Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
As thousands flock to the Olympic flame in Japan, the organising committee is reportedly drafting plans to postpone the Games
As huge crowds defied coronavirus fears to queue for hours to see the Olympic flame in northern Japan, a report emerged that organisers of Tokyo 2020 have begun drafting alternatives to holding the Games this summer.
In contrast to the official line from the Japanese government and the IOC, two sources familiar with the talks have told news agency Reuters that options for postponing the Games are now being drawn up.
German chancellor in self-isolation after her doctor tests positive for coronavirus; reports say 360 more people have died in Italy; first two cases in Gaza. Follow the latest updates
UK residents have been told that “essential travel” does not include visits to second homes, camp sites, caravan parks, whether for isolation purposes or holidays and that they should remain in their primary residence.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport updated its guidance to avoid non-essential travel in the UK, saying: “This guidance is for people planning to visit second homes or holiday premises during the coronavirus pandemic.
During the coronavirus pandemic, people should avoid travelling unless it is essential. This means you should avoid visiting holiday or second homes.
The Welsh government has warned that people will face a tough crackdown if they refuse to self-isolate and continue with non-essential travel during the outbreak.
First Minister Mark Drakeford said it is important members of the public follow the official advice to prevent further deaths.
Boris Johnson is speaking to supermarket bosses today about how to overcome the panic buying that is gripping the UK. They will also discuss efforts to keep supplies flowing.
The meetings come ahead of the government’s daily press conference, which will be hosted by the environment secretary, George Eustice, in place of Johnson.
Scotland’s chief constable, Iain Livingstone, has warned the police will enforce the ban on all pubs, clubs and restaurants staying open — a ban he said he fully supported.
In a statement, Livingstone thanked “the overwhelming majority” of people complying with the ban. “To be clear, no public houses or other entertainment venues should be opening for patrons until further notice,” he said.
We are aware of proposed legislation in relation to COVID-19 and are carefully monitoring its progress and considering what the implications for policing will be.
In the meantime, those breaking the law will be dealt with appropriately to ensure the public is kept safe from risk and harm as we continue to police the country.
For 20 years Kamikatsu has led the way in the world’s second biggest producer of plastic waste
The residents of a remote village on the Japanese island of Shikoku have spent almost two decades reusing, recycling and reducing, united behind a mission to end their dependence on incinerators and landfill as the world struggles to tackle the climate emergency and the plastic waste crisis.
Although Kamikatsu, an hour’s drive from the nearest city, Tokushima, and 370 miles from Tokyo, has not managed to banish waste altogether, its heroic efforts have inspired other communities in Japan and further afield to take up the zero-waste challenge.
Japan is still preparing to host the Olympics, Shinzo Abe has said, despite growing concern about the viability of the summer Games because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Japan’s prime minister and his government have been adamant that the Olympics will go ahead, even as other global sporting events have been put on hold. Speculation about a delay of the July start date has grown since the Donald Trump said organisers should consider a one-year postponement.
Stringent testing continues in prefecture to counter reputational damage from triple disaster
Knives are wielded in silence as chunks of meat are sliced up and placed in containers, the reputation of an entire region resting on every step of the process being completed without a hitch.
Staff at the Fukushima Agricultural Technology Centre are dissecting samples of beef neck; on other days it could be batches of cucumbers and peaches, or fish from the nearby Pacific Ocean.
Saitama assembly hopes move will reflect changing attitudes towards women in workplaces
A local government assembly is attempting to shake up Japan’s conservative workplace culture by ending the custom of employing women to serve tea at meetings.
Few official gatherings in Japan have properly begun until female employees – known collectively as the ochakumi (“tea squad”) – have placed cups of green tea in front of their invariably male senior colleagues, occasionally accompanied by something sweet.
The self-produced film by faith leader Ryuho Okawa is woefully misjudged and reveals the laughable reality behind Happy Science
Here’s a biopic about a world-changing faith leader, a man who has published 2,500 books – according to his website – including accounts of his seances with the ghosts of world leaders. (Available to buy on Amazon: Margaret Thatcher’s Miraculous Message – An Interview with the Iron Lady 19 Hours After Her Death.) If you’ve never heard him, Ryuho Okawa is the founder and CEO of Happy Science, a religious movement that claims to have 11 million followers worldwide; some call it a cult. Now Okawa has executive-produced a long and incredibly leaden drama about himself written by his daughter, Sayaka.
If you’re going to make a film about yourself called Immortal Hero, hiring an actor with knee-wobbling charisma should be your number-one priority. But lead Hisaaki Takeuchi plays a self-help author called Makoto Mioya – an obvious stand-in for Okawa – with a blank-faced and catatonic presence. When he’s rushed to hospital after a heart attack, Mioya is told he won’t make it through the night. But he miraculously cures himself with the power of his mind. It turns out that Mioya has been visited his entire life by celestial spirits (they look like flickering holograms from an 80s kids’ TV series). Now these spirits command him to fulfil his destiny as the chosen one by unifying world religions. So Mioya abandons the self-help racket and branches into the lucrative business of religion.
“It’s been a long holiday,” laughs Hong Kong insurance worker and mother, Sarah Wong.
Wong and her two daughters, Chloe and Greeta, are at a co-working space in Jordan, Kowloon. Chloe has set her desk up like home, with an iPad, her own lamp, and an aromatherapy diffuser. The girls, aged 12 and eight, are listening to online lessons from their school which has been closed because of the coronavirus.
Big businesses and wealthy people are chartering private jets for “evacuation flights” out of countries hit by the coronavirus outbreak, reports the Guardian’s wealth correspondent Rupert Neate.
Adam Twidell, the chief executive of the private jet booking service PrivateFly, said the company had been inundated with requests from multinational firms arranging the mass evacuation of staff from China and south-east Asia.
British Labour MP Tulip Siddiq has had confirmation from the family of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian woman detained in Iran, that she has not been tested for coronavirus. Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband told broadcasters this morning that his wife suspected she might have the virus and was displaying all the symptoms.
Just spoken to Nazanin’s family about what was said in the chamber in my Urgent Question - she told them this morning categorically that she has NOT been tested for coronavirus and remains petrified about her health #FreeNazanin
USA, Australia and Thailand report first deaths from coronavirus as two frontline doctors in China die and bans are put in place on large gatherings. Follow live news
A parent and child who attended the minor injuries unit at Sevenoaks Hospital in Kent on Saturday afternoon have been advised to self-isolate at home and call NHS 111 in case they require testing for the coronavirus.
The parent grew concerned when the child, who had been at school with pupils who recently returned from Italy, developed a mild temperature.
Our Sevenoaks Minor Injury Unit (MIU) has now closed for the evening and will be reopening as normal tomorrow morning.
We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
A “surveillance network” of GP practices in Scotland will test patients with coughs and fevers and submit samples, even if patients have not travelled to an area affected by coronavirus, as part of the Scottish government plans.
The measure described as an “early warning” system to alert health professionals to possible spread of the virus.
“Hospitals and GP surgeries will now conduct tests on some patients with coughs, fevers or shortness of breath - regardless of whether they have travelled to a place where the virus is known to be spreading.”
“Not everyone with flu will be tested, but this is a sensible step to take as a precautionary measure to give us an early warning of community transmission.”
Reuters reports that the number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Italy has climbed above 1,000, according to an official who said the number of deaths had surged to 29.
So coronavirus has finally arrived in sub-saharan Africa, with an Italian man who arrived in Nigeria three days ago becoming the country’s first case of the disease.
The case is in Lagos, a massive overcrowded city, which will raise fears that the virus might already have spread in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, and possibly further afield.
Nigeria is a major hub for air transport, commerce and culture. It has deep links with China, with continual and substantial traffic of people and goods. However this first confirmed case appears to have originated in Italy.
The WHO’s regional director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, has warned that the “window of opportunity the continent has had to prepare for coronavirus disease is closing”.
Egypt had the first case of Covid-19 in Africa, announced on 14 February. Algeria declared it had a case on Tuesday – another Italian adult who arrived in the country on 17 February.
Earlier this month, officials at the WHO warned that porous borders, a continuing flow of travellers and poorly resourced healthcare systems meant the risk of an outbreak across Africa was “very, very high” and raised significant concerns about the ability of “fragile health systems” to cope with the epidemic.
But recent weeks have been used to reinforce testing regimes, isolation facilities and for public messaging too.
“Nigeria has dramatically improved its ability to manage the outbreak of a major pandemic since the Ebola scare in West Africa in 2014. Many of the lessons from keeping the country free of Ebola have informed the steps taken since the news of the coronavirus epidemic first broke,” wrote Folasade Ogunsola, professor of Clinical Microbiology, University of Lagos, on The Conversation website.
A further two coronavirus cases have been confirmed in England, bringing the total to 19.
Professor Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer for England, said:
Two further patients in England have tested positive for Covid-19. The virus was passed on in Iran and the patients have been transferred to specialist NHS infection centres at the Royal Free Hospital. The total number of cases in England is now 17. Following confirmed cases in Northern Ireland and Wales, the total number of UK cases is 19.
Between the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923 and the calamities of the Pacific War (1942–45), Tokyo and Osaka developed into some of the world’s most vibrant and modern metropolises. A new generation of creative and financially liberated young people – playfully known as moga and mobo, or modern girls and modern boys – spurred a movement that energised Japanese innovation.
Japanese Modernism, which opens at the National Gallery of Victoria on 28 February, investigates this period with fashion, decorative arts, popular culture and design. Annika Aitken and Wayne Crothers – senior and assistant curators of Asian art respectively – handpicked posters that demonstrate the evolution of a design aesthetic which tells the story of a changing Japan
Four of the 32 British and Irish Diamond Princess cruise ship passengers taken to Arrowe Park, Merseyside on Saturday have tested positive for coronavirus strain Covid-19, the chief medical officer for England has said.
Prof Chris Whitty said: “Four further patients in England have tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total number of cases in the UK to 13.
Depp plays real-life US photojournalist W Eugene Smith who travels to cover the story of mercury poisoning that caused horrendous disfigurements
Minamata is not a masterpiece and there are one or two cliches here about western saviours and boozy, difficult, passionate journalists who occupy the perennial Venn diagram overlap between integrity and alcoholism. This movie’s producer-star Johnny Depp has form on this score, with his starstruck impersonation of Hunter Thompson. And once again, he has chosen a role in which he wears a hat indoors. But Minamata is a forthright, heartfelt movie, an old-fashioned “issue picture” with a worthwhile story to tell about how communities can stand up to overweening corporations and how journalists dedicated to truthful news can help them.
Depp plays real-life US photojournalist W Eugene Smith whose glory days were in the second world war and the decades following, working for Life magazine in that now-forgotten era when analogue cameras were incapable of lying and magazines with compelling photos could command newsstand sales.
Justice chief sacked in Shandong province with prison guard reported to be source of outbreak, as South Korea adds 52 new cases. Follow latest news
China’s Global Television Network is reporting that 200 prisoners in a facility in the eastern province of Shandong are infected with Covid-19. The sources of the infection is reported to be an affected prison guard.
These prison cases may partly explain the spike in new cases today to 889, up from 394 reported on Thursday.
East China's Shandong Province reported 200 #COVID19 cases from the Rencheng Prison on Thu., bringing the total to 207 in the facility
- Virus brought in by affected prison guard - Treatments underway - Provincial justice chief among eight officials removed from office pic.twitter.com/yyMWa21a86
Car sales plummeted in China in February, state media is reporting.
Retail of domestic passenger #vehicles in China plummeted 92% y-o-y in the first half of Feb, a record decline, due to #COVID19: industrial report pic.twitter.com/SkLUjtOdqA
A humanitarian crisis is unfolding in northern Syria after the government’s attempt to take back the opposition-held city of Idlib. Bethan McKernan describes how the fighting and freezing conditions have caused hundreds of thousands of displaced people to flee for their lives. Also today: Justin McCurry on the evacuation of the coronavirus-hit Diamond Princess cruise ship
At the Syria-Turkey border, thousands of refugees are fleeing for their lives, having left the opposition-held city of Idlib, which is under assault from government forces back by Russia. More than 900,000 men, women and children have made the journey north in appalling conditions, the largest exodus of people in the country’s long civil war.
The Guardian’s Middle East correspondent, Bethan McKernan, has been following the story and tells Rachel Humphreys that the humanitarian crisis is worsening – as the world watches on.
Mayor of Daegu orders shutdown of all kindergartens and public libraries in while two Japanese passengers from stricken Diamond Princess ship die
Two more Russians aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined in Japan have been diagnosed with a new virus, the Russian Embassy in Japan said Thursday.
The two will be transferred to a hospital in Japan for treatment, according to the embassy statement published on Facebook.
Dominic Raab said information had been provided to those registered for the flight, but he urged other British nationals still seeking to leave to contact the Foreign Office. He added: “We will continue to support British nationals who wish to stay in Japan.”
I can confirm the evacuation flight out of Tokyo on Friday for British nationals from the Diamond Princess cruise ship: https://t.co/vBYNRkvBbK
British passengers stuck on the cruise ship in Japan where more than 600 people have been infected with the coronavirus have have been told to stay onboard by the Foreign Office, while those who are evacuated face a 14-day quarantine in the UK.
Japanese authorities said those who had tested negative for the virus were allowed to leave on Wednesday, but the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) warned that passengers who disembark may not be allowed to board a British evacuation flight scheduled for later this week.