Category Archives: World News

Coronavirus live update Australia: Morrison to discuss Melbourne Covid-19 outbreak in national cabinet meeting

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Prime minister will discuss the impact of the pandemic as fears grow over pressure on aged care sector. Follow the latest news and updates

The AFL roadshow continues with a mini-hub to be created in Cairns, Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has confirmed.

Two yet-to-be named teams will base themselves in the city, and three games will be played at Cazaly’s Stadium. Strict quarantine protocols and the Covidsafe Industry Plan will be rigorously employed, as is the norm these days.

Three @AFL Premiership games will be played at Cazaly’s Stadium and two clubs will relocate to Cairns temporarily with strict quarantine protocols and the COVID Safe Industry Plan in place. It will inject millions of dollars into the local economy and support jobs. #AFL #qldjobs pic.twitter.com/MiILnH1DjX

The Australian Education Union says that senior school students and specialist school students should also be allowed to move to flexible learning because of increasing rates of community transmission in Victoria.

More from AAP:

Year 11 and 12 students are being taught in the classroom ahead of exams, as are special school students.

AEU Victorian branch president Meredith Peace said the rigid approach meant some students were missing out and there was additional stress for principals, teachers and support staff.

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Coronavirus live news: US cases top 4m as WHO chief chides Pompeo for ‘untrue’ claims

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US Secretary of State’s reported comments ‘untrue, unacceptable and without foundation’ says WHO; Trump cancels Jacksonville RNC; Bolsonaro not distancing despite positive test. Follow the latest updates

US infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci has thrown out the first pitch at a Nationals-Yankees game, and it didn’t go amazingly well, but it did lead to some okay Covid-19 jokes:

Fauci finally flattened the curve pic.twitter.com/I0zUwbl6OH

The US surpassed 4m coronavirus cases on Thursday, after more than 1,100 new Covid-19-related deaths were reported in a single day on Wednesday for the first time since late May.

As states continue to dial back reopening efforts, nearly every metric for tracking the outbreak has shown a worsening spread. The US politicians volunteering other people’s lives to fight Covid-19Read more

Related: US surpasses 4m Covid-19 cases as states dial back reopening

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Coronavirus live news: record daily rise in global cases with almost 285,000 new infections

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Biggest increases were from the US, Brazil, India and South Africa, according to the World Health Organization

Brazil has registered an additional 1,156 deaths over the last 24 hours and another 55,891 confirmed cases, the health ministry has said. The South American nation has now registered 85,238 deaths and 2,343,366 total confirmed cases.

Footage of Niagara Falls tour boats highlights the stark differences in physical distancing between Canadian and US-managed companies.

The Canadian tour company Hornblower Niagara Cruises’s ships can carry up to 700 people but Ontario’s strict rules have permitted them to carry only six passengers at a time.

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Behrouz Boochani granted refugee status in New Zealand

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Exclusive: Journalist who became the voice of the victims of Australia’s punitive detention system granted a visa after seven-year ordeal

Behrouz Boochani, the Kurdish Iranian exile and journalist who became the voice of those incarcerated on Manus Island, has had his refugee status formally recognised by New Zealand, and granted a visa to live there.

He said he finally felt secure “knowing that I have a future”.

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Jenelyn Kennedy’s death was senseless – we must all ensure she did not die in vain

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The teenager’s violent death has inspired a broader movement against PNG’s endemic domestic abuse

For six full days 19-year-old Jenelyn Kennedy suffered. Her legs and arms were chained, witness statements to police say, her mouth gagged.

They allege she died from being beaten, locked in her room. Her young children in a room down the hall.

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Britain and US accuse Russia of launching ‘weapon’ in space

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Launch of projectile from satellite into orbit ‘threatens the peaceful use of space’

The US and UK have accused Russia of testing an anti-satellite weapon in space, in the latest sign that a space-based arms race is heating up.

General John Raymond, the head of the new US Space Force, said the alleged test of a projectile, conducted on 15 July, was “further evidence of Russia’s continuing efforts to develop and test space-based systems, and consistent with the Kremlin’s published military doctrine to employ weapons that hold US and allied space assets at risk.”

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Calls for investigation into mysterious death of Italian UN monitor in Colombia

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  • Doubts over claim that Mario Paciolla, 33, killed himself
  • Mayor of Naples joins calls for truth and justice

The mayor of Naples has joined human rights groups in calling for “truth and justice” following the death of an Italian United Nations volunteer who had been on a peace mission in Colombia.

Mario Paciolla, 33, from Naples, was found dead on 15 July at his home in San Vicente de Caguán, a town in Colombia’s southern jungle long used as a strategic rearguard for rebel groups and drug traffickers.

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‘Wave of silence’ spread around world during coronavirus pandemic

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Seismologists said high frequency noise fell as much as 50% as planes were grounded and roads emptied

An unprecedented wave of silence spread around the world in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, according to researchers who found that vibrations from human activity slumped under national lockdowns.

Records from seismic stations all over the planet show that high frequency noise caused by industrial plants, traffic and other activities fell as much as 50% as country after country imposed restrictions that grounded planes, emptied roads and brought down the shutters on shops and businesses.

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Ghislaine Maxwell case: ‘extremely personal’ documents to be unsealed

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New York judge orders documents unsealed after Maxwell’s lawyers had tried to keep them secret

An extensive collection of “extremely personal” documents in civil litigation against British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell can be unsealed, a Manhattan federal court judge ruled on Thursday.

The documents relate to Maxwell’s deposition in this litigation, as well as her early 2015 correspondence with her longterm associate, the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

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Covid-19 threatens access to abortions and contraceptives, experts warn

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Unplanned pregnancy rates have fallen globally, report finds, but coronavirus could endanger access to services

Rates of unplanned pregnancies have fallen around the world, according to new data published by health research organisation the Guttmacher Institute and the UN Human Reproduction Programme (HRP) on Wednesday.

Global rates of unintended pregnancies have fallen from 79 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 49 in 1990 to 64 in 2019, thanks in part to a concerted effort to increase access to contraceptives, but there are concerns that decades of progress in reducing the numbers risk being undone by Covid-19, as lockdown restrictions hamper health services.

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Covid-19 kills scores of health workers in war-torn Yemen

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Data gives insight into scale of pandemic in country already hit by humanitarian crisis

At least 97 Yemeni healthcare workers have died from Covid-19 as the disease ravages the war-torn country, according to a report that gives an insight into the true scale of Yemen’s poorly documented outbreak.

Yemen, already suffering from a five-year war that has caused the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, has proved uniquely vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic, according to data published by the medical charity MedGlobal on Thursday.

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‘They killed him’: widow confronts Peru’s president over Covid-19 deaths

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Martín Vizcarra announced emergency decree putting health ministry in charge of system after Celia Capira chased his truck

As the presidential motorcade pulled away from the main hospital in Peru’s second city – fleeing an angry protest by medical staff and relatives of Covid-19 patients – one woman broke away from the crowd.

Celia Capira ran sobbing after the truck carrying the president, Martín Vizcarra, yelling for him to go and see for himself the grim conditions at the hospital, where her husband was fighting for his life.

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‘Clear the rubble’: Malawi’s new president on making way for change

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After an historic election victory, Lazarus Chakwera explains his desire to give Malawians ‘dignity and development’

Promising to “clear the rubble” of corruption within the government, Malawi’s new president is beginning his term by raising the country’s minimum wage in an attempt to win over both doubters and international donors.

In an interview with the Guardian, Lazarus Chakwera, who won a historic victory over Peter Mutharika in June, urged Malawians to trust that he will deliver on his promises.

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Donald Trump’s assault on the WHO is deeply worrying for global health | Peter Beaumont

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A diplomacy shaped around self-serving tittle-tattle now risks lives and undermines America’s standing in the world

The campaign by the Trump administration against the World Health Organization has often seemed faintly preposterous.

Over the months of the coronavirus pandemic its untruths and hyperbole have been dismissed by many as iterations of Trumpspeak, whose main purpose has been to distract from the US’s catastrophic response to Covid-19, which has claimed almost 140,000 lives and devastated the economy.

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Coronavirus live news: California sees record daily cases as global infections top 15m

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California Covid-19 cases pass New York’s after record day; WHO emergencies chief says vaccinations unlikely before 2021; global cases pass 15m. Follow the latest updates

The BBC reports that the coronavirus pandemic has pushed South Korea into a recession, with the country seeing a 2.9% fall in GDP:

South Korea has fallen into recession as the country reels from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Asia’s fourth-largest economy saw gross domestic product (GDP) fall by a worse-than-expected 2.9% in year-on-year terms, the steepest decline since 1998.

China plans to provide a $1bn loan to make its coronavirus vaccine accessible for countries across Latin America and the Caribbean, the Mexican foreign ministry said on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

Mexico’s foreign ministry said in a statement that China had made the pledge in a virtual meeting between ministers from some Latin American and Caribbean countries.

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Chinese researcher wanted by FBI flees to San Francisco consulate as US-China row deepens

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Juan Tang is accused of lying about links to China military, amid tensions between Washington and Beijing after US orders Houston consulate to close

A Chinese researcher charged with lying to the FBI about her military affiliation has taken refuge in China’s San Francisco consulate, according to court documents, further escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing.

The standoff in San Francisco comes at the same time the US ordered the closure of China’s Houston consulate, on grounds of involvement in theft of “American intellectual property and private information”.

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France apartment fire: crowd catch children escaping blaze on third-storey – video

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Two brothers aged 10 and three escaped a blaze at an apartment in the south-eastern French city of Grenoble on Tuesday after they jumped into the arms of people watching below. The youngest boy was hanging from a window 10 metres above the ground, as flames and black smoke engulfed the apartment. The older boy followed. Both were uninjured in the fall, local media reported

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Ukrainian president endorses animal rights documentary to end hostage siege – video

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A gunman in Ukraine has released 13 hostages after the country's president agreed to post a video on Facebook recommending a 2005 animal rights documentary.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy promoted Earthlings, narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, to help end an hours-long standoff in the western Ukrainian city of Lutsk, where 44-year-old Maksym Kryvosh had seized a bus with the people onboard.

The video has since been taken down from Facebook and Kryvosh arrested.

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Portugal police could reopen case into rape of Irish woman in 2004

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Possible inquiry into assault on Hazel Behan comes after claims against Madeleine McCann suspect

Portuguese police have begun a process that could lead to the reopening of an investigation into the unsolved rape of an Irish woman as they seek to build a case against a possible suspect in connection with the abduction of Madeleine McCann.

Detectives in Portugal last week collected the archived case file on the vicious assault in 2004 of Hazel Behan, who was working as a holiday rep in Praia da Rocha on the Algarve, according to a source in the public prosecutor’s office.

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Bolivia elections in doubt as police find bodies of hundreds of Covid-19 victims

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Unit recovers 420 bodies across La Paz and Santa Cruz, with most believed to have had virus

Bolivia’s plan to hold elections in September is increasingly in doubt amid rising coronavirus deaths, and reports that police have recovered the bodies of hundreds of suspected Covid-19 victims.

In the past five days, a special police unit had found 420 bodies in streets, vehicles and homes in the capital, La Paz, and in Bolivia’s biggest city, Santa Cruz, authorities said on Tuesday. Between 80% and 90% of them are believed to have had the virus.

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