Category Archives: World News

Herd immunity letter signed by fake experts including ‘Dr Johnny Bananas’

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Open letter calling for new Covid-19 strategy also signed by ‘Prof Cominic Dummings’

An open letter that made headlines calling for a herd immunity approach to Covid-19 lists a number of apparently fake names among its expert signatories, including “Dr Johnny Bananas” and “Professor Cominic Dummings”.

The Great Barrington declaration, which was said to have been signed by more than 15,000 scientists and medical practitioners around the world, was found by Sky News to contain numerous false names, as well as those of several homeopaths.

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Nimco Ali calls for frank discussion on violence against women in UK

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Campaigner gives first major interview after being appointed as government adviser on issue

The UK needs a frank conversation about the fear of male violence that women live with every day, according to the government’s new adviser on violence against women and girls.

In her first major interview since her role was announced on Friday, the feminist campaigner Nimco Ali – who has been a key figure in the global fight to end female genital mutilation (FGM) – said she wanted to work across political, ethnic and gender lines.

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Trump unlikely to travel for weekend rally as Pelosi says medication has him ‘in an altered state’ – live

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Reports are coming out that Donald Trump will not hold campaign events over the weekend but is planning on heading back to the trail on Monday.

.@FoxNews is told @realDonaldTrump will likely not have campaign events this weekend, but is planning to be back on the trail on Monday.

The Supreme Court announced that it will hear oral arguments for cases virtually in November and December and will provide live audio feed of the hearings. The court will follow the same format it has been using for its new term starting this month.

The justices have not heard arguments in person since early March. In a press release, the court said it will determine plans for January’s arguments soon.

JUST IN Due to COVID-19 #SCOTUS announces they'll hear oral arguments for November & December via teleconference with live audio. pic.twitter.com/4X4HcVmKfm

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Thai hotel agrees to drop charges against US man who faced jail over bad reviews

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  • Koh Chang hotel to drop charges in exchange for public apology
  • Wesley Barnes held under defamation and computer crime laws

A hotel in Thailand has agreed to drop charges against an American guest who faced up to five years in jail for posting negative reviews – as long as he issues a public apology for his comments.

The hotel, on the holiday island of Koh Chang, filed a complaint against American teacher Wesley Barnes in August after he posted what the hotel said were false and defamatory write-ups after a row over a 500 baht ($16) corkage fee.

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Coronavirus: Spain declares emergency in Madrid as Berlin emerges as hotspot

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European countries tighten regional lockdowns as daily cases of Covid-19 keep rising

The Spanish government has declared a state of emergency to keep Madrid in partial lockdown as countries across Europe struggle to deal with the continuing surge in new coronavirus cases.

The move came as Italy logged more than 5,000 new daily coronavirus cases for the first time in six months, and Germany recorded more than 4,000 new infections for the second day in a row. Following a meeting with mayors, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, announced that some areas would be given 10 days to improve the situation or face tougher action.

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BAME groups hit hard again as Covid second wave grips UK nations

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As cases surge, figures show the demographics of those most seriously affected by coronavirus remain the same

One of the earliest signs that black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people were being disproportionately harmed by the coronavirus pandemic came when the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNAR) published research in early April showing that 35% of almost 2,000 Covid patients in intensive care units in England, Wales and Northern Ireland were non-white.

A lot has happened in the intervening six months with numerous reports, including by the Office for National Statistics and Public Health England (PHE), confirming the increased risk to ethnic minorities and recommendations published on how to mitigate that risk. However, as the second wave intensifies, the demographics of those most seriously affected remain remarkably similar.

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Alcoholic anaesthetist’s error that killed Briton unforgivable, court told

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Prosecutor demands maximum sentence for Helga Wauters over Xynthia Hawke’s death in France

An anaesthetist who had been drinking before an emergency caesarean that led to the death of a British woman should serve the maximum three years in jail if convicted and should be banned from working as a doctor, a French prosecutor has demanded.

Helga Wauters is on trial in Pau, south-west France, for the manslaughter of Xynthia Hawke in 2014. She is accused of starving Hawke of oxygen for up to an hour after pushing a ventilation tube into the wrong passageway.

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EU does not believe UK will walk out on Brexit talks, diplomat says

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Boris Johnson has publicly suggested a Brussels summit next week is his deadline for a deal

Brussels does not believe Boris Johnson will walk out on the Brexit talks next week despite repeated threats from London, with negotiations set to continue deep into the month.

The prime minister has publicly suggested that an EU summit next Thursday is his deadline for a deal. He said in September that without agreement it would be time to “accept and move on”.

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Aid cuts and Covid force Uganda refugees to brink of starvation

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More than 90,000 face extreme hunger with another 400,000 hit by food crisis, says report

Nearly 500,000 refugees in Uganda are struggling to eat as a result of cuts to food aid and Covid-19 restrictions.

More than 91,000 people living in 13 refugee settlements around the country are experiencing extreme levels of hunger, according to the latest analysis by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), published this week. More than 400,000 refugees are considered to be at crisis hunger levels.

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‘Brain fog’: the people struggling to think clearly months after Covid

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Doctors grapple for answers as more patients report post-coronavirus cognitive impairment

For Mirabai Nicholson-McKellar, Covid-19 brought an onslaught of symptoms from chest pains to an 11-day migraine, three positive test results, and a period in hospital.

Seven months later, the rollercoaster is far from over: the 36-year-old from Byron Bay, Australia is still experiencing symptoms – including difficulties with thinking that are often described as “brain fog”.

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Scientists get hands dirty with research into medieval poop

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Study seeks to compare microbiomes of our ancestors for clues to modern diseases

Researchers working knee-deep in 14th- and 15th-century latrines have found that bacterial DNA from human excrement can last for centuries and provide clues to how our gut contents have changed significantly since medieval times.

Analysis of two cesspits, one in Jerusalem and the other in the Latvian capital, Riga, could help scientists understand if changes to our microbiome – the genetic makeup of the bacteria, virus, fungi, parasites and other microbes living inside us – affect modern-day afflictions.

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Stephen King, Margaret Atwood and Roxane Gay champion trans rights in open letter

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With more than 1,200 co-signatories in North America including Neil Gaiman and NK Jemisin, message follows row over comments by JK Rowling

Stephen King and Margaret Atwood are among the signatories to an open letter offering support to the trans and non-binary communities of the US and Canada, as a bitter divide over trans rights continues to split the literary world.

The message from writers and members of the US literary community follows a similar letter from authors in the UK and Ireland. Both letters come in the wake of a fierce row over JK Rowling’s comments on trans rights, including her comment that “if sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased”.

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Russia offers to host Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire talks

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Putin proposes halt in fighting to exchange prisoners and collect soldiers’ bodies, says Kremlin

Russia has moved to stop the worst escalation of fighting in the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh in more than a quarter-century by offering to host ceasefire talks on Friday.

Late on Thursday, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, issued a statement calling for a break in the fighting between the Armenian and Azerbaijani forces that has raged for nearly two weeks over the region.

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UN’s World Food Programme wins Nobel peace prize

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Organisation wins prestigious award for efforts to combat hunger in war-hit areas

The World Food Programme (WFP) has won the 2020 Nobel peace prize for its efforts to combat hunger and to improve conditions for peace in conflict areas.

The chairwoman of the Norwegian Nobel committee, Berit Reiss-Andersen, revealed the 2020 laureate at the Nobel Institute in Oslo, where coronavirus restrictions drastically reduced the usual throng of reporters in attendance.

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‘Total destruction’: why fires are tearing across South America

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Wildfires, mostly caused by land clearing for cattle grazing and soya production, have set four nations ablaze

Primatologist Martin Kowalewski is measuring the scale of the fires raging across Latin America not in satellite images, but in the number of caraya monkeys (black-and-gold howlers) that have succumbed to the flames.

“Of the 20 family groups that we used to trace in the wild, each group consisting of seven or eight monkeys, at least five groups were burned alive,” he tells the Guardian. Other animals have also perished at San Cayetano, a nature reserve in Argentina’s northeastern province of Corrientes. “Carpinchos (giant South American rodents), otters, two species of fox, guazú deer, yacaré caimans, turtles, snakes. Birds are better at escaping the fire, but that was before all the deforestation. Now they have nowhere to go because there is nowhere else. The forest is so fragmented that they have nowhere to nest.”

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Gang violence erupts in Bangladesh Rohingya camps forcing families to flee

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Fighting leaves seven dead as rival factions fight for control of drugs trade and terrorise vulnerable refugees

Fighting between rival gangs in the Rohingya refugee settlements in Bangladesh has forced hundreds of people to leave their shelters in a week where at least seven have died.

“When it is night, it becomes hell. When you try to sleep you hear a lot of firing, you hear a lot of bullets, people are screaming, people are fleeing from home,” said a Rohingya refugee who lives close to where the fighting has taken place.

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India’s tea workers strike as government fails to deliver wage increase

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Unions warn of further action over non-payment of rise agreed in 2018, as hundreds of Assam tea estates close

Over 400,000 workers on Indian tea plantations that supply the world’s largest tea companies have gone on strike over the government’s failure to implement a promised daily wage increase from £1.70 to £3.70 a day.

The past week has seen around 250 tea estates across the Assam region close, with the partial closure of a further 20.

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Coronavirus live news: Spain imposes state of emergency in Madrid; Europe records 100,000 daily cases for first time

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Court had struck down lockdown measures in Spanish capital; Cases in Europe have been steadily rising over the past week

US President Donald Trump has approved a revised Covid-19 relief stimulus, White House Economic Advisor Larry Kudlow has said.

Stocks immediately rallied on the news, Bloomberg News tweets, while the president himself (or one of his staff) has has also been on Twitter in the last few minutes

Covid Relief Negotiations are moving along. Go Big!

Related: Pelosi says medication has Trump 'in an altered state' in 25th amendment bid – live

Most people in the UK who have Covid-19 or are a contact of somebody who has tested positive fail to fully self-isolate, despite its necessity in preventing a resurgence of the pandemic, according to government advisors.

Newly released papers reveal that behavioural science experts privately warned last month that only 18-25% of people who needed to were self-isolating. Others were still going out to work or to shop, even though they risked infecting others, according to the details of the briefing for ministers by the UK government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) .

Related: Coronavirus: at least three-quarters of people in UK fail to self-isolate

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‘Terrible day’: anger as pictures show Varosha beach in Cyprus opening after 46 years

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Greek Cypriots who fled area when troops invaded in 1976 among those embittered by Turkish move

For the first time in 46 years the public have been permitted to access the beach of Varosha in the breakaway Turkish Cypriot north of Cyprus, in a contentious move unveiled by its internationally unrecognised premier who is running in an election on Sunday.

Hundreds filed through a gate manned by Turkish Cypriot police on Thursday to walk on a freshly paved asphalt road leading to the beach that was the jewel of what was once a premier tourist resort in Famagusta. The road was flanked by police tape to keep pedestrians out of windowless homes and rusting business, some swallowed up by decades-old undergrowth.

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Last French hostage in the world released by jihadists in Mali

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Authorities confirm release of Sophie Pétronin along with two Italian captives and Malian politician

Authorities in Mali have confirmed the release of an elderly French aid worker, two Italian captives and a top Malian politician, all believed to have been held by jihadists.

A tweet on Thursday said that French woman Sophie Pétronin, 75, and Soumaïla Cissé, 70, were on their way to the capital Bamako.

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