Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
US is going in ‘wrong direction’ says Fauci as Covid cases rise in 47 states and patients overwhelm hospitals across the US
The White House coronavirus taskforce is warning of a persistent and broad spread of Covid-19 in the western half of the United States and its members urged aggressive mitigation measures.
“We are on a very difficult trajectory. We’re going in the wrong direction,” said Dr Anthony Fauci, the lead public health official on the taskforce and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Twenty years after a landmark UN resolution, leading figures share insight on women’s vital role in mediating conflict
In October 2000, the UN security council adopted resolution 1325 – the first resolution that acknowledged women’s unique experience of conflict and their vital role in peace negotiations and peacebuilding. Twenty years on, we speak to four women helping keep the peace around the world.
As the row over the discharge of Covid-positive patients into Scotland’s care homes during the early days of the pandemic deepens, health secretary Jeane Freeman has insisted that a new report does not diminish government accountability, writes Libby Brookes, the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent.
The report – which concluded the risk of an outbreak linked to discharge of positive or untested patients was “not statistically significant” - prompted anger from opposition parties, care chiefs and unions, who argued that it failed to properly explain why dozens of patients who tested positive for coronavirus, along with thousands who went untested, were discharged from Scottish hospitals into care homes in April and May.
For relatives and families of people who have died in care homes during this pandemic, I want them to know really clearly that I am not saying that this report says there is no accountability here or that I think that report in any way offers them comfort. It’s a very technical report and it comes to a statistical conclusion but that doesn’t take away from the human impact of this virus…
Angela Merkel faced shouts and heckles in Germany’s parliament this morning as she outlined her government’s plans for a “soft” second lockdown, writes Philip Oltermann, the Guardian’s Berlin bureau chief.
From Monday, bars, restaurants, theatres, swimming pools and fitness studios will close for a month, and public gatherings be limited to two households or up to ten people. Unnecessary travel is discouraged and hotels advised not to host tourists. Schools, nurseries and shops will stay open, however.
The Trump administration justifies the expulsions under a public health law but critics say they risk spreading coronavirus in the Caribbean nation
US immigration authorities have radically stepped up deportation flights to Haiti in the weeks before the election, raising concerns over returned migrants’ safety on their return home and the risks of spreading coronavirus in the impoverished Caribbean state.
Mayor says suspect arrested after attack near church in southern French city
A knifeman killed three people and injured several others in an attack inside a church in Nice on the Côte d’Azur.
The killings happened at 9am on Thursday morning inside the Notre-Dame basilica in the city centre. There were unconfirmed reports in the French media that at least one of the victims had been beheaded.
Taiwan has reached 200 days without any domestically transmitted cases of Covid-19, underlining its success in keeping the virus under control as cases surge in other parts of the world.
The country’s Center for Disease Control last reported a domestic case on 12 April. CDC officials thanked the public for playing a role in reaching the milestone, while urging people to continue to wear masks and wash their hands often.
China’s largest coronavirus outbreak in months appears to have emerged in a factory in Xinjiang linked to forced labour and the government’s controversial policies towards Uighur residents.
More than 180 cases of Covid-19 documented in the past week in Shufu county, in southern Xinjiang, can be traced back to a factory that was built in 2018 as part of government “poverty alleviation” efforts, a campaign that researchers and rights advocates describe as coercive.
Move comes on 20th anniversary of first resolution to recognise women’s unique and disproportionate experience of conflict
Russia has introduced a new UN security council resolution that could threaten the rights of women in conflict by attempting to water down previously agreed commitments on human rights.
Negotiations are ongoing and it is doubtful they will conclude ahead of a special virtual meeting on Thursday to discuss women’s role in peace and security efforts.
At least 15 already confirmed dead in central Quang Nam province following torrential rains brought by strongest storm in decades
Rescue teams in Vietnam have used heavy machinery to search for survivors buried under landslides triggered by torrential rains from Typhoon Molave, one of the strongest typhoons to hit the region for decades, the government said.
The landslides, which hit remote areas in the central province of Quang Nam a day earlier, have killed at least 15 and 38 people are missing with rescue efforts hampered by bad weather at the tail end of the storm, the government said.
Netanyahu’s clear choice for US president seen as ‘extremely dangerous’ in Palestine
Anyone in any doubt about Benjamin Netanyahu’s preferred candidate in the US presidential election need only visit his personal Twitter account.
Right at the top, behind the headshot of Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, is a banner photo of him with Donald Trump in the Oval Office, their eyes fixed on each other.
Tong Chung, who was arrested on Tuesday as he attempted to shelter in the US consulate, is the second to be charged under national security law
A Hong Kong court has denied bail to a 19-year-old activist who was arrested under the national security law while attempting to shelterinside the US consulate.
Tony Chung is the only the second of at least 27 people arrested under the law to be charged, and now faces prosecution for alleged crimes of secession, money laundering and conspiracy to publish seditious material. The last charge falls under colonial-era criminal laws.
France will go back into a nationwide lockdown starting this week to try to contain the Covid-19 pandemic that is again threatening to spiral out of control, French president Emmanuel Macron said in an address to the nation on Wednesday. The new measures he announced – which come into force on Friday – will mean people have to stay in their homes except to buy essential goods, seek medical attention or use their daily one-hour allocation of exercise.
Germany will impose an emergency month-long lockdown that includes the closure of restaurants, gyms and theatres to reverse a spike in coronavirus cases that risks overwhelming hospitals, the chancellor said on Wednesday
Sources say it is unclear if move is attempt to sabotage trade body much criticised by Trump
The US is blocking the appointment of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the next head of the World Trade Organisation despite the former Nigerian finance minister winning the overwhelming backing of the WTO’s 164 members, it has emerged.
Ngozi had moved a step closer to becoming the first woman and the first African to be director of the global trade watchdog after securing the support of a key group of trade ambassadors in Geneva. Soundings taken by a selection panel of three WTO trade ministers found Okonjo-Iweala had far more support than her South Korean rival, Yoo Myung-hee.
Canadians positive even as millions remain out of work and country faces grim economic projections due to pandemic
Despite a global pandemic that has destroyed economies and fanned nationalism around the world, Canadians say they are increasingly open to welcoming immigrants and refugees.
A new study from the polling firm Environics Institute found that attitudes among Canadians have become increasingly positive, even as millions remain out of work and the country faces grim economic projections.
Five individuals arrested, with three believed to be in China
Chinese government allegedly plotted to pressure ex-official
Eight people have been charged with conspiring to work on behalf of China’s government in a plot to coerce a Chinese family in the US to return to their home country to face charges.
Five of the individuals charged, including an American private investigator, were arrested on Wednesday in New Jersey, New York and California. The rest are believed to be in China, top justice department officials said in a news conference.
Food security crisis means acute malnutrition among under-fives at highest levels since war engulfed the country
Almost 100,000 children under the age of five are at risk of dying in Yemen as the country slides back into a hunger crisis.
An analysis by UN agencies says the coronavirus pandemic, economic problems and conflict have led to the highest levels of malnutrition ever recorded in parts of the country.
Rasul Iran Nezhad and Shiva Mohammad Panahi drowned along with their children Anita and Armin
Four Iranian Kurds who died trying to cross the Channel in high winds were members of one family who paid smugglers thousands of euros after two failed attempts to reach Britain, the Guardian has been told.
Rasul Iran Nezhad and his wife, Shiva Mohammad Panahi, both 35, and two of their children, Anita, nine, and Armin, six, drowned as they tried to reach Britain by boat, according to a relative of the family and the Iranian-Kurdish human rights organisation Hengaw.
British-Iranian dual national told she will be returned to prison after Monday’s hearing
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian woman sentenced to five years imprisonment in Iran in 2016, has been told she will stand trial on fresh charges next Monday.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was released to house arrest in March due to the coronavirus outbreak, was also told she would be returned to Evin prison after the hearing.