House majority whip James Clyburn called on Sunday for both voting rights legislation and an infamous bridge in Alabama to be named after John Lewis.
Related: Trump equates support for Confederate flag with Black Lives Matter
Continue reading...Video-sharing app suspends building plans, with British ban on Huawei 5G kit seen as factor
The Chinese social media firm TikTok has pulled back from talks to site the headquarters for its non-China business in the UK, threatening the creation of 3,000 jobs, as fears grow of a tit-for-tat trade war between London and Beijing.
Its parent company, ByteDance, which is based in Beijing, had spent months in negotiations with the Department for International Trade and No 10 officials to expand operations in addition to the near 800 employed by TikTok.
Continue reading...Confrontation between ‘frugals’ and countries dubious over rule of law highlights acrimony at heart of union
Bad-tempered, late-running EU summits have hardly been unusual over the last decade of eurozone crisis and endless rows over migration. But the latest gathering of EU leaders, now in its fourth day with no end in sight, may be one of the most acrimonious yet.
With a €1.8tn (£1.6tn) financial plan on the table, the stakes are huge. Nobody expected talks to be easy, but expectations of a historic step towards EU fiscal union had risen since Angela Merkel abandoned Germany’s long-standing opposition to shared debt – reversing the position she took during the eurozone crisis.
Continue reading...Joe Biden leads Donald Trump by 15% among registered voters nationally and holds a 20-point lead when it comes to who Americans trust to handle the coronavirus pandemic, according to a major poll out on Sunday.
Related: Trump equates support for Confederate flag with Black Lives Matter
Continue reading...Lam says situation out of control, while Melbourne makes face masks compulsory
The coronavirus situation in Hong Kong is “really critical”, with a record 100 new infections recorded on Sunday, the territory’s leader, Carrie Lam, said, as Melbourne became the first city in Australia to make wearing masks compulsory in response to a resurgent and aggressive outbreak there.
Hong Kong was held up months ago as a model for its success in keeping down Covid-19 cases in the crowded city-state of 7.5 million people, but its caseload – although still low by European and American standards – had grown by a third in the past fortnight to nearly 1,800. Lam has shuttered bars, gyms and nightclubs in the past week and on Sunday announced new guidelines including mandatory mask-wearing indoors.
Continue reading...Government launches multimillion pound campaign to reach 1m British citizens in EU
The UK government is launching a multimillion pound communications campaign to reach the estimated 1 million British citizens living in the EU to ensure they know what steps to take if they wish to remain in their host countries after Brexit.
And it is urging all EU member states to accelerate the process to enable British nationals to secure their rights amid concern among campaigners that some countries have not yet even opened schemes for UK citizens.
Continue reading...Witness testimony looms as Israel PM fights public discontent after surge in Covid-19 cases
Witnesses at Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial will give testimony up to three times a week starting in January, a judge has ruled, opening a high-profile case in which the Israeli leader is accused of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.
Such regular court appearances and potentially explosive testimonies could present a further image problem for the Israeli leader, who is fighting fresh public discontent and regular protests over his handling of a recent surge in Covid-19 cases.
Continue reading...
For what it’s worth, Trump seems to be heading out to play golf.
…and welcome to another day of coverage of politics in the US, which means coverage of the presidential campaign, the coronavirus pandemic, tributes to the late John Lewis and more.
Fox News Sunday will this morning broadcast an interview with Donald Trump, his first with a Sunday show in more than a year, which sees the president questioned by Chris Wallace, one of the more incisive interviewers in American television. A clip released on Friday showed Wallace putting Trump right on his claim Joe Biden wants to defund the police – which Biden doesn’t – and Trump not liking it.
But in talks over the weekend, administration officials instead pushed to zero out the funding for testing and for the nation’s top health agencies, and to cut the Pentagon funding to $5bn.
The suggestions infuriated several Republicans on Capitol Hill, who saw them as tone deaf.
Related: 'The virus doesn't care about excuses': US faces terrifying autumn as Covid-19 surges
Continue reading...Tens of thousands take to the streets to protest removal of Sergei Furgal who faces murder charges
The Kremlin is poised to replace a governor from Russia’s far east charged with multiple murders, potentially kindling a new round of public anger that has already ignited the largest protests in the region’s history.
As many as 50,000 people took to the streets on Saturday in Khabarovsk, a city located 6,100 miles east of Moscow, to demand the return of Sergei Furgal, a former scrap metals trader charged with the murder of two business rivals and the attempted killing of a third in 2004-05.
Continue reading...Record 100 new daily cases confirmed in Hong Kong; UK’s head of Office for National Statistics calls for scaling up of testing; South Africa’s cases become fifth-highest worldwide
Thirty-nine people were detained after police were attacked with “a hail of bottles” at an open-air party in central Frankfurt attended by thousands of youngsters, police in the German city said today..
Five officers were injured in the riot that began at around 3:00 am (0100 GMT) when police intervened to stop a brawl involving around 30 people in Frankfurt’s historic Opera square.
People who travel outside of Ireland have been warned they will invalidate their travel insurance even if the place they visit is on a so-called ‘green list’ of safe countries to by published this week, the Irish Times reports.
It added that travel insurance exclusions denying cover to people who travel contrary to official guides are the norm across the sector. At present, the advice from the Irish Government is that non-essential journeys overseas should be avoided.
Continue reading...Trio who participated in November demonstrations received public support following request of retrial
Iran’s supreme court has agreed to suspend the executions of three men on death row for their participation in anti-government protests in November, whose sentences sparked an online outcry last week.
Lawyers for the trio – Saeed Tamjidi, 26, Mohammad Rajabi, 28, and Amirhossein Moradi, 26 – said in a statement on Sunday the country’s supreme court had agreed to examine the men’s application for a retrial.
Continue reading...Calls for investigation into claims senior independence figures were targeted using powerful spyware
As a leading Catalan politician renewed calls for an investigation, Spain’s Socialist-led coalition government has emphatically denied any involvement in the use of spyware to target senior members of the Catalan independence movement, saying: “This government doesn’t spy on anyone.”
A joint investigation by the Guardian and El País has determined that the mobile phones of at least five members of the regional independence movement – including the speaker of the Catalan parliament – were targeted using powerful software its makers claim is sold only to governments.
Continue reading...The 17-year-old South African tennis star on climbing the world rankings, meeting Nick Kyrgios and finding his self-belief
Khololwam Montsi has always been a dreamer. Before he had ever entered a tennis tournament, he was imagining himself winning Wimbledon. In lieu of any role models or a path trodden before them, dreams are what black African tennis players have. They are to be held on to and guarded. So when people have attempted to tread on Montsi’s aspirations, questioning whether a 5ft 5in player like him can succeed, he simply used it as further motivation.
“Me wanting to prove people wrong, I was like: ‘OK, I’m gonna do this thing and I’m gonna work hard every day. I’m gonna beat everyone that I can,’” he says. “If I lose, I lose, I go back to the drawing board. But I’m on a mission, really.”
Continue reading...Liu Xiaoming blames reports of forced sterilisation of women on ‘anti-China elements’
China’s ambassador to the UK has insisted the Uighur people live in “peaceful and harmonious coexistence with other ethnic groups”, as he was confronted with footage of shackled prisoners being herded on to trains in Xinjiang.
Human rights groups and western governments have catalogued widespread abuses against the Muslim minority in China’s western region, including mass forced sterilisation and detainment in “re-education” camps.
Continue reading...Proposals on the size and terms of a recovery fund have led to splits between member states
Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron said they are willing to walk away from a summit of EU leaders, as they arrived at the third day of a long and acrimonious debate on the terms of a €750bn (£682bn) pandemic recovery fund.
With the EU split between northern and southern member states as well as eastern and western, France’s president and the German chancellor both indicated their patience was waning despite the need to respond to the economic recession facing the bloc.
Continue reading...Orbán accuses Netherlands’ Rutte of ‘communist’ tactics on tense third day of talks
Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, accused his Dutch counterpart of using the same methods as his country’s former communist leaders on Sunday, as EU leaders publicly clashed during tense and acrimonious negotiations over the terms of a proposed €1.8tn budget and recovery package for the bloc.
A third difficult day of a summit of the EU’s 27 heads of state and government – the first in person for five months – saw movement towards agreement as talks stretched deep into the night, but laid bare the deep splits between north and south, and east and west.
Continue reading...Arson investigation launched after blaze at gothic Cathedral of St Peter and St Paul
French investigators are questioning a man who worked at the cathedral in Nantes, which was badly damaged by fire on Saturday, a prosecutor said.
The man “was responsible for locking up the cathedral on Friday evening and investigators wanted to clarify elements of the schedule of this person”, the prosecutor, Pierre Sennes, told Agence France-Presse.
Continue reading...Public enthusiasm for next year’s Games is waning, as city believes Covid-19 infections will ‘flare up’ if it pushes ahead
This Wednesday the reset Olympic countdown clock will show there are 365 days to go until the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Games. But with a year left to finalise arrangements, the prospects for a traditional Olympic spectacle in the city are looking grim.
Even if Japan, which has seen a comparatively low number of infections and deaths, could contain the outbreak, the virus is expected to rampage through the US, Brazil, India and other parts of the world.
Continue reading...The bus was on the steep road to the famed Athabasca glacier when it lost control and rolled
A glacier tour bus rolled over in Canada’s southern province of Alberta, killing three people and injuring several, according to reports.
A sightseeing bus carrying 27 passengers overturned en route to the glacier near the Columbia Icefield in Alberta’s Jasper National Park, according to a report by CBC.
Continue reading...Sage member says virus will ‘come back very fast’ if normal behaviour resumes too soon; confirmed global cases pass 14m. Follow all the developments live
Scotland has recorded its highest number of daily positive coronavirus tests for almost a month, with 21 confirmed results in 24 hours, as the deputy first minister warned of the ongoing threat of coronavirus.
Figures released by the Scottish government on Saturday were the highest number since 21 June, when there were 26 positive test results.
Related: Scotland records highest daily rate of positive Covid-19 tests for month
Parisians heading to the opening of Paris Plages, the yearly transformation of sections of the Seine river into man-made beaches, were met with a new attraction on Saturday: Covid-19 test centres.
A series of indicators across the country, including in the French capital, have suggested the virus could once again be gaining momentum.