Category Archives: World News

Coronavirus: Bogotá to re-enter strict lockdown – as it happened

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WHO reports worrying rise; second Venezuelan minister tests positive; Brazil records 1,200 more deaths

This blog is closed – keep following coronavirus news at our new live blog.

US prison officials have announced California will release up to 8,000 people from state prisons to curb the spread of Covid-19 throughout the institutions.

Officials on Friday announced three separate efforts, approved by the governor, Gavin Newsom, that they say will decrease the prison population by 8,ooo by the end of August. The measures mark the largest release efforts the state administration has taken since Covid-19 began to circulate among prison staff and incarcerated people.

Related: California to release up to 8,000 prisoners to curb spread of coronavirus

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Sex traffickers left thousands of women to starve during Italy lockdown

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Revealed: Gangs abandoned trafficked Nigerian women without access to food or funds amid coronavirus pandemic

Thousands of Nigerian women forced into prostitution were left to starve by sex traffickers during the Covid-19 pandemic in Italy, the Guardian can reveal.

According to the UN’s International Office for Migration (IOM), more than 80% of the tens of thousands of Nigerian women who arrived in Italy from Libya in recent years were victims of highly organised sex trafficking gangs. The women are forced into prostitution to pay off debts of up to €40,000 (£36,000) and controlled through violence and fear of “juju” black magic rituals they are made to undergo before their journey to Europe.

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‘A drastic loss’: Satellite imagery reveals Mali’s farmers forced off land by militias

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Attacks by Islamist groups and rising ethnic tension in the Mopti region have led to life-threatening disruption to farming practices

A surge in fighting in central Mali has forced hundreds of villagers from farmland they depend on and could leave them without enough food to survive this year, according to a study of satellite imagery by the UN’s World Food Programme.

More than half the number of violent attacks by armed groups against Mali civilians last year were recorded in the Mopti region, largely targeting people who survive on land or livestock.

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Helen Clark: WHO coronavirus inquiry aims to ‘stop the world being blindsided again’

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Former New Zealand prime minister says WHO director general said during early days he was ‘screaming every day but no one is listening’

A former prime minister of New Zealand whose leadership was defined by stability and thoroughness has been appointed to investigate if the World Health Organization failed to adequately warn of the coronavirus pandemic.

In global circles, Helen Clark became known as a “fighter” and has described the WHO investigation as “exceptionally challenging” and a “very tough gig”, given the review would be conducted in the midst of a pandemic. Speaking to the Guardian from her home in Auckland, Clark said she had to start immediately – “before another pandemic is upon us”.

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The world’s poorest women and girls risk being biggest losers in DfID merger

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The department is a world leader in programmes based on gender equality. The government must show this will continue

News that the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office are to merge raised many questions about the UK’s commitment to supporting the world’s poorest people. A key question for us is how the new department will support women and girls.

For more than 20 years, UK aid has saved and transformed the lives of women and girls in some of the world’s poorest countries. In the past five years, 10 million women and girls have received humanitarian assistance and more than 6 million girls have been able to access quality education. Upwards of £25m has been invested to prevent violence against women and girls through the government’s What Works programme, and a further £67m committed.

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Global report: Bolivia’s president and Venezuela’s Socialist party leader test positive for Covid-19

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Announcements come after Brazil’s president tested positive; South Africa records highest one-day case increase; Australia to limit incoming travellers

Two more leading Latin American politicians – from Bolivia and Venezuela – have said they have tested positive for Covid-19 in the same week Brazil’s president announced he had contracted coronavirus.

Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela’s number two official and the leader of the Socialist party, announced his diagnosis on social media on Thursday evening and said he was in self-isolation. “We will prevail!!” tweeted the influential Chavista.

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New Zealand: man cuts through fence to escape Covid-19 quarantine and buy alcohol

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Man in his 50s is the third person to abscond during quarantine, as the nation battles with influx of returning citizens

New Zealand’s government has revealed that a third person has absconded from a managed isolation facility, saying a man cut through a fence so that he could go to buy some alcohol.

On Wednesday a man, aged in his 30s absconded from his managed quarantine hotel in central Auckland to visit a supermarket and later tested positive for coronavirus. It came after a woman jumped over a hedge to get out of quarantine. Later, she got lost and asked a passing policeman for directions back to her hotel.

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US imposes sanctions on senior Chinese officials over Uighur abuses

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Mike Pompeo says US ‘will not stand idly by’ over abuses of ethnic minorities in China’s western region of Xinjiang

The United States has imposed sanctions on three senior officials of the Chinese Communist party, including a member of the ruling politburo, for alleged human rights abuses targeting ethnic and religious minorities in the western part of the country.

Secretary of state Mike Pompeo said in a statement: “The United States will not stand idly by as the Chinese Communist party carries out human rights abuses targeting Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs and members of other minority groups in Xinjiang, to include forced labor, arbitrary mass detention, and forced population control, and attempts to erase their culture and Muslim faith.”

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‘This is intolerable’: fearful Australians in Hong Kong hasten plans to leave city

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Expats say they feel insecure about living somewhere ‘where the walls have ears’

• Australia’s Hong Kong intervention was hardly strident but that didn’t matter to China

Australian expats in Hong Kong are feeling jittery about their future after Beijing imposed a new national security law that could lead to foreigners being arbitrarily detained. They say the move has hastened their plans to leave the financial hub amid calls from their government for its citizens to “reconsider” their need to stay there.

The national security law passed in Beijing and enacted in Hong Kong on 1 July punishes crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison. It applies to permanent residents and non-residents in Hong Kong who breach the law in the territory, along with anyone accused of violating the law regardless of their nationality and where the alleged crime took place – so foreigners could be arrested on arrival in Hong Kong. National security cases can also be sent to Chinese courts for trial.

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Trump’s ex-fixer Michael Cohen back in custody over early-release rule breach

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Bureau of Prisons says Cohen, who was released in May over coronavirus concerns, ‘refused conditions of home confinement’

Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, was returned to federal prison on Thursday, after balking at certain conditions of the home confinement he was granted because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Related: Trump’s taxes may be released to grand jury, supreme court rules – live

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Fauci says states with surging Covid-19 cases should pause reopening efforts

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Public health expert made remark after US set world record for most new Covid-19 cases reported in one day

As the US set a world record for most Covid-19 cases in one day, with 60,000 reported on Wednesday, Dr Anthony Fauci, a senior member of the White House coronavirus taskforce, said states needed to pause reopening efforts.

Related: Some Republican senators to skip national convention due to pandemic

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Park Won-soon: Seoul mayor found dead after being reported missing

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Body found as local reports say Park had been subject of sexual harassment complaint

The missing mayor of Seoul, who had reportedly been accused of sexual harassment, has been found dead more than half a day after leaving a message for his daughter that was “like a will”.

Police said rescue dogs found Park Won-soon’s body near a restaurant in wooded hills in northern Seoul, more than seven hours after they launched a search for him.

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UK accused of ’empty talk’ as Bahrain activists face death penalty

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Calls intensify for withdrawal from security arrangement with kingdom over human rights

The British government has been accused of “empty talk” over human rights as two pro-democracy campaigners in Bahrain face the death penalty.

The UK has provided security advice to the island nation in the Persian Gulf for five years and funds a body that examines allegations of police mistreatment.

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Bodies donated to science ‘left to be eaten by rats at Paris centre’

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Inquiry to examine claims remains were found strewn around and dismembered

Authorities in France will investigate claims that human corpses donated for science were left to rot and be eaten by rats at a university research facility, the Paris prosecutor’s office has said.

An investigation into “violations of the integrity of a corpse” was handed over to magistrates by prosecutors who handled the initial phase of the investigation after l’Express magazine reported the scandal last November.

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Serbian protesters clash with police over government handling of coronavirus – video report

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Police have fired teargas to disperse protesters hurling flares and objects in Serbia’s capital as violence erupted for the second day in a row during demonstrations against the president’s handling of the country’s coronavirus outbreak. The president, Aleksandar Vučić, backtracked on his plans to reinstate a coronavirus lockdown in Belgrade this week, but it did not stop people from firing flares and throwing stones while trying to storm the  parliament building

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Trump’s taxes may be released to grand jury, supreme court rules – live

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Chief justice John Roberts wrote the 7-2 opinion that the president is not categorically immune from grand jury requests. Both supreme court justices nominated by Trump, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, sided with the majority.

“Two hundred years ago, a great jurist of our Court established that no citizen, not even the President, is categorically above the common duty to produce evidence when called upon in a criminal proceeding,” Roberts wrote in the decision.

The supreme court has issued its decision in one case involving subpoenas for Trump’s financial records.

The justices issued a 7-2 decision that the president’s tax returns and business records may be turned over to a grand jury in New York.

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Coronavirus live news: WHO says pandemic still accelerating as global review announced

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WHO appoints committee to evaluate response to Covid-19 crisis; Serbia considers new lockdown after second night of riots; Infections worldwide pass 12m

As Covid-19 cases continue to surge in states throughout the US, another 1.3 million Americans filed for unemployment last week, highlighting the grim reality that any type of economic recovery may be far off, writes Lauren Aratani for Guardian US.

While the number of new unemployment filings has decreased significantly since it peaked in April at 6 million people filing in one week, it has remained above a million each week since forced shutdowns began.

Related: Another 1.3m Americans file for unemployment as states back away from reopening plans

Here’s a roundup of the key global coronavirus developments so far:

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Future of ‘Third Republic’ defines run-off vote in Poland

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Two presidential candidates reflect nation’s 30 years of political division since fall of communism

It was an event – or rather two events – that marked the symbolic nadir of 30 years of rancorous political division in Poland since the fall of communism in 1989.

On Monday evening, Poland’s conservative president, Andrzej Duda, and his challenger in Sunday’s presidential election run-off, the liberal mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski, each held their own separate “presidential debate” in different parts of the country, each boycotting the other’s event and each fielding questions alone next to an unmanned podium bearing the name of their rival.

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European hamster and caterpillar fungus on brink of extinction

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Update to IUCN red list warns of hamster’s falling birth rate and high demand for fungus

Hamsters and fungi may not be poster species among those threatened with extinction but are no less important in ecosystems, according to an updated list of the world’s most fragile species.

The European hamster once scurried across much of Europe and Russia but has now vanished from most of its original range and on current trends will go extinct within 30 years, according to the update of the IUCN red list, the global database of species on the brink.

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Naya Rivera: Glee star feared dead after son found alone in boat at lake

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California sheriff’s department launches search after actor’s four-year-old son found alone on boat at Lake Piru

The former Glee actor Naya Rivera is missing and feared to have drowned at a lake in southern California.

A search operation at Lake Piru was suspended on Wednesday evening and was due to resume on Thursday.

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