Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Exclusive: if discovery is confirmed it will have global implications as 90% of people breathe dirty air
Tiny air pollution particles have been revealed in the brain stems of young people and are intimately associated with molecular damage linked to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
If the groundbreaking discovery is confirmed by future research, it would have worldwide implications because 90% of the global population live with unsafe air. Medical experts are cautious about the findings and said that while the nanoparticles are a likely cause of the damage, whether this leads to disease later in life remains to be seen.
Inquiry into encounters off coasts of Spain and Portugal says speed could be a factor
Experts investigating a series of extraordinary encounters between orcas and yachts off the coasts of Spain and Portugal believe the animals responsible may have been triggered to target boat rudders by an earlier “aversive incident” involving some kind of vessel.
The World Health Organization has said European countries will need to “move beyond biomedical science” to overcome Covid-19 as “pandemic fatigue” and new infections rapidly rise across the continent.
Hans Kluge, the WHO’s Europe director, said that while fatigue from months of uncertainty and disruption was measured differently in different countries, aggregated survey data from across the region suggested that in some cases it it had reached levels of over 60%.
Reuters reports that US cruise operator Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd has extended suspension of sailings until 30 November, excluding those originating from Hong Kong, as the Covid-19 crisis continues to hurt the demand for voyages.
The company said its cruise brand Celebrity Cruises will suspend its 2020-21 winter program in Australia and Asia, while its Azamara cruises will suspend winter sailings throughout Australia and New Zealand, South Africa and South America.
The US Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden tested negative for Covid-19 in a test conducted on Tuesday, his campaign said in a statement.
The Democratic nominee for the presidency, Joe Biden, is talking in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, right now.
He is giving a speech in that historic place, site of a turning point in the US Civil War, saying America “can and must” figure out how to work across partisan lines again.
Here’s the full statement from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (third in line to act as president should Donald Trump and Mike Pence become incapacitated, which is worth mentioning with coronavirus now openly stalking the White House and other corridors of federal power).
The desperation that has driven Donald Trump to leave hospital prematurely and theatrically pull off his mask on the White House balcony while in the throes of coronavirus infection gives some measure of how dangerous the next four weeks will be.
Many students of Trump’s life and career have warned that he would be prepared to sacrifice anyone – even those closest to him – to spare himself the humiliation of a one-term presidency, but even they surely could not have anticipated how literal that sacrifice would be.
Three NGOs file evidence to war crimes unit against Assad regime over use of chemical weapons
A group of NGOs has submitted a criminal complaint to the German courts over sarin gas attacks in Syria, a legal milestone which marks the first step on the long road to holding Bashar al-Assad’s regime accountable for its use of chemical weapons.
The Justice Initiative, the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression and the Syrian Archive submitted the filing and dossier of evidence to the German federal public prosecutor in Karlsruhe on behalf of victims on Monday.
Protesters occupied the presidential palace and parliament building in Kyrgyzstan’s capital early on Tuesday, angry over the results of weekend parliamentary elections. Demonstrators clashed with police in Bishkek following vote-rigging allegations. Riot police used teargas, water cannons and stun grenades to disperse the crowds
The Zimbabwean novelist, shortlisted for this year’s Booker prize for This Mournable Body, is accused of intending to incite public violence in Harare
Authors including Kazuo Ishiguro, Carol Ann Duffy and Philippe Sands have called for charges against the Booker prize-shortlisted writer Tsitsi Dangarembga to be dropped ahead of her latest appearance in a Zimbabwe court this week, saying that any other conclusion would be “an outrage”.
At least 120 injured in clashes between demonstrators and police in Bishkek over claims parliamentary poll was rigged
People protesting against the results of a parliamentary election in Kyrgyzstan have broken into a parliamentary complex and security headquarters in the capital, with papers seen scattered across the pavement outside and reports parts of the building were on fire.
The break-in took place on Tuesday after opposition supporters took to the streets and called for the pro-Russian president, Sooronbay Jeenbekov, to resign after at least 10 political parties called for a re-run of Sunday’s election amid widespread claims of vote-buying.
Adults and children are regularly shackled and locked up in 60 countries, report finds
Hundreds of thousands of people with mental health conditions in 60 countries are still being chained, according to a comprehensive and damning new study.
Human Rights Watch says that men, women and children – some as young as 10 – are regularly shackled or locked in confined spaces for weeks, months, and even years, across Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas.
Speaking in Miami, US presidential nominee Joe Biden said he was glad to see his rival Donald Trump's recovery from coronavirus but made a plea for the president to take mask wearing seriously.
'Now that he’s busy tweeting campaign messages, I would ask him to do this: listen to the scientists. Support masks. Support a mask mandate nationwide,' Biden said.
Trump mocked Biden for his mask-wearing habits during last week's presidential debate, before testing positive for coronavirus.
Five-year-old found after Canadian parents killed in airstrike
Parents were believed to have been Isis members
A five-year-old girl who spent more than a year in a Syrian detention camp after her family were killed in an airstrike on Isis members has been released and will soon join her family in Canada.
Officials announced on Monday that the girl, known as Amira, had been released into the care of a consular officer who will accompany her to Canada – a country she has never visited.
A fascinating dispatch from Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair, who cites “two Republicans briefed on the family conversations” in reporting that Donald Trump Jr is worried by his dad’s car-ride-and-tweet-storm response to being hospitalised with Covid-19:
‘Don Jr has said he wants to stage an intervention, but Jared and Ivanka keep telling Trump how great he’s doing,’ a source said. Don Jr is said to be reluctant to confront his father alone. ‘Don said, ‘I’m not going to be the only one to tell him he’s acting crazy,’’ the source added.
One area where the family seems united is over the president’s manic tweeting early Monday morning. After Trump sent out more than a dozen all-caps tweets, the Trump children told people they want Trump to stop. ‘They’re all worried. They’ve tried to get him to stop tweeting,’ a source close to the family told me.
…Trump’s father, Fred Trump Sr, insisted on working even after his Alzheimer’s disease advanced in the 1990s … Every day Fred Sr would go to the office in Brooklyn and they would give him blank papers to sort through and sign. The phone on Fred’s desk was set up so that it could only dial out to his secretary. “Fred pretended to work,” the family friend said.
A new Times/Siena survey has Joe Biden ahead of Donald Trump in Arizona, a traditionally conservative state-turned presidential battleground.
Biden leads Trump 49% to 41% in Arizona, with just 6% of likely voters saying they were undecided. He is buoyed by his lopsided support among Hispanics, women and young people. The candidates are effectively tied in their support among seniors, a critical voting block in the state that has soured on Trump amid the Covid-19 outbreak.
Injured surfers and large number of dead sea creatures reported in Kamchatka region
Water pollution in Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula that caused sea creatures to wash up dead on beaches has prompted fears that rocket fuel stored in the region’s military testing grounds may have leaked.
The pollution came to light late last month after surfers reported stinging eyes and said the water had changed colour and developed an odour. Officials later confirmed the surfers had sustained mild burns to their corneas.
Paul beat seven other contenders to win the leadership of the country’s Green party
Annamie Paul, the first Black person to head a mainstream Canadian federal party, said on Monday that her victory was a sign that politics could become more inclusive.
Paul, a 47-year-old Toronto lawyer, beat seven other contenders to win the leadership of the country’s Green party late on Saturday.
Appeal court sets aside ruling that gold could not be released to Nicolás Maduro-backing bank
A battle for the control of more than $1.8bn worth of Venezuelan gold stored at the Bank of England has swung in favour of the government of Nicolás Maduro after an appeals court in London overturned an earlier high court ruling concerning whom the UK recognised as Venezuela’s president.
The court of appeal granted an appeal by the Banco Central de Venezuela (BCV) and set aside July’s high court judgment, which had found that Britain’s recognition of the opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the “constitutional interim president of Venezuela” meant the gold could not be released for the Maduro-backing bank.
Fear of mass civilian casualties as Nagorno-Karabakh conflict escalates
Armenian and Azerbaijani forces have accused each other of shelling cities in a dangerous escalation of the eight-day war in the south Caucasus that it is feared could lead to mass civilian casualties.
Separatist forces in Nagorno-Karabakh – an ethnic Armenian enclave that broke away from Azerbaijan in the 1990s – have reported continuous heavy artillery fire on their capital, Stepanakert, since Friday. It reported an unspecified number of civilian casualties and said eight soldiers had been injured.
Quarter of fakes were stolen with some eggs tracked from thief to trafficker to consumer
Decoy eggs made by a 3D-printer and fitted with satellite tags have been placed in sea turtle nests on beaches in Costa Rica to track the illegal trade of their eggs.
A quarter of the fake eggs put among 101 turtle nests on four beaches in Costa Rica were stolen, with some eggs successfully tracked as they moved from thief to trafficker to consumer.
Bars in Paris have been ordered to close for two weeks, Madrid residents may no longer leave their city and Ireland is set to introduce tighter national restrictions as governments struggle to contain a Europe-wide surge in Covid-19 cases.
As infections in the Paris area rose to 270 for every 100,000 people – and as high as 500 for every 100,000 among 20- to 30-year-olds – with 36% of intensive care beds occupied by Covid-19 patients, the city’s police chief said bars must close from Tuesday.