Barcelona's El Liceu opera house reopened on Monday with a concert to an audience of 2,292 potted plants. The event took place a day after Spain's three-month state of emergency came to an end. It was the work of Spanish conceptual artist Eugenio Ampudia, who said the inspiration came from a connection he built with nature during the pandemic: 'I watched what was going on with nature during all this time. I heard many more birds singing. And the plants in my garden and outside growing faster. And, without a doubt, I thought that maybe I could now relate in a much more intimate way with people and nature'
Continue reading...Category Archives: World News
Monsters are heinous, but they need collaborators to do their dirty work | Suzanne Moore
Mouths to feed, rent to pay: there’s always an excuse if you’re tempted to do the wrong thing
Where is Ghislaine Maxwell? Where? I sat through the four episodes of Filthy Rich, the Netflix documentary on Jeffrey Epstein. I had to force myself, not because it was so upsetting – which, of course, it also was – but because the tales of his sexual abuse were so monotonous. Brave and defiant, his victims had to numb themselves slightly to tell and retell what happened to them when they were as young as 14. The interviews with the monster himself, as always, were disappointingly banal. Monsters often are tediously ordinary. The magnetic charm, the immense intellect, is one of the biggest delusions of “true crime”. See also Ted Bundy.
Anyway Ghislaine, accused of procuring underage girls for Epstein, is said to be a free woman in Paris, living in the swanky 8th arrondisement. French law prevents her extradition. Many of those implicated in Epstein’s world of obscene exploitation, including all the art world and socialite scum, must have a clue where she is. Alleged scum, I should say. They love their children just like we do. Sure.
Continue reading...John Bolton calls Trump incompetent as president plans Phoenix speech amid pandemic – live
- Bolton says he won’t vote for Trump
- Fear mounts Trump may pressure FDA to rush vaccine by election
- New York: fight to unseat senior party figure splits Democrats
- Trump campaign chief faces ‘fury’ after Tulsa rally flops
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White House press secretary Kayleigh McEanny said Trump was “very pleased” with his Saturday rally, even though there were thousands of unfilled seats in the Tulsa arena.
McEnany’s claim is at odds with multiple reports that Trump has privately lashed out against campaign officials for reports highlighting the event’s attendance.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany defended Trump’s use of the racist phrase “kung flu” to describe coronavirus during his Saturday rally.
“He is linking it to its place of origin,” McEnany said of the president’s use of the phrase.
Related: Donald Trump calls Covid-19 'kung flu' at Tulsa rally
Continue reading...What does it mean to defund the police? – video
The Black Lives Matter protests in the US, which escalated in response to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, have brought the little-known but decades-old campaign to abolish US police into the spotlight. But what are abolitionists calling for, and how would a police-free society work? Josh Toussaint-Strauss explores the arguments for abolition with a campaigner from MPD150 and Reclaim the Block, and also Sam Levin, LA correspondent for Guardian US
Continue reading...Johnson and May ignored claims Russia had ‘likely hold’ over Trump, ex-spy alleges
Exclusive: Christopher Steele claims May government turned blind eye to Trump allegations
Boris Johnson and Theresa May ignored claims the Kremlin had a “likely hold” over Donald Trump and may have covertly funded Brexit, the former spy Christopher Steele alleges in secret evidence given to MPs who drew up the Russia report.
In testimony to MPs, the MI6 veteran accused the government led by May and in which Johnson was foreign secretary for two years of turning a blind eye to allegations about Trump because they were afraid of offending the US president.
Continue reading...German payments firm Wirecard says missing €1.9bn may not exist
Company thought money was in two Asian banks but search hits dead end in Philippines
Wirecard has said that €1.9bn (£1.7bn) in funds missing from its bank accounts may not exist, as the accounting scandal at the German payments company deepens.
The firm processes tens of billions of euros in credit and debit transactions each year and is a former darling of Germany’s tech sector. It had previously said it believed the money was held in escrow accounts at two Asian banks.
Continue reading...Global report: South Korea has Covid-19 second wave as Israel ponders new lockdown
New infections in and around Seoul; Spain reports 36 new outbreaks; New Zealand strengthens borders
Authorities in South Korea have said the country is experiencing a second wave of the coronavirus in and around Seoul, and warned that stronger physical-distancing measures will be reimposed if the daily increase in infections does not come down.
Confirmation of the new wave came as the Israeli government said a lockdown could be reintroduced amid a sharp rise in cases, and a team of contact tracing experts prepared to deploy to the Australian state of Victoria to tackle a new outbreak in Melbourne.
Continue reading...Syrian doctor arrested in Germany for alleged crimes against humanity
Suspect accused of torturing man in prison run by Syrian intelligence service in 2011
A Syrian doctor living in Germany has been arrested on suspicion of crimes against humanity in his country of origin, prosecutors have said, in the latest German move against suspected war crimes in Syria.
The suspect, identified as Alaa M, is accused of having “tortured a detainee ... in at least two cases” at a prison run by the Syrian intelligence service in the city of Homs in 2011, according to German federal prosecutors.
Continue reading...US v China: is this the start of a new cold war?
Coronavirus has brought the rivalry to a head sooner than expected – and the scope for non-alignment is narrowing
George Kennan, the US charge d’affaires in Moscow at the end of the second world war and the author of the famous Long Telegram in 1946, captured in his memoir how quickly perceptions in international relations can change.
The man widely seen as the intellectual author of the cold war recalled that if he had sent his telegram on the nature of the Soviet threat six months earlier, his message “would probably have been received in the state department with pursed lips and raised eyebrows. Six months later, it probably would have sounded redundant, a preaching to the converted.”
Continue reading...Windrush lawyer Jacqueline McKenzie: ‘The Home Office is treating people with contempt’
The lawyer representing 200 victims of the Windrush scandal says systemic racism is at the root of the problem
For the past three months, Jacqueline McKenzie says her front room has been covered with Windrush compensation files. Since lockdown, she has stopped going to the offices of the law firm she co-founded in 2010 and has been working from home. But her study is too small to accommodate the huge amount of paperwork that goes with the 200 separate claims she is filing on behalf of people affected by the Home Office citizenship scandal, during which thousands of people were wrongly classified as illegal immigrants because they could not prove they were British citizens.
“I think they are treating people with contempt,” she says. She is frustrated at the slow progress towards paying compensation to people who lost their jobs or their homes, were denied healthcare or the right to travel, or who were, in extreme cases, detained and deported. Part of the problem, she says, lies with the structure of the scheme, which requires claimants to gather large amounts of documentary proof of the losses they have incurred as a result of being miscategorised as unlawful residents (a problem that often arose because those affected were unable to gather the large amounts of documentary proof required to show that they had been living legally in the UK since the 1960s).
Continue reading...Dutch football captains lead boycott of TV show over racist remarks
Virgil van Dijk and Sari van Veenendaal hit out at pundit and say ‘enough is enough’
The captains of the Dutch men’s, women’s and youth national football teams are boycotting a leading sports TV programme over the racist comments of a longstanding pundit, warning: “Enough is enough.”
The Liverpool centre-back Virgil van Dijk, and the Atlético Madrid goalkeeper Sari van Veenendaal have led the way after years of the behaviour of Johan Derksen on the Veronica Inside show being explained away as straight-talking humour.
Continue reading...African countries unite to create ‘one stop shop’ to lower cost of Covid-19 tests and PPE
Online marketplace for medical supplies will allow continent to buy in bulk and lower costs, says South Africa’s president
African countries have pulled together to set up a one-stop shop to give the continent a fairer chance in the international scramble for Covid-19 test kits, protective equipment and any vaccines that emerge.
The Africa Medical Supplies Platform will work like eBay or Amazon, unlocking access to supplies across the continent, and could save billions of pounds.
Continue reading...‘It would spread quickly in those cells’: Covid-19 imperils packed Egypt prison
Families of prisoners at notorious Tora complex concerned publicised efforts to contain virus are purely cosmetic
Fears are mounting over the safety of prisoners in Egypt’s notorious Tora prison, as rights groups say parts of the complex have been cordoned off to quarantine those diagnosed with coronavirus.
Families of those held inside the huge compound south of Cairo, which houses at least eight individual prisons, including two maximum security wings, say the authorities’ attempts to combat the spread of Covid-19 inside Tora are at best cosmetic. “Things have been erratic since they banned visits in March,” said Mona Seif, whose brother, the activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, has been detained in at the prison since September.
Continue reading...New Zealand tightens Covid-19 border measures in ‘dangerous new phase’
Quarantined returnees must test negative to coronavirus before release and may be asked to pay for their isolation accomodation
New Zealand is introducing stricter measures to strengthen its border as more citizens access increased flights to come home.
“While the world enters this dangerous new phase, we remain in a phase of border containment,” the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said.
Continue reading...Delhi to transform 25 luxury hotels into Covid-19 care centres
Fearful hotel workers asked to take on role of hospital support staff as cases in Delhi rise
Staff at luxury hotels in Delhi are to start welcoming guests not with traditional garlands but with a medical gown.
Amid growing concerns that there are not enough hospital beds to cope with the rising number of cases, the Delhi government has become the first in the country to requisition its hotels. Starting this week, 25 establishments will be repurposed as emergency Covid-19 care centres for patients with mild to moderate symptoms. In a sign of how overwhelmed medical staff are becoming, hotel employees are being trained in case they have to administer some of the care.
Continue reading...Coronavirus live news: Bolsonaro silent as Brazil passes 50,000 deaths; global cases reach 9 million
China halts imports from food plant where 481 tested positive; New York shops and bars reopen; Lisbon brings back lockdown restrictions
- Workers return as New York enters phase two of reopening
- South Korea has Covid-19 second wave as Israel ponders new lockdown
- WHO reports record daily rise in cases worldwide
- Brazil losing a generation of indigenous leaders to coronavirus
- UK coronavirus updates – live
The Netherlands reported zero new deaths from Covid-19 on Monday, the first day since the beginning of March that the country’s pandemic death toll has not risen.
Deaths reported by Dutch national institute for public health are not necessarily from the past 24 hours, so it cannot be confirmed that no one has died from coronavirus-related illness. But it is the first day since 12 March that no death has been reported. The country’s total death toll is 6,090.
The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus around the world since the outbreak began has passed 9 million, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The US-based research university, which keeps a tally of official statistics, said that so far 9,003,042 cases had been reported. The United States is the world’s worst affected country by case numbers, with nearly 2.3 million cases alone, followed by Brazil with nearly 1.1 million, then Russia, with nearly 600,000.
Continue reading...Trump and Navarro condemn John Bolton’s China claim
- Judge allows publication of tell-all but slams author’s behaviour
- Trump: ‘I wouldn’t say a thing like that’
- The Room Where It Happened: a broadside to sink Trump?
The White House fired back at John Bolton on Sunday, seeking to rubbish a key claim in the former national security adviser’s bombshell new book, that Donald Trump asked Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, for help in winning re-election.
Related: Trump's Berman-SDNY disaster suggests William Barr is not so smart after all | Lloyd Green
Continue reading...Israeli spyware used to target Moroccan journalist, Amnesty claims
Amnesty alleges phone of Omar Radi in Morocco was infected by NSO’s Pegasus software
As NSO Group faced mounting criticism last year that its hacking software was being used illegally against journalists, dissidents and campaigners around the world, the Israeli spyware company unveiled a new policy that it said showed its commitment to human rights.
Now an investigation has alleged that another journalist, Omar Radi in Morocco, was targeted with NSO’s Pegasus software and put under surveillance just days after the company made that promise.
Continue reading...Tennessee paper religious ad claims ‘Islam’ will detonate nuclear bomb in Nashville
- Editor of the Tennessean calls full-page advertisement ‘horrific’
- Newspaper investigating ‘breakdown in the normal process’
A Tennessee newspaper said on Sunday it was investigating what its editor called a “horrific” full-page advertisement from a religious group that predicts a terrorist attack in Nashville next month.
The paid advertisement that appeared in Sunday’s editions of the Tennessean from the group Future For America claims Donald Trump “is the final president of the USA” and features a photo of Trump and Pope Francis.
Continue reading...Microsoft president’s criticism of app stores puts pressure on Apple
Cut of up to 30% charged by app stores obstructs fair competition, claims Brad Smith
Microsoft has thrown its weight behind calls for an antitrust investigation into App Store monopolies, piling yet more pressure on Apple as the iPhone maker prepares for its annual developer conference on Monday.
Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president, criticised the 30% cut that app stores take from developers this month, and argued that the policy is a far higher burden on fair competition than the issues that led to Microsoft’s antitrust case in the early 2000s.
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