You better not botch this recount. Your life depends on it.”
Continue reading...Appointment expected to ease tensions on the streets after protests over ousting of Martín Vizcarra
Peru’s congress has elected a new interim president after nearly 24 hours without a head of state as the country reels from an intense week of pro-democracy protests marked by accusations of police brutality.
Francisco Sagasti, an industrial engineer and member of the only political party that voted against the ousting of popular former president Martín Vizcarra a week ago, will be Peru’s caretaker president presiding over elections in April 2021.
Continue reading...Chapare virus, which causes haemorrhagic fevers, was transmitted to health workers in La Paz and resulted in three deaths
Researchers with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have discovered human-to-human transmission of a rare virus in Bolivia belonging to a family of viruses that can cause haemorrhagic fevers, such as Ebola.
The news is a reminder that scientists are working to identify new viral threats to humankind, even as countries around the world battle a new wave of Covid-19 outbreaks.
Continue reading...Facing protests in the Muslim world over his response to terror attacks in France, President Emmanuel Macron phoned a New York Times media columnist to rail against “bias” in the English-language media and accuse some newspapers of “legitimising this violence”.
Related: Trump adviser says it 'looks like' Biden has won and predicts 'very professional transition' – live
Continue reading...Territory had its first documented case in early November and on Monday officials announced 26 confirmed Covid-19 cases
The Canadian territory of Nunavut will enter lockdown as a surge in coronavirus cases threatens vulnerable communities in the Arctic.
The territory, which had its first documented case in early November, has since experienced a spike in Covid-19 infections. Officials on Monday announced 26 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the territory, an increase over the three announced last Friday.
Continue reading...German chancellor says she does not currently have the backing of state leaders
Angela Merkel has said she does not have backing among state leaders for new restrictions to give Germany’s “soft” lockdown a harder bite, postponing any decision until a further meeting between the chancellor and 16 state premiers next week.
The chancellor had been in favour of people limiting social interactions in private to only one set second household, and forgo any kind of party until Christmas Eve, according to a draft proposal cited by several news outlets including Der Spiegel.
Continue reading...Moderna becomes second firm to reveal positive results with nearly 95% protection in trials
More than 1 billion people could be immunised against coronavirus by the end of next year with shots from the first two companies to reveal positive results, after the latest vaccine was shown to be nearly 95% effective in trials.
With the US’s top infectious diseases official, Anthony Fauci, hailing “the light at the end of the tunnel”, the US biotech firm Moderna announced impressive results for its mRNA vaccine on Monday, a week after interim results for a Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine showed 90% effectiveness.
Continue reading...Phase 3 success rate of 95% for US firm’s treatment is promising for UK vaccine trial
Hopes are rising for the Covid jab being developed by Oxford University, after Moderna became the second company to reveal impressive results from its vaccine trials.
Interim results from phase 3 clinical trials of the Covid vaccine from US company Moderna has revealed it to be almost 95% effective at preventing the disease. The news followed an announcement last week from Germany-based Pfizer and BioNTech that their vaccine was more than 90% effective.
Continue reading...Dawn raids in Puglia lead to about 40 arrests of suspected members of the ‘fifth mafia’
An emerging mafia that ran a protection racket extorting €50 (£45) a coffin from funeral homes has been raided by hundreds of police in one of the largest ever such busts in the southern Italian region of Puglia.
Dawn raids centred on the city of Foggia led to the arrest of some 40 alleged members of a criminal organisation described by Italian authorities as the country’s “number one public enemy”.
Continue reading...Stephen Ellison hailed a hero as footage of him rescuing student goes viral on social media
A British diplomat has been hailed as a hero after he dived into a river to save a drowning Chinese woman in a rescue that was filmed and then went viral on social media in China and the UK. The incident happened on Saturday.
Stephen Ellison, 61, consul general in Chongqing, was walking by a river in a nearby village when the woman, 24, slipped on rocks into the deep water.
Continue reading...Countries reject package over attempts to link funding to respect for rule of law
The EU is facing a crisis after Hungary and Poland vetoed the bloc’s historic €1.8tn (£1.6tn) budget and coronavirus recovery plan over attempts to link funding to respect for democratic norms.
The move unravels months of negotiations over the scale and terms of the EU’s spending and sets the stage for a stormy videoconference meeting of the bloc’s leaders on Thursday.
Continue reading...Fears grow that conflict will draw in regional powers and destabilise Horn of Africa
Ethiopian troops have advanced further into the northern region of Tigray, seizing a key town on the road to its capital, officials in Addis Ababa have said.
The conflict between national forces and troops loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) is heading towards the end of its second week.
Continue reading...In interview about new memoir, Obama says ‘I am sympathetic to a certain strain of conservatism’ and lauds ‘gracious’ George Bush
In an interview with the Atlantic to mark publication of his memoir A Promised Land, Barack Obama ponders Joe Biden’s chances of working with Republicans in Congress, comes close to admitting to being a never-Trump conservative himself – and compares America under Trump to Central Asia under Genghis Khan.
“If we were going to have a rightwing populist in this country,” Obama says, “I would have expected somebody a little more appealing.”
Continue reading...Moderna results show Pfizer success was not flash in the pan, but poorer countries may have to look elsewhere
The success of Moderna’s vaccine against Covid-19 is reason for the whole world to cheer. The results from an interim analysis of the trial data are remarkably similar to those of Pfizer/BioNTech a week ago. Most people – Moderna says 94.5% in its trial, Pfizer said more than 90% – were protected from illness.
It’s fantastic news. It means the concept works. Pfizer’s results were not a flash in the pan. Both vaccines have been developed using a new technology that has never produced a licensed vaccine before, called messenger RNA (mRNA), which some hail as the future of all vaccines. It has the potential to deliver vaccines for all sorts of diseases cheaply and safely, enthusiasts say. And, crucially for the time being, they are likely to help us out of the Covid pandemic.
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