Essex lorry tragedy must spur greater effort to stop trafficking from Vietnam

Criminal networks are depending on the chaos of Covid and Brexit. Now more than ever we need focus and international cooperation to prevent further tragedies

Trials in the UK of the drivers and haulage organisers involved in the Essex lorry tragedy in which 39 Vietnamese migrants perished ended in guilty pleas and convictions. Vietnam also convicted the agents who brokered the victims’ journeys to the UK and sentenced them to terms of imprisonment.

While these are positive developments in achieving some measure of justice for the victims, they won’t do anything to stem the smuggling and trafficking of Vietnamese migrants to the UK. No justice system has reached the actual masterminds and profiteers behind this horrific crime: the organised crime groups.

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China tariffs offset by rising Australian iron ore prices due to ‘fear tax’

Boosted iron ore prices due to anxious markets are likely to help federal budget’s bottom line, Deloitte says

Australia’s losses from trade tensions with China are being offset by rising iron ore prices, according to new analysis, which also predicts the Morrison government will announce a smaller budget deficit than originally forecast.

Deloitte Access Economics said Chinese government moves against wine, beef, barley, lobsters and thermal coal have cost Australia money “but we’ve more than made that up in overall terms thanks to iron ore – and the taxman will be a considerable beneficiary of that”.

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Met police to compensate child slavery victim arrested after reporting ordeal

Police ordered to pay £15,500 to man trafficked to UK from Vietnam as a boy who was detained and threatened with deportation

The Metropolitan police is to pay £15,500 to a victim of slavery who tried to report his traffickers but was instead arrested for immigration offences and sent to a detention centre.

The man, referred to in court as KQT, was 15 when he was taken by traffickers from Vietnam through Russia to the UK in a refrigerated lorry. He was arrested on arrival and placed in foster care, but shortly after was collected by his traffickers and forced to work on a cannabis farm, where he was locked inside a storeroom and only fed one meal a day. In January 2018, he escaped his captors and walked into a police station to report his ordeal.

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Typhoon Molave: rescuers scramble to find dozens buried under landslides in Vietnam

At least 15 already confirmed dead in central Quang Nam province following torrential rains brought by strongest storm in decades

Rescue teams in Vietnam have used heavy machinery to search for survivors buried under landslides triggered by torrential rains from Typhoon Molave, one of the strongest typhoons to hit the region for decades, the government said.

The landslides, which hit remote areas in the central province of Quang Nam a day earlier, have killed at least 15 and 38 people are missing with rescue efforts hampered by bad weather at the tail end of the storm, the government said.

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Coronavirus live news: UN warns world faces ‘generational catastrophe’ over school closures

UN says getting students safely back to classroom must be ‘top priority’; Philippines reimposes lockdown; record fines for isolation breaches in Australia

We’re reporting that builders in the Australia could lose $450m daily under Melbourne stage 4 Covid-19 lockdown.

Work levels from big construction sites to trade businesses set to be pummelled amid predictions new curbs will ‘knock wind out of’ state

Related: Victorian builders could lose $450m daily under Melbourne stage 4 Covid-19 lockdown

Reuters is reporting that Taiwan has provisionally approved the use of dexamethasone, a cheap and widely-used steroid, to treat the new coronavirus because the island faces a shortfall of the antiviral drug remdesivir after the United States bought nearly all global supplies.

Taiwan Centres for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang told reporters on Tuesday that medical experts had decided to provisionally allow dexamethasone to be listed as a COVID-19 treatment but that procedures still needed to be completed before it could be given to any patients.

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Coronavirus live news: Greece reports highest number of cases in weeks as Danish expert advises against lockdown easing

UN says getting students safely back must be ‘top priority’; France says ‘situation is precarious’; record fines for isolation breaches in Australia

France’s Accor, the world’s sixth largest hotel chain, said it was slashing 1,000 jobs worldwide in a major cost cutting plan accelerated by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

The group, which runs high-end chains such as Raffles and Sofitel, and budget brands like Ibis, plans to cut costs by €200m by 2022.

After weeks of railing against what he claimed were the potential risks of voting by mail, president Donald Trump has urged voters in at least one Republican state - Florida - to vote by any means.

Trump, who is trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden in polls, has repeatedly warned in recent weeks - without evidence - that mail-in voting carries more risks than voting by absentee ballot and could result in widespread fraud.

Whether you call it Vote by Mail or Absentee Voting, in Florida the election system is Safe and Secure, Tried and True. Florida’s Voting system has been cleaned up (we defeated Democrats attempts at change), so in Florida I encourage all to request a Ballot & Vote by Mail! #MAGA

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Vietnam on high alert as coronavirus cases detected in major cities

First local case in three months reported over the weekend in holiday spot of Da Nang

Vietnam is on high alert and bracing for a rise in coronavirus cases, after local media reported that infections have been detected in the capital, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and the Central Highlands region.

The country’s prime minister, Nguyen Xuan Phu warned on Wednesday that every province and every city was at risk, adding that the new “wave” appeared to be different to that seen in Vietnam earlier this year.

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Vietnam detects first locally transmitted Covid-19 cases since April

Nation brings in strict new measures and evacuates 80,000 people from city of Danang

Vietnam is evacuating 80,000 people from the central city of Danang and reimposing disease-prevention measures after four local coronavirus cases were detected, the first to be recorded in the country for more than three months.

Life had returned to normal for many in the country, which had been praised widely for taking quick action to contain Covid-19 and was on the brink of reaching 100 days without any new local infections. On Saturday, however, a 57-year-old man was confirmed to have tested positive, in the first community infection since April.

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How Vietnam hopes to open to trade – by opening up its prisons to scrutiny

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.

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British pilot leaves Vietnam hospital after four-month battle with Covid-19 – video

A British pilot who spent more than two months on life support in Vietnam after contracting the coronavirus has been discharged from hospital and has returned to the UK. Stephen Cameron, 42, was the sickest patient medics had treated during the coronavirus outbreak in the country and had been given 10% chance to live. The Vietnam Airlines pilot from Motherwell, Scotland, spent four months in hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City, including 10 weeks on a ventilator. Vietnam has recorded no official deaths related to the pandemic after a fast and proactive response

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Jailed Australian democracy activist has ‘disappeared’ inside Vietnam’s prison system

Chau Van Kham’s family has lost contact with him for nearly four months and fear the Australian government has ‘forgotten about him’

A 70-year-old Australian democracy activist has “disappeared” inside Vietnam’s prison system: no one from his family or the Australian government has been allowed to see or speak with him for nearly four months. 

Human rights advocates, lawyers and Chau Van Kham’s family said the charges against him are baseless and politically motivated, his single-day multiple-defendant trial was grossly unfair, and his failing health means his 12-year prison sentence is “effectively a death sentence”.

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Thirteen people charged in France over Essex lorry deaths

Group of mainly French and Vietnamese nationals accused of organising migrants’ journey from Asia

Thirteen suspects arrested by French police over the deaths of 39 Vietnamese people found in a refrigerated lorry in Essex have been charged with people trafficking and manslaughter, a judicial source has said.

Six of the group – mainly Vietnamese and French nationals – were taken into custody on Tuesday in the Paris region, while the alleged key figure in the ring of smugglers was caught in Germany.

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Vietnam crushed the coronavirus outbreak, but now faces severe economic test

Strict quarantining and widespread testing have helped the country avoid disaster, but with tourism on hold the nation’s future is uncertain

Vietnam didn’t just flatten its coronavirus curve, it crushed it. No deaths have been reported, official case numbers have plateaued at just 271, and no community transmissions of the virus have been reported in the last two weeks. On 23 April, the nation eased lockdowns in its major cities and life is gradually returning to normal. It is a stark contrast to many other nations including the US, where more Americans have died from Covid-19 than during the entire Vietnam war.

Kidong Park, the World Health Organisation’s representative to Vietnam, has praised the country’s response to the crisis.

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‘In a war, we draw’: Vietnam’s artists join fight against Covid-19

Despite a border with China, nation has kept confirmed cases low through quarantining, contact tracing, testing – and propaganda

A masked healthcare worker stands valiant as a soldier, flanked by a bold slogan proclaiming that “to stay at home is to love your country”. Beneath, fine print implores residents to declare symptoms or report anyone escaping quarantine.

The poster, by artist Le Duc Hiep, is just one of numerous art forms to emerge from Vietnam – from viral hand washing songs to state stamps – that reflect the war-time spirit many in the country are invoking as they try to contain the virus.

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Trump’s salute to Vietnam veterans meets with thanks – and scorn

On national holiday he declared, president who avoided draft salutes those who served

Donald Trump marked National Vietnam War Veterans Day on Sunday, with a tweet praising those who served in a conflict that involved US combat operations in Indochina from 1965 to 1973 .

“You have earned our gratitude and thanks,” he wrote, “by your actions years ago and what you have done since returning home. The nation thanks you and your families for your service and sacrifice. We love you!”

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Wildlife rescue centres struggle to treat endangered species in coronavirus outbreak

Shortages in funds, medicines and masks threaten charity work around the world

Last Thursday morning Louisa Baillie drove down the five-kilometre dirt track that connects her jungle home in the Amazon rainforest to the main road. At the junction, she parked, hiking the rest of the way into Mera, a town of about 8,000 people.

After filling her backpack with fruit and vegetables from local sellers, she grabbed some leaves and set about plucking termites off trees along the roadside, stuffing them into a bucket containing small fragments of the insects’ nests. Baillie works as a veterinarian at Merazonia, a wildlife rescue centre in Ecuador. The termites were dinner for Andy the anteater, a baby recently confiscated at a police checkpoint.

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Essex lorry deaths: Vietnam police charge seven over role in trafficking

Police say one migrant was charged $22,000 before being taken to China, France and then the UK

Police in Vietnam have charged seven people in connection with the deaths of 39 migrants whose bodies were discovered in the back of a lorry in the UK in 2019, authorities said late on Thursday.

The victims, who included two 15-year-old boys, were mostly from two provinces in north-central Vietnam, where poor job prospects, encouragement by authorities, smuggling gangs and environmental issues have fuelled migration.

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Vietnam accused of teaching young people that being gay is a ‘disease’

Government has ignored laws intended to prevent stigma, discrimination and bullying, Human Rights Watch claims

Young people in Vietnam continue to be taught at home and at school that same-sex attraction is a “disease” and a “mental illness” that can be cured and treated, despite legislation designed to support and protect LGBTQ+ rights.

Stigma and discrimination about sexual orientation and gender identity contribute to the verbal harassment and bullying of LGBTQ+ young people, which in some cases leads to physical violence, according to a report published on Thursday by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

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Families call for inquests into deaths of Vietnamese migrants

Letter calls for full inquests into deaths of 39 people in a refrigerated lorry last year

Families of the 39 Vietnamese migrants whose bodies were discovered in a refrigerated lorry in Essex last year and campaigners in the UK are calling for inquests to be held into the deaths.

While criminal proceedings related to the tragic deaths continue, there has been no indication whether there will be any wider investigation into the circumstances surrounding the incident.

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