Police say it was not clear if shooting was linked to fights between protesters and caravan of Trump supporters
One person was shot and killed late Saturday in Portland, Oregon, as a large caravan of Donald Trump supporters came into town and were seen on video firing paintballs and pepper spray at Black Lives Matter protesters before clashes erupted in the streets.
Related: The Department of Homeland Security is a rogue agency. Democrats must take action | Trevor Timm
Continue reading...Police say it was not clear if shooting was linked to fights between protesters and caravan of Trump supporters
Portland mayor Ted Wheeler on Sunday slammed Donald Trump, accusing the president of encouraging the kind of violence that erupted in the city overnight when a reported member of a rightwing group was shot dead after a group of Trump supporters confronted Black Lives Matter protesters.
“What America needs is for you to be stopped,” Wheeler said of Trump, after the president tore into Wheeler on Twitter in the hours after the death and retweeted video footage of his supporters in trucks firing paintballs and pepper spray at protesters downtown.
Continue reading...Calls grow for Lukashenko to step down as president promises tough response
Tens of thousands of protesters in Belarus have defied threats of a government crackdown to march through central Minsk, again voicing demands that the country’s authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, should step down.
After two Sundays in which the opposition had called huge rallies in Minsk and been left largely unmolested by riot police, this week the president had promised protests would be met with a tough response.
Continue reading...Defence minister confirms security breach that may have supplied sensitive documents to Kremlin
The French government is investigating a senior military officer over a “security breach”, the defence minister has said, following a report the person was suspected of spying for Russia.
“What I can confirm is that a senior officer is facing legal proceedings for a security breach,” Florence Parly said. She gave no further details.
Continue reading...Exclusive: architect leaked plans to Jewish militants leading to raid seen as signifying London’s declining control
The family of a decorated British civil servant who built a notorious jail for the empire in Palestine has revealed he leaked the building plans to Jewish militants, helping them to launch a legendary prison break in 1947.
The storming of Acre prison has been credited as a critical event that led to the British decision to end what was increasingly viewed as an onerous mandate in Palestine. Until now, details of how the highly sophisticated operation was so successful had remained elusive.
Continue reading...Visitors will have to show test results to enter Fernando de Noronha, which has so far suffered no coronavirus deaths
One of Brazil’s most celebrated tourist destinations, the paradisiacal archipelago of Fernando de Noronha, has announced it is reopening to outsiders – as long as they have had Covid-19.
Tourists have been banned from the Unesco World Heritage site, which Charles Darwin visited in 1832, since late March when the pandemic forced many parts of Brazil into partial shutdown.
Continue reading...Scientists worldwide are working against the clock to find a viable coronavirus vaccine – but are corners being cut for the sake of political gain and profit?
To begin with, it felt like a sleek performance from a well-honed relay team. On 11 January, only 10 days after reporting a new respiratory disease, the Chinese published the genome sequence of the virus that causes it. Researchers around the world set to work building vaccines against Covid-19, as the disease became known, and the first candidate entered human trials on 16 March; it was joined, as the months passed, by dozens of others.
Scientists were jubilant, and they had every right to be. They’d broken all vaccinology records to get to that point. But then tensions began to surface among the team members, and lately even the most distracted spectator will have noticed that they appear to be trying to nobble each other openly on the track. With accusations that the Russians and Chinese hacked research groups in other countries, biotech executives criticised for cashing in on their own, as yet unapproved vaccines, and Russia approving a vaccine that is still in clinical trials, the quest for a vaccine seems to have turned sour.
Continue reading...Didier Raoult has touted many dubious treatments but is a hero in France’s second city, which has long railed against Paris
The people of Provence in the south of France have a word for a particularly comic or bizarrely dramatic situation: pagnolesque.
It is a tribute to one of the region’s most famous sons, the author Marcel Pagnol, who declared in his play Les Marchands de Gloire (The Glory Merchants): “In politics everything is a comedy.”
Continue reading...Masks will be compulsory on public transport and strongly encouraged elsewhere, says prime minister, as restrictions wind back on Monday
New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has thanked Aucklanders who come out of lockdown after Sunday night for their commitment to suppressing the latest coronavirus flare-up.
Two new cases of Covid-19 have been reported on Sunday, both in the community and linked to the latest Auckland cluster. Ardern thanked the residents of New Zealand’s largest city for their adherence to the stringent lockdown requirements.
Continue reading...Achuar people blame illegal logging for spread and are asking international community for aid
Climate change and multinational corporations have long posed a threat to the people of the Amazon rainforest. Now, however, the region’s indigenous tribes face an even more immediate danger: coronavirus.
Despite living deep in the heartland of Ecuadorian rainforest, the indigenous Achuar tribal people have fallen victim to the pandemic. Over the last several weeks, Covid-19 has struck at the heart of the Achuar community in Ecuador, which is made up of 13,000 people living in 88 groups over 800,000 hectares (3,000 sq miles) along the Pastaza River basin. A further 15,000 Achuar are based in neighbouring Peru.
Continue reading...Rising cases in Papua New Guinea, French Polynesia, and Guam raise fears of uncontrolled coronavirus outbreaks across Pacific
Surging Covid-19 cases in Guam are threatening to overwhelm the island’s healthcare system, while rapidly spreading infections across Papua New Guinea and new clusters in French Polynesia following the resumption of tourism have sparked fears of uncontrolled outbreaks in the Pacific.
The Pacific region is still the least-infected in the world – several countries remain Covid-19 free – but there are troubling surges across countries with fragile health systems ill-equipped for large numbers of infections.
Continue reading...Tributes to groundbreaking star come from spheres of film, TV, sport and politics
Chadwick Boseman has been widely praised for breaking down cultural boundaries and inspiring a generation of young black people, following news of his untimely death.
The Black Panther star died at his home in the Los Angeles area aged 43, four years after being diagnosed with colon cancer. He was best known for his role as the regal T’Challa in the Marvel cinematic universe, the franchise’s first high-profile black superhero.
Continue reading...Leading imam condemns violence after police battle more than 300 on streets of the city
The disorderly phalanx of young men and teenagers, many wearing face masks and hooded tops, started to accelerate, excitement rising, as it neared the row of police vans blocking off the troubled district of Rosengård in Malmö.
“We’re gonna fuck this system up because they want to let a man burn the Qur’an,” one of them yelled, as the group starts hurling jagged chunks of concrete paving towards the armoured riot police sheltering behind the vans. “And we’re gonna fuck the police.”
Continue reading...Ioannis Paradissis says messages from supporters of Manchester United footballer have shocked him
The fallout from Harry’s Maguire’s calamitous holiday in Mykonos has been swift, brutal and revelatory, not least for the Manchester United captain.
Yet for Ioannis Paradissis, the Greek prosecution lawyer at the centre of the case following the footballer’s arrest after a late-night brawl on the isle, the drama is far from over.
Continue reading...Police prevent hundreds from entering Reichstag and disband march protesting against Covid protection measures
Far-right extremists tried to storm the German parliament building on Saturday following a protest against the country’s pandemic restrictions, but were intercepted by police and forcibly removed.
The incident occurred after a daylong demonstration by tens of thousands of people opposed to the wearing of masks and other government measures intended to stop the spread of the new coronavirus. Police ordered the protesters to disband halfway through their march around Berlin after participants refused to observe physical distancing rules, but a rally near the capital’s iconic Brandenburg Gate took place as planned.
Continue reading...Demonstration against coronavirus curbs gets go-ahead for German capital; Australian state sees 18 deaths and 94 cases; India sets new daily record with more than 77,000 cases. Follow all the updates live
Russia said on Saturday 111 people had died from the new coronavirus in the last 24 hours, raising the official death toll to 17,025. Russia’s coronavirus taskforce reported 4,941 new cases, bringing its nationwide tally to 985,346, the fourth largest caseload in the world.
Operations have resumed at the world’s biggest gold mine in Indonesia, the company that runs it said on Saturday after workers blocked access to the site in protest at being stopped from visiting their families over virus concerns.
The miners at the Grasberg complex in the country’s easternmost Papua region reached an agreement with the US-based operator Freeport, which said it would resume bus services for workers to return home.
Continue reading...Figure of 7,379 infections is highest number of new cases in 24 hours since height of epidemic at end of March
France has suffered an “exponential” increase in Covid-19 cases with 7,379 new infections in 24 hours, according to the country’s public health authority.
The number of new cases has been growing steadily throughout August, but jumped from 6,111 positive tests on Thursday and 5,429 on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Activist groups work towards improving labor conditions in textile factories but abolishing the industry’s ‘norms’ is an uphill battle
Mehedi Mehedi, a 36-year-old Bangladeshi garment worker who had spent 14 years working in Jordan, left the country forever last December. It was not an easy decision to make: Mehedi had met his wife in Jordan, he had no guarantees of finding a job back in Bangladesh, and he was desperate to work in order to support his chronically ill father.
In Jordan, Mehedi had been working for a subcontracting factory that supplies apparel to brands like Ralph Lauren, Under Armour, and American Eagle. But after spending his last six months without regular pay, he had reached a breaking point.
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Donald Trump is holding a rally for supporters in New Hampshire. He will speak any minute now. If you care to tune in you can here - if not, I will be blogging it here so stand by for updates.
The crowd at Trump’s NH rally just booed an announcement telling people to put on their masks
Germany chancellor Angela Merkel laughed off a question during a Friday press conference of whether she had been “charmed” by Donald Trump.
The question was in response to a statement made this week by Richard Grenell, the former US director of national intelligence and ambassador to Germany, who claimed Trump had smoothed over the historically strained relationship between German and the US by enchanting Merkel.
This is one of my new favourite Merkel moments. A journalist asks her about Richard Grenell's claim that Trump "charmed" Merkel. You don't need to speak German to enjoy her reaction:pic.twitter.com/RSjHSNXXtX
Continue reading...Crew of Louise Michel, who rescued 89 migrants on Thursday, say European authorities ignoring them
A rescue boat financed by the British street artist Banksy is close to declaring a “state of emergency” after the crew helped 130 migrants and are now safeguarding over 200 people off Libya’s coast, while the European authorities ignore their request for help.
The vessel, named Louise Michel after a French feminist anarchist, set off in secrecy on 18 August from the Spanish seaport of Burriana, near Valencia, and is now in the central Mediterranean, where, on Thursday, it rescued 89 people including 14 women and four children.
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