Demonstrations over hunger by people thrown out of work by the pandemic have been met with violent repression
Violeta Delgado was at a protest over food shortages under Chile’s coronavirus lockdowns when the police arrived and fired off a volley of teargas rounds.
Delgado, who was seven months pregnant, says she put her hands up to show she was unarmed, but was struck by a police vehicle and knocked to the ground.
Continue reading...The legacy of a successful battle is now helping combat Covid, but we must stay vigilant, says WHO’s Africa regional director
Africa has declared victory over a virus that once paralysed 75,000 children on the continent every year.
Four years have now passed since wild polio was last detected in Africa. After a year of rigorously evaluating polio data from all 47 countries in the WHO’s African region, an independent body of experts announced during a virtual ceremony on Tuesdaythat the continent was free of wild polio.
Continue reading...Nationwide the need for aid at food banks and pantries has surged amid worst unemployment rate in modern times
Neisha Davis cradles brown paper lunch bags in the crook of one arm, while holding on to Demitri, her wriggling baby son, in the other and keeping a careful eye on Naya, her four-year-old daughter, as she runs around the church car park with another little girl.
It’s hectic but the free packed lunches have become a crucial part of their daily nutrition. So everyday at noon the family make the two-mile journey from Homewood, a low income predominantly African American Pittsburgh neighbourhood with no grocery stores, to the East End Community Ministry’s pop-up lunch stall in East Liberty.
Continue reading...The payment would go to victims of al-Qaida but has caused anger in the poverty-stricken country
A US proposal to remove Sudan from a list of states that sponsor terrorism – in exchange for a $330 million payment compensation to American victims of al-Qaida – has caused anger in the poverty-stricken east African country.
Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, visited Khartoum on Tuesday to underline US support for the new transitional government that took power following the fall of Omar al-Bashir last year, whose 30 year authoritarian rule saw Sudan become an international pariah.
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Where’s the GOP condemnation for an extremist, conspiracy theory candidate?
Guardian reporter Julia Carrie Wong, who has reported extensively on the QAnon conspiracy theory, notes that there is an interesting historical precedent for what Republican politicians could do when an extremist candidate is running for office as part of their party, as QAnon supporter congressional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene is now doing.
The David Duke season of Slow Burn provided a really interesting and timely counterexample of how a national party *can* react when a fringe extremist is running for office. Both Reagan (former president) and HW Bush (current president) ran TV ads against Duke in 1989. https://t.co/e1YpyqULxH
By contrast, Trump has praised Greene, tacitly endorsed the false & antisemitic conspiracy theory she supports, and now invited her to the White House. Meanwhile, his chief of staff has given her campaign money. https://t.co/EGAkQk0YeY
Thunderstorms might disrupt Melania Trump’s Rose Garden speech tonight
This is Lois Beckett, taking over our live politics coverage from our west coast office in California, where wildfires across the state have displaced more than 100,000 people, and smoke and particles from the fires have made the air unhealthy to breathe for millions of other residents. (You can follow our wildfires live coverage here.)
JUST IN: Severe thunderstorm watch for entire DC area thru 11p. Most likely time for storms, passing from northwest to southeast, between 6 and 10p. A few storms may produce damaging winds. We'll monitor and update as necessary.
Updates: https://t.co/QC9KsWX1Oy pic.twitter.com/bnK2Xc6YWo
Gendarmes’ request for topless sunbathers to cover up on south coast prompts outcry
France’s interior minister has defended the “precious” right to sunbathe topless on beaches, after police asked a group of women to cover up on the southern coast.
French gendarmes patrolling a beach in Mediterranean seaside town Sainte-Marie-la-Mer last week asked a group of topless sunbathers to cover up in response to a complaint from a family, the local gendarmerie said in a statement on Facebook.
Continue reading...Indonesia said no further action could be taken on US request because there was no consensus on 15-nation body
The US has suffered another humiliating diplomatic setback after the president of the UN security council rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to extend economic sanctions on Iran.
Related: Iran sanctions: nearly all UN security council unites against 'unpleasant' US
Continue reading...Stephanie Blais had called her father due to problems with water supply at remote Saskatchewan cabin
The father of a Canadian woman who was killed by black bear has said that he was on the phone with her at the time of the attack.
Stephanie Blais, 44, was with her husband, Curtis, and two young children at the family’s remote cabin in the province of Saskatchewan. But problems with the water supply prompted her to call her father on a satellite phone.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Thomas Young used cut-up method to treat translation of Egyptian relic as mathematical problem, papers show
Nobody knew how to read hieroglyphs when two 19th-century scholars set out to decipher the inscribed texts on the ancient Egyptian Rosetta Stone, one of the British Museum’s most famous treasures.
Now notes have been discovered among one of the scholars’ papers in the British Library that reveal the extent to which the translation was treated as though it was a mathematical problem.
Continue reading...Svetlana Tikhanovskaya tells MEPs ‘intimidation didn’t work’ after two allies detained
The Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya has vowed that the country’s movement for democratic change will not give up, despite the arrest of two allies working for a peaceful transition of power.
Speaking to the European parliament’s foreign affairs committee from exile in Vilnius, Lithuania, Tikhanovskaya said the authorities had responded with threats and intimidation to the coordination council, set up by the opposition to bring about non-violent change. But, she insisted: “The intimidation didn’t work. We will not relent. We demand to respect our basic rights. We demand all political prisoners be free.”
Continue reading...While some scientists believe the virus has become less deadly, others look at the factors that suggest otherwise
Are Covid-19 death rates decreasing?
Most statistics indicate that although cases of Covid-19 are rising in many parts of Europe and the United States, the number of deaths and cases of severe complications remain relatively low. For example, patients on ventilators have dropped from 3,000 at the epidemic’s peak in Britain to 70. At the same time, the number of cases in the UK have begun to rise in many areas.
What lies behind this trend?
Doctors are unsure exactly what is going on. Some suggest that medical interventions are more successful at treating those who suffer complications from the disease. For example, the drug dexamethasone was recently shown to improve survival rates among patients requiring ventilation. Others argue that different factors are involved. One suggestion is that Covid-19 is now becoming a disease of younger people who are less likely to die or suffer serious complications.
Once I flew kites and dreamed of being a teacher. Now it’s hard to see a better future for me or my family
When I was born in Kutupalong camp, Bangladesh, it was a very different place. I remember as a child laughing and flying kites with my friends. Kites are not flying around our camps any more. There is little laughter.
Just months ago, we lived in a different world. We used to go outside a lot, seeking freedom from our little bamboo and plastic homes. But with Covid-19 we cannot. Often we are told to stay inside. It’s hot and cramped, with nine of us in one room.
Continue reading...NGOs and MPs fear appointments to Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office reflects unbalanced priorities
The UK’s ambassador to the EU is to become political director of the newly merged Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), one of seven senior officials who will form the core of the leadership team when the department launches next week.
Tim Barrow is one of five appointees from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office chosen to serve on the board of the FCDO. Two further appointments are officials from the Department for International Development (DfID).
Continue reading...Venezuela’s official Covid-19 death toll stands just over 300, but hospital employees suggest the true situation may be far worse
As they are hauled into Maracaibo’s University hospital, pale, wheezing and panicked, a recurring cry emerges from the mouths of coronavirus patients in this bedraggled Venezuelan metropolis.
“Save me!” they plead as they enter A&E, according to hospital staff too scared to give their names. “Please don’t let me die!”
Continue reading...Turkey records highest number of new cases since mid-June; India worse than US and Brazil in number of daily new cases; European re-infections add to immunity concerns prompted by Hong Kong case
Carnival’s Princess Cruises has said it will cancel early 2021 cruises on two ships, citing travel, border and port restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Cruise lines, hammered by a crisis that has seen some ships turn into infection hotspots, had earlier said they were expecting solid 2021 bookings, mainly as repeat cruisers were eager to book their trips.
Kate Green, Labour’s shadow education secretary, has called the Department of Education change on face coverings a “half baked U-turn”.
Parents and schools needed clarity and leadership, but instead the government have just passed the buck back to them.
Face coverings should be compulsory in communal areas in schools.
It was inevitable that the policy on face coverings would change following guidance from the World Health Organization, and we recognise that the government in Westminster has responded to our call for a quick direction on this matter with the reopening of schools imminent.
The new policy is discretionary, other than in places where coronavirus restrictions apply, and secondary school and college leaders will welcome the flexibility this affords them to decide what best suits their circumstances.
Continue reading...Victims and the bereaved describe how their lives have been changed since the Australian terrorist’s massacre
“Good afternoon to everyone except you,” Wasseim Alsati Daragmih told the terrorist. There was a ripple of laughter in the courtroom and a smile from the Australian man who had shot him.
It was the afternoon of the second day of sentencing for the man who stormed two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand in March 2019, killing 51 people and wounding dozens more – including Darragmih.
Continue reading...Covid-19 has exposed the fragility of supply chains, which rely on the labour of black and brown workers. The deep inequalities won’t be fixed by injecting funds at the top
Is the UK governed by parliamentary democracy or big businesses? It is a question that should concern us all, yet it is becoming increasingly hard to differentiate between the two, as the government hands out multimillion-pound contracts to private firms with dubious track records, and ministers revolve between roles at big banks and government. Last week, the line between UK aid and private businesses was called into question, as the Department for International Development (DfID) announced the decision to direct £4.85m of taxpayers’ money towards the work of large retailers including M&S, Tesco and Primark.
The DfID funding is intended to support large companies to fix vulnerable supply chains and ensure that “people in Britain can continue to buy affordable, high-quality goods from around the world”. These aims, along with the fact that UK brands have been entrusted to deliver them, set off alarm bells for labour rights campaigners like myself, who advocate for better working conditions in the global garment industry.
Continue reading...Hans Sloane ‘pushed off pedestal’ and placed with artefacts putting his work in context of British empire
The British Museum has removed a bust of its founding father, who was a slave owner, and said it wanted to confront its links to colonialism.
Hartwig Fischer, the institution’s director, revealed the likeness of Sir Hans Sloane has been placed in a secure cabinet alongside artefacts explaining his work in the context of the British empire.
Continue reading...Many Lebanese people had hoped for a silver lining to this tragedy of an independent government and new elections
The tremendous blast that shook Lebanon on 4 August will be recorded as a major turning point in the country’s history, no less so than the much less powerful explosion that killed former prime minister Rafik Hariri on 14 February 2005. Judging from the 15 years it took before a UN-appointed tribunal basically admitted its impotence on the latter event, there won’t be any official certainty about the circumstances of the terrible explosion at Beirut’s port in the foreseeable future. A few conclusions can, however. be drawn about this highly traumatic tragedy.
Related: 'Our stitches ran out': Beirut's struggle to deal with injuries from port blast
Continue reading...Kenosha police confront demonstrators shouting ‘no justice, no peace’ over the shooting of Jacob Blake on Sunday
Anger over the shooting of a Black man by police spilled into the streets of Kenosha for a second night Monday, with police again firing teargas at hundreds of protesters who defied a curfew, threw bottles and shot fireworks at law enforcement guarding the courthouse.
The south-eastern Wisconsin city became the latest flashpoint in a summer of racial unrest in the US after footage of police shooting Jacob Blake apparently in the back, as he leaned into his SUV with his three children inside, circulated widely on social media Sunday. The 29-year-old was hospitalised in a serious condition.
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