World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk |
- Politicians from across world call for ‘global green deal’ to tackle climate crisis
- Huge Oregon blaze grows as wildfires burn across western US
- UK Covid live news: England lifts most remaining restrictions as poll suggests many voters see it as ‘wrong’
- Katie Hopkins fined by NSW police and deported from Australia after visa cancelled
- Kurt Westergaard, Danish cartoonist behind Muhammad cartoon, dies aged 86
- Thai police fire rubber bullets at protesters as Covid failures fuel anti-government anger
- US father and son jailed in Tokyo for helping Carlos Ghosn flee Japan
- Europe’s unluckiest train station gets new lease of life as hotel
- Russia rights group linked to Navalny closes amid prosecution fears
- Chinese Unesco official defends plan to list Great Barrier Reef as ‘in danger’
- Young North Koreans told to shun slang and ‘cultural penetration’ from South
- Coronavirus live news: Saudi Arabia to only allow vaccinated people to leave country; record new cases in Thailand
- Are enough people vaccinated in time for England’s ‘freedom day’?
- US surgeon general: Covid misinformation ‘spreading like wildfire’ on social media
- Test and trace is still crucial to curbing Covid, but can it cope with ‘freedom’?
- Rhik Samadder tries ... wakeboarding: ‘I scream underwater with every faceplant’
- Jean Paul Gaultier on couture, conical bras and condoms: ‘‘No sex please, we’re British?’ Au contraire!’
- Think, fight, feel: how video game artificial intelligence is evolving
- How a powerful US lobby group helps big oil to block climate action
- A new start after 60: ‘I handed in my notice – and opened my dream bookshop’
- ‘Everyone was going full pelt’: how Giddy Stratospheres captured indie’s hedonistic 00s
- Charities raise alarm over suicides of young asylum seekers in UK
- ‘Now I’ve a purpose’: why more Kurdish women are choosing to fight
- African nations boycott Montreal Olympics – archive, 19 July 1976
- Survivors of California’s forced sterilizations: ‘It’s like my life wasn’t worth anything’
- A Day for Susana review – compelling record of a Paralympian’s struggles
- Toyota scraps Olympics TV adverts amid lukewarm support in Japan
- Daniel Andrews to reveal length of extended Victoria lockdown as ‘fleeting’ contact causes new Covid cases
- Guns, gangs and foreign meddling: how life in Haiti went from bad to worse
- New Zealand farmers’ demands are unrealistic – but they are suffering and deserve support | Philip McKibbin
- Spyware can make your phone your enemy. Journalism is your defence | Laurent Richard and Sandrine Rigaud
- Beta prompts UK moves over France – but all variants could flourish after Monday
- Thai police clash with anti-government protesters amid expanded covid lockdown – video
- Climate crisis: 50 photos of extreme weather around the world – in pictures
- 'Important everybody sticks to rules': Johnson explains U-turn on self-isolation – video
- Police fire rubber bullets after anti-trans rights protest at Los Angeles spa turns violent – video
- ‘Give it back’: protesters demand Tory MP pays for family’s slave trade past – video
| Politicians from across world call for ‘global green deal’ to tackle climate crisis Posted: 18 Jul 2021 04:01 PM PDT New alliance urges governments to work together to deliver a just transition to a green economy People around the world need a "global green deal" that would tackle the climate crisis and restore the natural world as we recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, a group of politicians from the UK, Europe and developing countries has said. The Global Alliance for a Green New Deal is inviting politicians from legislatures in all countries to work together on policies that would deliver a just transition to a green economy ahead of Cop26 UN climate talks in Glasgow this November. Continue reading... |
| Huge Oregon blaze grows as wildfires burn across western US Posted: 18 Jul 2021 12:57 PM PDT Bootleg Fire, largest wildfire in US and one of at least 70 wildfires, torches more dry forest landscape in Oregon The largest wildfire in the US torched more dry forest landscape in Oregon on Sunday, one of dozens of major blazes burning across the west as critically dangerous fire weather loomed in the coming days. The destructive Bootleg Fire just north of the California border grew to more than 476 sq miles (1,210 sq km), an area about the size of Los Angeles. Continue reading... |
| Posted: 19 Jul 2021 03:01 AM PDT Latest updates: YouGov polling finds 55% of voters think lifting lockdown restrictions is wrong against 31% who think it is right
Many business organisations are saying that their staff should be allowed to use daily testing as an alternative to isolation if they have been in contact with someone testing positive. This is the rule that now applies to health and social care staff (see 10.29am) - and would have applied to the PM if had chosen to take advantage of the pilot for this scheme covering Downing Street. Richard Walker, managing director of supermarket chain Iceland, told the Today programme that around 4% of his workforce were currently absent because of Covid - and that it could get a lot worse very soon. He said: We have just announced employing an additional 2,000 people on top of that to give us a deeper pool of labour, because so many people are now getting pinged ... A number of stores have had to close and the concern is that as this thing rises exponentially, as we have just been hearing, it could get a lot worse, a lot quicker. We have got a 50% increase week on week in terms of people off and it's a 400% increase compared to mid-June. Across the industry we think it is about one in five of our team members who have been affected by this and therefore it is causing a real issue for us setting up business on a daily basis - we're having to have shortened hours in some circumstances. We've been talking for a while internally about living in the 'United Pingdom' and it has become a huge challenge for individuals and businesses. Up to 25%, in some areas, of our staff have been asked to self-isolate - we've been able, through flexibility and sharing of labour, to keep sites open so far but it has been a very close call in certain circumstances, and I would echo that I think there is a different way of reacting to the pings for vaccinated people and using lateral flow tests that would help industries of all sorts a great deal and keep the economy functioning.
Yesterday Downing Street performed one of the fastest U-turns on record when it said Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, would be isolating because they had been in contact with Sajid Javid, the health secretary who has coronavirus, only about two and a half hours after No 10 issued a statement saying they would not have to isolate because they were taking part in a pilot scheme to use daily testing as an alternative. The U-turn means that Johnson is now isolating at Chequers instead of at No 10. Doubtless having to spend the week in a large mansion in beautiful countryside, instead of in a crowded terrace house in hot, stuffy London, will prove some consolation. From today (Monday 19 July), double-vaccinated frontline NHS and social care staff in England who have been told to self-isolate will be permitted to attend work in exceptional circumstances and replaced by testing mitigations. This will include staff who have been contacted as a close contact of a case of Covid-19 by NHS Test and Trace, or advised to self-isolate by the NHS Covid-19 app. Our NHS and ambulance service are operating under extreme pressure, with chronic staff shortages, fatigue and exhaustion. Yet today – the government's so called freedom day – they have had to issue exemptions for staff as services struggle to cope with rising cases. Continue reading... |
| Katie Hopkins fined by NSW police and deported from Australia after visa cancelled Posted: 19 Jul 2021 12:56 AM PDT Far-right commentator who entered country with support of NSW government to appear on Big Brother fined $1,000 for not wearing a mask The Australian government has cancelled Katie Hopkins' visa and deported the far-right commentator after she boasted about breaching hotel quarantine conditions. The cancellation was announced by the home affairs minister, Karen Andrews, on Monday and followed a decision by Endemol Shine Australia to cancel her contract to appear on Seven Network's Big Brother VIP. Hopkins was then deported from the country on a Monday afternoon flight. Continue reading... |
| Kurt Westergaard, Danish cartoonist behind Muhammad cartoon, dies aged 86 Posted: 18 Jul 2021 07:18 PM PDT Westergaard was known for drawing a caricature of the prophet Muhammad which sparked outrage around the Muslim world Danish artist Kurt Westergaard, known for drawing a caricature of the prophet Muhammad that sparked outrage around the Muslim world, has died at the age 86, his family told Danish media on Sunday. Westergaard died in his sleep after a long period of ill health, his family told newspaper Berlingske. Continue reading... |
| Thai police fire rubber bullets at protesters as Covid failures fuel anti-government anger Posted: 18 Jul 2021 04:35 PM PDT Long-running rallies against Thailand's prime minister have morphed into wider anger at coronavirus vaccine failures amid a surge in cases Thai police have used teargas, rubber bullets and water cannon to disperse hundreds of anti-government protesters who held a rally in Bangkok despite coronavirus restrictions banning gatherings of more than five people. In an effort to avoid the spread of infection, many of the protesters drove cars or rode motorbikes, instead of marching as they had in previous protests. About 1,500 riot police were deployed, along with water cannon trucks. Continue reading... |
| US father and son jailed in Tokyo for helping Carlos Ghosn flee Japan Posted: 18 Jul 2021 10:56 PM PDT US army special forces veteran Michael Taylor was sentenced to two years and his son Peter for one year and eight months A Tokyo court has handed down the first sentences related to Carlos Ghosn's arrest and escape from Japan, imprisoning US army special forces veteran Michael Taylor for two years and his son Peter for one year and eight months for helping the former Nissan chairman flee to Lebanon. "This case enabled Ghosn, a defendant of serious crime, to escape overseas," Hideo Nirei, the chief judge, said while explaining the judgment. "One year and a half has passed, but there is no prospect of the trial being held." Continue reading... |
| Europe’s unluckiest train station gets new lease of life as hotel Posted: 18 Jul 2021 09:00 PM PDT Once-grand Canfranc was known as the Titanic of the mountains, but fell into disrepair thanks to fire, derailment and war It earned the nickname "Titanic of the mountains", but now the monumental and ill-fated train station at Canfranc is to get a new life as a five-star hotel, 51 years after the international rail link across the Pyrenees closed. The story of Canfranc, a village more than 1,000 metres (3,280ft) above sea level on the Franco-Spanish frontier, is one of vainglorious ambition and abject failure, of incompetence and corruption, of intrigue, smuggling and a century-long run of bad luck. Continue reading... |
| Russia rights group linked to Navalny closes amid prosecution fears Posted: 18 Jul 2021 05:48 PM PDT Team 29 is the latest victim of Kremlin crackdown on organisations it considers 'undesirable' A rights group in Russia has announced it is shutting down, citing fears its members and supporters may be prosecuted after authorities blocked its website for allegedly publishing content from an "undesirable" organisation. Team 29 – an association of lawyers and journalists specialising in treason and espionage cases and freedom of information issues – said on Sunday that Russian authorities accused it of spreading content from a Czech non-governmental organisation that had been declared "undesirable" in Russia. Continue reading... |
| Chinese Unesco official defends plan to list Great Barrier Reef as ‘in danger’ Posted: 18 Jul 2021 08:34 PM PDT Tian Xuejun rejects Australia's 'groundless accusations' that China influenced the finding to score political points The Chinese host of a United Nations world heritage committee has defended a proposal to label the Great Barrier Reef as "in danger", and rejected Australian government suspicion that China influenced the finding for political reasons. It came as the Morrison government sought to use a new report by Australia's marine science agency to argue there had been widespread coral recovery on the reef. Continue reading... |
| Young North Koreans told to shun slang and ‘cultural penetration’ from South Posted: 18 Jul 2021 08:49 PM PDT Editorial in official newspaper calls on youth to follow 'traditional lifestyles' and stick to 'superior' language Young North Koreans have been warned to adhere to the country's standard language and follow "traditional lifestyles" as part of the regime's campaign to stamp out cultural influences from neighbouring South Korea. In an editorial published on Sunday, the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the ruling Workers' party, railed against the creeping influence of the South on everything from hairstyles to the spoken word. Continue reading... |
| Posted: 19 Jul 2021 03:02 AM PDT Travellers must have two vaccine doses before leaving kingdom; Thailand confirms record new infections for fourth consecutive day; lockdown extended in Australian state of Victoria
Andrew Sparrow has the UK live blog, Miranda Bryant will be here shortly to take you through the rest of the day's global Covid news.
Indonesia reported a record 1,338 new coronavirus deaths on Monday, data from its Covid-19 task force showed, taking the total number of fatalities to 74,920. Reuters report that the number of new infections on Monday was 34,257, the data showed, the lowest daily number since 6 July. Continue reading... |
| Are enough people vaccinated in time for England’s ‘freedom day’? Posted: 19 Jul 2021 12:00 AM PDT Four charts that show why the big unlocking could be coming too soon The government has technically hit its 19 July target of offering all adults in the UK a Covid-19 vaccine. But although all adults have been offered a first dose, not all of them have had it, and a significant number have had only one dose, not two. Only 68% of UK adults are fully vaccinated. If you include under-18s, only 54% of the total population is fully vaccinated. Continue reading... |
| US surgeon general: Covid misinformation ‘spreading like wildfire’ on social media Posted: 18 Jul 2021 09:36 AM PDT
Joe Biden's administration renewed its assault on social media companies spreading Covid-19 misinformation on Sunday, as new infections continued to surge across the entire US. Vivek Murthy, the US surgeon general who has accused companies including Facebook of "poisoning information" about coronavirus vaccines, said they were not doing enough to check the online proliferation of false claims. Continue reading... |
| Test and trace is still crucial to curbing Covid, but can it cope with ‘freedom’? Posted: 18 Jul 2021 10:00 PM PDT The £37bn system is facing rapidly rising cases and waning compliance as social distancing rules are lifted in England The £37bn test-and-trace system is described by the government as Britain's "second line of defence" against Covid, behind the public health mantra of "Hands. Face. Space". As England limps uncertainly into so-called freedom day on Monday, when rules around mask-wearing and social distancing will be relaxed, the programme becomes arguably even more crucial. Related: What is the Covid workplace testing scheme Downing Street is part of? Continue reading...This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Rhik Samadder tries ... wakeboarding: ‘I scream underwater with every faceplant’ Posted: 18 Jul 2021 11:00 PM PDT Everyone needs some novelty right now, so our writer is tackling a new activity each week. First, he gets dragged perilously quickly around a lake I used to ride bendy buses without holding on to the poles, pretending I was in Point Break. Pathetic. Yet the fantasy returned recently, after I decided to stop taking life for granted and try something new every week. To kick off, I wondered if it was possible for a hapless urbanite to learn to surf, ideally in less than an hour. No, said a few professionals, suggesting I try wakeboarding instead. I didn't know what that was. Neither did anyone I know. "Is that when they pour water over your face to extract information?" asked my girlfriend, with insufficient concern. "No, but it is an extreme sport," chuckles Dave Novell, the water sports manager at Liquid Leisure in Windsor, the largest aquapark in Europe. Banana boats zip around us at a large freshwater lake set in lush countryside. How so? Wakeboarding involves being strapped to a plank, then towed by what looks like a coat hanger, attached to either a speedboat or an overhead cable system that whips you around at 19mph (30km/h). Continue reading... |
| Posted: 18 Jul 2021 10:00 PM PDT After 50 years in fashion, the designer is having new adventures. He discusses love, work, Madonna – and why Eurotrash couldn't be made now Jean Paul Gaultier is waving his hands and talking nineteen to the dozen in French with a smattering of heavily accented English. I've only been with him for a few minutes, and already he is tearing through his thoughts on love, life, death and London, punctuated with self-deprecating comments and shrieks of laughter, as if we have known each other for ever. We are supposed to be talking couture; he is after all fashion's anointed "enfant terrible", the designer celebrated for dressing Madonna in a conical bra corset, popularising skirts – well, kilts – for boys and turning the French navy's famous marinière striped T-shirt into a wardrobe classic. Continue reading... |
| Think, fight, feel: how video game artificial intelligence is evolving Posted: 19 Jul 2021 01:30 AM PDT AI in games has long been geared towards improving computer-controlled opponents. Will it soon create diverse characters we can talk to instead of just shoot? In May, as part of an otherwise unremarkable corporate strategy meeting, Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida made an interesting announcement. The company's artificial intelligence research division, Sony AI, would be collaborating with PlayStation developers to create intelligent computer-controlled characters. "By leveraging reinforcement learning," he wrote, "we are developing game AI agents that can be a player's in-game opponent or collaboration partner." Reinforcement learning is an area of machine learning in which an AI effectively teaches itself how to act through trial and error. In short, these characters will mimic human players. To some extent, they will think. This is just the latest example of AI's evolving and expanding role in video game development. As open world games become more complex and ambitious, with hundreds of characters and multiple intertwined narratives, developers are having to build systems capable of generating intelligent, reactive, creative characters and emergent side quests. Continue reading...This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| How a powerful US lobby group helps big oil to block climate action Posted: 19 Jul 2021 03:00 AM PDT The American Petroleum Institute receives millions from oil companies – and works behinds the scenes to stall or weaken legislation When Royal Dutch Shell published its annual environmental report in April, it boasted that it was investing heavily in renewable energy. The oil giant committed to installing hundreds of thousands of charging stations for electric vehicles around the world to help offset the harm caused by burning fossil fuels. On the same day, Shell issued a separate report revealing that its single largest donation to political lobby groups last year was made to the American Petroleum Institute, one of the US's most powerful trade organizations, which drives the oil industry's relationship with Congress. Continue reading...This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| A new start after 60: ‘I handed in my notice – and opened my dream bookshop’ Posted: 19 Jul 2021 02:00 AM PDT She always loved reading. So at 65, when Carole-Ann Warburton finally opened her own shop, she had 8,000 books ready to fill it All her life, Carole-Ann Warburton kept a little hope glowing at the back of her mind. "You're living your life. And every now and then you think: 'I have a dream.'" Warburton's dream was to work in a bookshop. It took an experience of terrifying disorientation to find her way to it. Continue reading... |
| ‘Everyone was going full pelt’: how Giddy Stratospheres captured indie’s hedonistic 00s Posted: 18 Jul 2021 10:00 PM PDT The euphoria and tragedy of the 00s indie music scene are the subject of Giddy Stratospheres. Is it accurate? Klaxons, the Long Blondes, New Young Pony Club and more look back – and give their verdict If you ever ran for a dawn train after a narcotic all-nighter in 2007 with The Rat by the Walkmen pounding through your liquified brain and a hip flask of "breakfast vodka" in your pocket, expect flashbacks from the opening moments of Giddy Stratospheres, director Laura Jean Marsh's debut film set amid the euphoria, hedonism and tragedy of the 00s indie rock scene. "We were all so young, feeling invincible and wanting it not to end," says Marsh, who put on gigs by bands such as the Horrors and Black Wire at her Dolly Rockers club night, hosted parties for the Mighty Boosh and sang with guitar pop band Screaming Ballerinas before moving on to acting and video directing. Continue reading... |
| Charities raise alarm over suicides of young asylum seekers in UK Posted: 19 Jul 2021 03:03 AM PDT Call for sweeping changes to support teenagers after up to a dozen found to have taken their own lives Dozens of charities have called on government ministers to make sweeping changes to support young asylum seekers and refugees after up to a dozen were identified to have taken their own lives. Forty-six different charities dealing with issues of asylum, children and mental health, have written to the health minister Nadine Dorries, who has responsibility for suicide prevention. They highlight the alarming number of suicides they have discovered among teenage asylum seekers after fleeing persecution in their home countries, leaving their families behind and making difficult journeys to reach safety in the UK. Continue reading... |
| ‘Now I’ve a purpose’: why more Kurdish women are choosing to fight Posted: 18 Jul 2021 10:00 PM PDT All-female militias in Syria have again swelled in numbers in recent years with many women joining the call to arms despite the risks Zeynab Serekaniye, a Kurdish woman with a gap-toothed smile and a warm demeanor, never imagined she'd join a militia. The 26-year-old grew up in Ras al-Ayn, a town in north-east Syria. The only girl in a family of five, she liked to fight and wear boys' clothing. But when her brothers got to attend school and she did not, Serekaniye did not challenge the decision. She knew it was the reality for girls in the region. Ras al-Ayn, Arabic for "head of the spring", was a green and placid place, so Serekaniye settled down to a life of farming vegetables with her mother. Continue reading... |
| African nations boycott Montreal Olympics – archive, 19 July 1976 Posted: 19 Jul 2021 03:00 AM PDT 19 July 1976: More than 20 African and Arab countries withdraw from the Games in protest at New Zealand's sporting links with apartheid South Africa The United Nations secretary-general, Dr Waldheim and the Commonwealth secretary-general, Mr Shridath Ramphal, last night urged African nations to end their boycott of the Olympic Games in Montreal. In separate statements issued after a meeting at the UN headquarters in New York, they also called for efforts by the International Olympic Committee and all nations to resolve what Mr Ramphal called "issues of legitimate concern to African and other States." Continue reading... |
| Survivors of California’s forced sterilizations: ‘It’s like my life wasn’t worth anything’ Posted: 19 Jul 2021 03:00 AM PDT A new reparations program will compensate survivors of prison system sterilizations and the 20th century eugenics campaign It wasn't until years after Kelli Dillon went into surgery while incarcerated in the California state prison system that she realized her reproductive capacity had been stripped away without her knowledge. In 2001, at the age of 24, she became one of the most recent victims in a history of forced sterilizations in California that stretches back to 1909 and served as an inspiration for Nazi Germany's eugenics program. Continue reading... |
| A Day for Susana review – compelling record of a Paralympian’s struggles Posted: 19 Jul 2021 02:00 AM PDT Following Brazilian swimmer Susan Schnarndorf's road to the 2016 Games, we see the athlete's remarkable resilience in the face of multiple system atrophy Here is a film that accomplishes the difficult task of capturing the heroic trials of its subject without overly valorising and mythologising the real person. It is reminiscent of the excellent Time Trial documentary about cyclist David Millar, which ruminated on the turmoil that comes with the waning power of a once exceptional athlete's body. Here, the struggle is even more heartbreaking, as the film recounts the road to the 2016 summer Paralympics of Brazilian swimmer Susana Schnarndorf, a six-time Ironman Triathlon winner who now suffers from multiple system atrophy (MSA), a rare neurological disorder. Though dealing with a terminal illness, A Day for Susana has a matter-of-fact, fly-on-the-wall approach as it calmly chronicles the two years leading up to the Paralympics where Schnarndorf competed in numerous championships. As MSA affects the human body slowly, causing autonomic and mobility impairments, it proves exceptionally difficult for the 48-year-old Schnarndorf to not only train but to pick the right category to compete in – these latter are divided according to the severity of the disability. As a result, her individual race times change drastically from one year to another. Continue reading... |
| Toyota scraps Olympics TV adverts amid lukewarm support in Japan Posted: 19 Jul 2021 02:33 AM PDT
One of the biggest sponsors of the Olympics, Toyota, has announced it will not run Tokyo 2020-related adverts on TV during the Games because of the lacklustre public support in Japan. Toyota's chief executive, Akio Toyoda, and other senior executives will also not attend Friday's opening ceremony in a further blow to these troubled Olympics. Related: There are risks but it would be unfair if Tokyo Olympics did not go ahead | Greg Rutherford Continue reading... |
| Posted: 19 Jul 2021 03:03 AM PDT Premier says state has not yet outrun fast-moving Delta variant and flags tighter border restrictions once lockdown does end
The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, will announce on Tuesday how much longer the state's fifth lockdown is expected to last, as health authorities scramble to control an outbreak of the Delta variant. The state announced 13 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, with more than 15,800 close contacts and 250 exposure sites. Four other cases were flagged that will be included in Tuesday's figures. Continue reading... |
| Guns, gangs and foreign meddling: how life in Haiti went from bad to worse Posted: 18 Jul 2021 11:01 PM PDT Corrupt elites and badly managed aid have ensured life for Haitians remains mired in violence and poverty. President Moïse's assassination marks an escalating catastrophe The Haitian political activist Marie Antoinette Duclair appears to have been unaware that two men on a motorbike were following her car through the badly lit streets of Port-au-Prince. Her passenger on the night of 29 June was a journalist, Diego Charles. They had been attending a meeting, and she was now, at 11 o'clock at night, dropping him at his home in the Christ-Roi area of Haiti's capital. Continue reading... |
| Posted: 18 Jul 2021 09:39 PM PDT Our society is changing and farmers are dealing with the most difficult aspects of it On Friday, tractors crawled through cities and towns across New Zealand, in a planned demonstration against environmental regulations. The "Howl of a Protest", organised by the rural grassroots organisation Groundswell, involved thousands of people. I live in central Auckland – the most urban of urban centres – and I sympathise with farmers. They are clearly in pain, and understandably so. The changes they are being forced to make will affect not only their businesses, but also their lifestyles and traditions. Continue reading... |
| Posted: 18 Jul 2021 04:01 PM PDT The Pegasus project poses urgent questions about the privatisation of the surveillance industry and the lack of safeguards for citizens Today, for the first time in the history of modern spying, we are seeing the faces of the victims of targeted cyber-surveillance. This is a worldwide scandal – a global web of surveillance whose scope is without precedent. The attack is invisible. Once "infected", your phone becomes your worst enemy. From within your pocket, it instantly betrays your secrets and delivers your private conversations, your personal photos, nearly everything about you. This surveillance has dramatic, and in some cases even life-threatening, consequences for the ordinary men and women whose numbers appear in the leak because of their work exposing the misdeeds of their rulers or defending the rights of their fellow citizens. Continue reading... |
| Beta prompts UK moves over France – but all variants could flourish after Monday Posted: 18 Jul 2021 12:22 PM PDT Analysis: making fully vaccinated travellers returning from places with lower infection rates quarantine, while the virus runs wild here, is difficult to comprehend Boris Johnson's pendulum swing from "freedom day" to unlocking with "extreme caution" relayed a shift in the government's thinking – that the relaxation of almost all restrictions at this stage comes with significant risk. The move to make fully vaccinated people returning from France continue to quarantine – because of the risk of the Beta variant – appears to be another sign of panic setting in. Delta, the dominant variant in the UK, is far more transmissible than the Beta variant, which was first identified in South Africa. But the danger of Beta has long been its ability to thwart any vaccine shield, particularly the AstraZeneca jab. Beta actually preceded Delta – it was first recorded in the UK in December but never quite took off. In South Africa, it has dominated. It also accounts for about one in 10 new infections in France, but that data includes the French territories of Réunion and Mayotte, where the variant is almost dominant. Continue reading... |
| Thai police clash with anti-government protesters amid expanded covid lockdown – video Posted: 18 Jul 2021 10:31 PM PDT Thai police have fired water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets to stop protesters from marching on the office of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha calling for him to resign. More than 1,000 protesters took part in the demonstration despite an expanded coronavirus lockdown. Demonstrators carried mock body-bags to represent coronavirus deaths. They blame the prime minister and his government for mismanaging the Covid-19 pandemic Continue reading... |
| Climate crisis: 50 photos of extreme weather around the world – in pictures Posted: 18 Jul 2021 04:07 PM PDT As temperatures rise and pollution increases, wildfires, floods and extreme winds have battered many parts of the world in the last six months Continue reading... |
| 'Important everybody sticks to rules': Johnson explains U-turn on self-isolation – video Posted: 18 Jul 2021 09:27 AM PDT The prime minister has said he briefly considered not isolating after coming into contact with the health secretary, who has contracted Covid-19, but thinks it is 'far more important that everybody sticks to the same rules'. Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak had initially tried to avoid isolation by saying they were part of a daily-test pilot scheme, prompting an outcry from members of the public and backbench Conservative MPs
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| Police fire rubber bullets after anti-trans rights protest at Los Angeles spa turns violent – video Posted: 18 Jul 2021 08:50 AM PDT Dozens of people have been arrested in Los Angeles following a chaotic and at times violent demonstration by anti-transgender protesters who targeted a Koreatown spa that has a trans-inclusive policy. The far-right protesters called for a boycott of Wi Spa which allows trans women to use women's facilities. LAPD also appeared to fire rubber bullets at demonstrators from a close distance as trans rights and anti-fascist activists showed up in a counter-protest Continue reading... |
| ‘Give it back’: protesters demand Tory MP pays for family’s slave trade past – video Posted: 18 Jul 2021 05:52 AM PDT Protesters have demanded that a Conservative MP should hand over his 621-acre sugar plantation to the people of Barbados as compensation for his family's 200 years of slave-owning and trading on the island. Richard Drax, the MP for Dorset South, has said the role of his ancestors was 'deeply, deeply regrettable' but is resisting demands for reparations. Several hundred campaigners attended the 'It's Time, Mr Drax' rally at the gates of the Drax family estate on 17 July - the hottest day of the year so far Continue reading... |
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