With countries all over the world affected by the coronavirus pandemic, the US has emerged as a global hotspot. The Trump administration has been criticized for being slower to act than other countries. The US currently leads the world in both confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths according to Johns Hopkins University.
It’s important to point out that the actual death toll is believed to be far higher than the tally compiled from government figures.
Continue reading...Human Rights Watch calls on government to do more to protect civilians after at least eight murdered by armed groups
Drug cartels and rebel groups are imposing their own bloody coronavirus lockdowns across Colombia – and killing those who do not obey, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
At least eight civilians have been murdered by the armed groups, some of them holdovers from Colombia’s half-century civil war, which are using Whatsapp chats and pamphlets to warn citizens of the lockdowns in the rural areas where they operate.
Continue reading...Call for increased security as French president tells demonstrators ‘be cool’
Anti-government gilets jaunes (yellow vests) hurled abuse at Emmanuel Macron as he walked with his wife, Brigitte, on Bastille Day in a public garden in Paris, prompting calls from opposition leaders for increased security.
Demonstrators confronted the French president and his wife, Brigitte, as they walked with bodyguards in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Mauro Morandi, 81, has lived on Budelli near Sardinia since his catamaran broke down in 1989
He has lived alone on an Italian paradise island for over three decades and intimately knows its ecosystem. But as eviction looms, Mauro Morandi, 81, has plunged into despair.
Labelled “Italy’s Robinson Crusoe”, Morandi, originally from the Emilia-Romagna city of Modena, stumbled across Budelli, an island off Sardinia famous for its pink-sanded beach, in 1989 after his catamaran broke down on the way to the South Pacific. In a fortuitous twist of fate, he discovered that the island’s caretaker was about to retire, and so he abandoned the sailing trip, sold his boat and took over the role.
Continue reading...‘We get recovery if we get equality’ philanthropist argues in new paper urging policymakers to address unpaid labour
The failure of leaders to take into account the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on women, and their roles in lessening its harm, will mean a long, slow recovery that could cost the world economy trillions of dollars, Melinda Gates has warned.
Even a four-year delay in programmes that promote gender equality, such as advancing women’s digital and financial inclusion, would wipe a potential $5tn (£4tn) from global GDP by 2030.
Continue reading...160,000 Catalans back into lockdown; Florida records new daily death toll high; India Covid-19 cases top 900,000
Brazil has suffered 1,233 more deaths and registered 39,924 new cases, its health ministry has said. The country has now recorded a total off 75,366 deaths and confirmed 1,996,748 cases in all, making it the world’s second worst-affected.
As the figures were released, the far-right president, who has repeatedly dismissed the dangers posed by the pandemic, publicly acknowledged a second positive test that suggests he has not recovered. Bolsonaro told reporters he would get tested again in a few days.
Scotland could ask people arriving from England to quarantine, its first minister Nicola Sturgeon has said. In an interview with ITV’s Peston programme due to be broadcast in the next couple of hours, she has said:
Scotland would have the ability through public health measures to ask people to quarantine if they came to Scotland. And I’ve said, again, this is not political, it is not constitutional, I’m taking these decisions purely from a public health perspective. We do see prevalence of the virus at a lower level at the moment – although we’re not complacent – than we do in England.
But that’s not something I want to do if we can avoid that. I think the first thing we want to do is work very constructively as we do already with authorities in England to look at good outbreak management and where that requires localised travel restrictions, then rely on that in the first instance.
Well, my calculation is that if we are more successful in driving the virus to very low levels, getting as close as possible to elimination of it before a potential second wave in the autumn and winter, then we will build ourselves a much more sustainable foundation for economic recovery.
So, the judgement is that taking a couple of weeks, and that’s pretty much what we’re talking about here, longer to come out of lockdown, if that buys us a more sustainable recovery in the medium to long term, then that’s the right thing to do.
The sweetest reunion of all #hairdresser #Julie pic.twitter.com/toBnQ4Qmmi
Continue reading...Restrictions imposed on Indian city of Bangalore and state of Bihar; Venezuela’s capital Caracas to go into a strict lockdown on Wednesday; Face masks mandatory in France; Follow the latest updates
AFP is reporting on Tokyo being on its highest coronavirus alert level after a rise in new cases - particularly in younger people, in nightlife areas and also in workplaces and in families - as experts said the rising infections were a clear “red flag”.
However, the move to a “red” alert does not mean the city will ask businesses to close or events to be postponed. Even during a national state of emergency in April, there was no “lockdown” in Japan of the type seen in Europe.
AP are also reporting on how virus restrictions in Australia are being reimposed, shutting businesses and curbing people’s social lives as communities try to curb a disease resurgence before it spins out of control.
Residents of Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, were warned today to comply with lockdown regulations or face tougher restrictions. Melbourne’s 5 million people and part of the city’s semi-rural surrounds are a week into a new, six-week lockdown to contain a new outbreak there.
Continue reading...Muralists are covering the Afghan capital’s blast walls with agitprop imagery and calling out corruption
From the killing of George Floyd in the US and the drowning of Afghan refugees in Iran, to the signing of the US-Taliban agreement towards peace and brutal murder of a Japanese aid worker, a group of Afghan artists have taken paintbrushes to adorn Kabul’s grey blast walls with vivid imagery.
The barriers have been transformed into politically inspired murals, which the artists hope will create “visual dialogue” and raise awareness of corruption and injustices.
Continue reading...Exclusive: A litany of failings meant that when Italy faced disaster, its distress call to the EU met with a shocking silence
It was a moment of chilling clarity. On 26 February, with the numbers of Italians known to be infected by coronavirus tripling every 48 hours, the country’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, appealed to fellow EU member states for help.
His hospitals were overwhelmed. Italian doctors and nurses had run out of the masks, gloves and aprons they needed to keep themselves safe, and medics were being forced to play God with the lives of the critically-ill due to an acute lack of ventilators.
Continue reading...Wearing a mask may feel like being muzzled to some, but across the world people are using masks to send political messages
Continue reading...G20 countries aim their pandemic bailout spending at fossil fuel industries, leaving Paris climate change targets in doubt
Governments are spending vastly more in support of fossil fuels than on low-carbon energy in rescue packages triggered by the coronavirus crisis, new data has shown, despite rhetoric from many countries in support of a “green recovery”.
Data from the Energy Policy Tracker, a new research effort by several civil society groups, shows that at least $151bn (£120bn) of bailout cash has been spent or earmarked so far to support fossil fuels by the G20 group of large economies. Only about a fifth of this spending is conditional on environmental requirements such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions or cleaning up pollution.
Continue reading...As a lucrative deal with the EU looms the country is rushing to repair its reputation on human rights, which has been plagued by reports of forced labour
An inmate grasps a hefty wooden mallet and smashes it through concrete at his feet, working in the shade of a stately white building that his fellow prisoners are constructing in southern Vietnam.
Police officers in bold green uniforms usher everyone away from the men working in faded, olive and white-striped prison garb.
Continue reading...Declining fertility and ageing societies could see a huge shift in economic and political clout, University of Washington study says
Earth will be home to 8.8 billion people in 2100, 2 billion fewer than current UN projections, according to a major study published on Wednesday that foresees changes shaped by declining fertility rates and ageing populations.
By the century’s end, 183 of 195 countries – barring an influx of immigrants – will have fallen below the replacement threshold needed to maintain population levels, an international team of researchers reported in the Lancet.
Continue reading...Global Times mouthpiece says Beijing must respond or be seen as ‘easy to bully’
Chinese state media has foreshadowed “public and painful” retaliation against the UK over its ban of Huawei from the country’s 5G networks.
Following Britain’s announcement that Huawei would be stripped out of the country’s phone networks by 2027, the state-run Global Times said in an editorial that China could not “remain passive”.
Continue reading...Vote will decide whether country continues on course of pro-European reform
North Macedonia goes to the polls on Wednesday in an election viewed as crucial for the Balkan state’s future after months of political drift exacerbated by voting being postponed by the coronavirus pandemic.
The vote, originally due to be held in April, will be the first since the country changed its name from Macedonia in a landmark deal with Greece two years ago. It is hoped the election will end the political uncertainty that has lingered since the European Union’s refusal to set a date for North Macedonia to begin eagerly-awaited accession talks with the bloc.
Continue reading...Questions over Juan Carlos’s finances are having an ‘unprecedented impact’ on the country’s monarchy
Damaging allegations over the financial arrangements of Spain’s former king Juan Carlos have placed the royal family under unprecedented scrutiny but are unlikely to result in current or futures monarchs losing their constitutional immunity, according to legal experts.
Juan Carlos abdicated in favour of his son, Felipe, six years ago, renouncing the throne after a series of damaging scandals including in a controversial elephant-hunting trip to Botswana as Spain was devastated by the financial crisis.
Continue reading...Beijing says US move to rescind Hong Kong’ preferential economic treatment over new security laws is a ‘mistake’
China has vowed to retaliate after Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered an end to Hong Kong’s special status under US law to punish China for what he called “aggressive actions” against the former British colony.
Citing China’s decision to enact a new national security law for Hong Kong, Trump said he signed an executive order that will end the preferential economic treatment Hong Kong has received for years – “no special privileges, no special economic treatment and no export of sensitive technologies”, he told a news conference.
Continue reading...A maximum of 84 hotdogs in 10 minutes is possible, says sports science study
The four-minute mile and the two-hour marathon were once believed impossible: now a new gauntlet has been thrown down for the world of elite competition. A scientific analysis suggests competitive eaters have come within nine hotdogs of the limits of human performance.
The theoretical ceiling has been set at 84 hotdogs in 10 minutes. The current world record, set by Joey “Jaws” Chestnut earlier this month, stands at 75.
Continue reading...With their ability to glide silently through snow drifts and vanish into forests, mountain caribou have been called the grey ghosts of western Canada’s alpine region.
But in recent years, a steep drop in their population has raised fears the knobby-kneed ungulates may disappear forever.
Continue reading...There are 3 million eligible for citizenship, but many factors will determine if it is taken up
The Foreign Office claim that 200,000 Hong Kong citizens will want to come to the UK over the next five years to take up Britain’s offer of citizenship is a very broad estimate and not a forecast, diplomats have said.
The figure suggests less than 10% of the 3 million Hongkongers eligible for a British National Overseas passport will be attracted to a new life in Britain.
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