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- Shirking from home? Staff feel the heat as bosses ramp up remote surveillance
- Welcome to libertarian Covid fantasy land – that’s Sweden to you and me | Nick Cohen
- Boris Johnson faces revolt over forcing through Covid measures
- The Florida patrol attempting to enforce a loosened mask mandate
- Coronavirus live updates: France's second wave 'faster than we thought' says top doctor; Melbourne lifts curfew
- Biden’s team hopes for repeat of his 2012 performance as Trump debate nears
- Trump names Amy Coney Barrett for supreme court, stoking liberal backlash
- Sense or censorship? Row over Klan images in Tate’s postponed show
- Labour takes poll lead as parties see major switch in fortunes
- ‘Catastrophe for human rights’ as Greece steps up refugee ‘pushbacks'
- Belarus accuses western nations of sowing 'chaos and anarchy'
- Hardline BBC critics reportedly offered top media roles
- Firms plead for Brexit deal as coronavirus leaves industry reeling
- ‘It’s a war on words’: Turks fear new law to muzzle social media giants
- The wurst is over: why Germany now loves to go vegetarian
- Recipe for chaos: 2020 election threatens to snap a US already pushed to the limit
- Frontline workers to be recognised in Queen's birthday honours
- Trump First now drives US foreign policy. Even if it leads to war…
- At least 11 people killed in attack on convoy in Nigeria
- US election polls tracker: who is leading in the swing states?
- Global report: Colombia and Argentina pass major milestones as Covid grips Americas
- Melbourne stage 4 restrictions and Covid lockdown rules explained
- Lockdowners v libertarians: Britain’s coronavirus divide
- Trump nominates Amy Coney Barrett to US supreme court - video
- Clashes erupt as thousands attend anti-lockdown protests in London – video
- Third night of Breonna Taylor protests after officers not charged – video
| Shirking from home? Staff feel the heat as bosses ramp up remote surveillance Posted: 26 Sep 2020 10:30 PM PDT As management seeks more oversight of workers away from the office, campaigners fight for privacy to be respected For many, one of the silver linings of lockdown was the shift to remote working: a chance to avoid the crushing commute, supermarket meal deals and an overbearing boss breathing down your neck. But as the Covid crisis continues, and more and more employers postpone or cancel plans for a return to the office, some managers are deploying increasing levels of surveillance in an attempt to recreate the oversight of the office at home. Continue reading... |
| Welcome to libertarian Covid fantasy land – that’s Sweden to you and me | Nick Cohen Posted: 26 Sep 2020 11:00 AM PDT The right fails to recognise that the Swedes' real virtue in this pandemic is their social cohesion Sweden is to the 21st-century right what the Soviet Union was to the 20th-century left. Conservatives have transformed it into a Tory Disneyland where every dream comes true. On the shores of the Baltic lies a country that has no need to curtail civil liberties and wreck the economy to curb Covid-19. "I have a dream, a fantasy," sang Abba. "To help me through reality." For much of the right, that fantasy is called Sweden. Let the leader of the Conservative backbenchers stand for the Tory press and innumerable ideologues inside and outside Westminster. Sir Graham Brady ruined a perfectly good argument that parliament must have the power to scrutinise Johnson's emergency decrees by announcing that there was no emergency. We could look to a country that merely had a ban on gatherings of more than 50, restrictions on visiting care homes, a shift to table-only service in bars and see that "Sweden today is in a better place than the United Kingdom". Or as the Sun explained on Thursday as Boris Johnson met Anders Tegnell, the Swedish public health "mastermind", a do-little strategy has spared Sweden a second wave of Covid-19 infections. Continue reading... |
| Boris Johnson faces revolt over forcing through Covid measures Posted: 26 Sep 2020 01:00 PM PDT Amendment calling for votes on new restrictions is winning cross-party support Boris Johnson is facing a massive parliamentary revolt over the way he is imposing Covid-19 restrictions on the British people without first consulting MPs – amid new signs that confidence in his leadership is collapsing in the Conservative party and across the country. An extraordinary cross-party backlash against Johnson's "rule by diktat" from Downing Street was taking shape on Saturday – ahead of a key vote on Wednesday – as a new poll by Opinium for the Observer showed Labour has overtaken the Tories for the first time since Keir Starmer became leader in April. Continue reading... |
| The Florida patrol attempting to enforce a loosened mask mandate Posted: 26 Sep 2020 11:00 PM PDT A Key West team is expected to enforce a new mandate allowing people to go maskless outdoors if they are 6ft apart – an impossible task among partygoers Key West code enforcement officer Paul Navarro was halfway through his shift and beginning to see signs of trouble. The crowds on lower Duval Street swelled just after 9pm, and social distancing quickly became impossible on the sidewalks. Navarro is the last line of defense against the high-risk behaviors which spread Covid-19 and is one of the principal enforcers of the Florida city's mask mandate – an effort to protect public health and the local economy. Until 16 September part of that balancing act had included a strict mask mandate, now that rule has been loosened. Continue reading... |
| Posted: 27 Sep 2020 01:58 AM PDT France records more than 14,000 new Covid cases; Colombia passes 800,000 infections; Saudi Arabia plans to resume tourist visas by early 2021. Follow latest updates
The situation in Morocco will worsen over winter as the flu season overlaps, according to the director of epidemiology at the Health Ministry, who said many hospitals and test sites for Covid-19 are expected to reach capacity. Mohamed Lyoubi, added during a webinar that the situation will also affect the ability of health authorities to carry out case investigations and ensure contact follow-up and monitoring of patients treated at home.
The British government wants university students to be able to return home for Christmas, a minister has said, as a focus builds up on the plight of thousands of students who are already isolating amid Covid-19 outbreaks. "I very much want students to be able to go home at Christmas," Culture Minister Oliver Dowden told Sky News. Continue reading... |
| Biden’s team hopes for repeat of his 2012 performance as Trump debate nears Posted: 27 Sep 2020 01:00 AM PDT The vice-presidential candidate who debated Paul Ryan helped turn the trajectory of Obama's reelection campaign For Democrats and supporters of former vice-president Joe Biden's presidential campaign, the hope is that the version of Biden who faced then-congressman Paul Ryan back in 2012 shows up for the debate against Donald Trump on Tuesday in Ohio. The Biden who showed up for the Ryan debate eight years ago helped turn around the trajectory of then-President Barack Obama's reelection campaign. Ask just about any former Obama campaign alumna or Democratic strategist and they will concede that Obama's performance against Mitt Romney in the first debate was lacking. Continue reading... |
| Trump names Amy Coney Barrett for supreme court, stoking liberal backlash Posted: 26 Sep 2020 02:51 PM PDT
Donald Trump's pick for America's highest court, Amy Coney Barrett, is an "ideological fanatic" who threatens abortion rights, healthcare and the environment, activists warned on Saturday, before Trump unveiled his third supreme court nominee in the White House Rose Garden. Related: 'Not special any more': how the Senate has failed the American people Continue reading... |
| Sense or censorship? Row over Klan images in Tate’s postponed show Posted: 26 Sep 2020 11:15 PM PDT Philip Guston depicted 'the banality of evil' but galleries in the UK and US fear his work could be misinterpreted First celebrated for his abstract art, Philip Guston bucked convention, moving into figurative painting that included a repeating motif of hooded Ku Klux Klan members. Now these images have caused the postponement of a major retrospective to honour him – and a heated row within the art world. Four institutions – the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Tate in London – have said their Philip Guston Now exhibition won't open before 2024 because it needs to be framed by "additional perspectives and voices". They want to wait until the "message of social and racial justice" at the centre of his work "can be more clearly interpreted". Continue reading... |
| Labour takes poll lead as parties see major switch in fortunes Posted: 26 Sep 2020 12:00 PM PDT Keir Starmer ahead by four points on who would be better prime minister, as underlying figures suggest government failings in pandemic to blame for reversal Labour has recorded its first poll lead since Boris Johnson became prime minister, marking an extraordinary changes in fortunes for the two main parties. Keir Starmer's party now has a three-point lead over the Conservatives, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer. In a result that will stir more unrest among Tory MPs over the performance of the prime minister, the poll put Labour on 42% support, with the Conservatives on 39%. Continue reading... |
| ‘Catastrophe for human rights’ as Greece steps up refugee ‘pushbacks' Posted: 27 Sep 2020 12:30 AM PDT Human rights groups condemn practice as evidence reviewed by the Guardian reveals systemic denial of entry to asylum seekers At about 1am on 24 August, Ahmed (not his real name) climbed into a rubber dinghy with 29 others and left Turkey's north-western Çanakkale province. After 30 minutes, he said, they reached Greek waters near Lesbos and a panther boat from the Hellenic coastguard approached. Eight officers in blue shorts and shirts, some wearing black masks and armed with rifles, forced the group – more than half women and including several minors and six small children – to come aboard at gunpoint. They punctured the dinghy with knives and it sank. "They said they would take us to a camp," said Ahmed. "The children were happy and started laughing, but I knew they were lying." Continue reading... |
| Belarus accuses western nations of sowing 'chaos and anarchy' Posted: 26 Sep 2020 06:20 PM PDT Country's foreign minister attacks western 'interference', as Emmanuel Macron says president Lukashenko must go Belarus's foreign minister, Vladimir Makei, has accused western countries of attempting to sow "chaos and anarchy" in the former Soviet republic, which has been rocked by street protests since a contested election last month that was claimed by President Alexander Lukashenko. "We are seeing attempts to destabilise the situation in the country," Makei told the UN general assembly in a video statement on Saturday. "Interference in our internal affairs, sanctions and other restrictions on Belarus will have the opposite effect, and are harmful for absolutely everyone." Continue reading... |
| Hardline BBC critics reportedly offered top media roles Posted: 26 Sep 2020 12:58 PM PDT Former Daily Mail editor could head Ofcom, while ex-Daily Telegraph editor considers BBC chairman job Boris Johnson is reported to have offered jobs at the head of two of Britain's most important media organisations to two outspoken critics of the BBC. Paul Dacre, former editor of the Daily Mail, has been asked to run the national broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, while Lord Moore, the former editor of the Daily Telegraph and biographer of Margaret Thatcher, is believed to be considering accepting the role of chairman of the BBC. Continue reading... |
| Firms plead for Brexit deal as coronavirus leaves industry reeling Posted: 27 Sep 2020 12:15 AM PDT With only three months until the transition ends businesses say they have been unable to prepare for restrictions on EU trade Almost half of British companies have warned that their Brexit preparations have been hit by the pandemic, as business leaders demanded a last-minute compromise to reach a trade deal and avert chaos at the border. Continue reading... |
| ‘It’s a war on words’: Turks fear new law to muzzle social media giants Posted: 26 Sep 2020 11:15 PM PDT President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's draconian legislation comes into force this week in a bid to censor free speech online When a team of 20 police officers demanded to search journalist Oktay Candemir's flat earlier this month, he feared the worst: members of the Turkish media who are critical of the government are often arrested on spurious terrorism charges, and he has been in trouble several times before. Instead, one of the officers pulled out a phone to remind Candemir of a jokey tweet he had sent a few days earlier, mocking a spate of new television shows about Ottoman sultans. "I was arrested under article 130, for insulting the memory of a dead person. They told me I was defaming the Ottoman sultans." Continue reading... |
| The wurst is over: why Germany now loves to go vegetarian Posted: 27 Sep 2020 01:15 AM PDT More than 40% of Germans are cutting down on meat, and vegan burgers are a shopping mall staple Inside a shopping mall in south Berlin, two colleagues are chomping on hamburgers and fries, cheese sauce running down their fingers as they try to beat the lunchtime clock. Feelings of guilt are in short supply this Friday afternoon: the burger joint where the two women have grabbed a bite is called Vincent Vegan, and the patty inside the brioche bun is made of wheat, barley and soya. Continue reading... |
| Recipe for chaos: 2020 election threatens to snap a US already pushed to the limit Posted: 27 Sep 2020 12:00 AM PDT The November election will be plagued by voter suppression, foreign interference, disinformation and a contested supreme court vacancy It has been dubbed "the election that could break America". On 3 November voters decide whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden is their next president. But this time the stakes are even higher than the simple question of who resides in the White House. There is a widespread sense that the fate of the world's oldest constitutional democracy hangs in the balance. The US has already been shaken in 2020 by the deadly coronavirus pandemic, economic collapse and a society-wide reckoning over racism. Now comes an election in which voter suppression, foreign interference, online disinformation and a bitterly contested supreme court vacancy offer a recipe for chaos. Continue reading... |
| Frontline workers to be recognised in Queen's birthday honours Posted: 26 Sep 2020 03:44 PM PDT Recipients' 'dedication and compassion' amid pandemic praised by PM Hundreds of frontline and community heroes who played a key role in the coronavirus pandemic response will be recognised in the Queen's birthday honours next month, Boris Johnson has said. The prime minister praised the "dedication, courage and compassion" shown by the recipients, whose contributions to national life will be honoured, alongside people recognised for a broad range of achievements, on 10 October. Continue reading... |
| Trump First now drives US foreign policy. Even if it leads to war… Posted: 26 Sep 2020 11:45 PM PDT The president's baiting of China and Iran and shabby deals in the Gulf show he will risk almost anything to win re-election It's clear Donald Trump will do almost anything to cling to office. Lie about Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dying wish? Go for it. Label Joe Biden a radical socialist? Silly, but worth a punt. Start a war with China or Iran? Pause right there. This is not beyond the realms of possibility, given his pathological need to win. As November's poll nears, Trump is weaponising foreign policy – not to defend US security and national interests, but to help him grab a second term. It's not about putting "America First". It's all about putting "Trump First" – by any dangerous means, and at any cost. Continue reading... |
| At least 11 people killed in attack on convoy in Nigeria Posted: 26 Sep 2020 02:02 PM PDT President urges greater checks for sabotage before displaced people are returned Suspected Islamist militants have killed at least 11 people in north-eastern Nigeria in an attack on a security convoy that was taking people displaced by an insurgency back to their homes, police and security sources said on Saturday. Islamic State, to whom a breakaway faction of Nigerian militant group Boko Haram pledged allegiance in 2016, said on its Amaq news agency that 30 police officers and soldiers were killed in the attack on Friday on a road leading to the strategic fishing town of Baga in Borno state. Continue reading... |
| US election polls tracker: who is leading in the swing states? Posted: 27 Sep 2020 01:03 AM PDT As the presidential campaign heats up, the Guardian is tracking the latest polling in eight states that could decide the election Joe Biden is leading Donald Trump in the national polls for the presidential election. Continue reading... |
| Global report: Colombia and Argentina pass major milestones as Covid grips Americas Posted: 26 Sep 2020 08:35 PM PDT Colombia tops 800,000 cases, Argentina passes 700,000; France reports 14,000 new cases; Australian state of Victoria lifts curfew Coronavirus cases in Colombia, which is nearly a month into a national reopening after a long quarantine, have passed 800,000, while in Argentina infections passed 700,000, as the pandemic continues to grip the Americas. Colombia has 806,038 confirmed cases of the virus, the health ministry said on Saturday, with 25,296 reported deaths. Active cases numbered 78,956. Continue reading... |
| Melbourne stage 4 restrictions and Covid lockdown rules explained Posted: 26 Sep 2020 11:07 PM PDT There have been some changes to metropolitan Melbourne's tough stage four coronavirus restrictions. Here's what you need to know Stage four restrictions have been in effect across metropolitan Melbourne since Sunday 2 August. The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, announced his government's roadmap for easing coronavirus lockdown restrictions on Sunday 6 September. Some small changes came into effect on midnight 13 September, and further changes were announced on 27 September, to come into effect by the next day. Continue reading... |
| Lockdowners v libertarians: Britain’s coronavirus divide Posted: 27 Sep 2020 12:45 AM PDT As Covid cases rise, an increasingly heated debate has emerged over whether to readopt stringent measures or return to 'the business of living' Britain has reached a Covid crossroads – and its leaders are being pressed to pick one of two stark options. Are they going to return to the lockdown days that brought life to a standstill six months ago, but succeeded in halting the rapid spread of the disease? Or are they going to turn their backs on "an authoritarian nightmare" that is preventing the nation from getting on with "the business of living"? This is the basic division that has emerged over the summer in an increasingly heated debate between two unlikely groupings of scientists, columnists, campaigners and politicians. Continue reading... |
| Trump nominates Amy Coney Barrett to US supreme court - video Posted: 26 Sep 2020 08:21 PM PDT Donald Trump has nominated appeals court judge Amy Coney Barrett to take the place of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the US supreme court, saying he expected the appointment to be confirmed before the 3 November presidential election. Barrett is a devout pro-life Catholic and would tip the supreme court 6-3 in favour of conservatives. Continue reading... |
| Clashes erupt as thousands attend anti-lockdown protests in London – video Posted: 26 Sep 2020 09:20 AM PDT Demonstrators gathered in Trafalgar Square in central London to protest against the government's recently toughened Covid-19 restrictions. Protesters waved placards and flouted government guidelines on social distancing, opting not to wear masks. The police moved in and attempted to disperse them Continue reading... |
| Third night of Breonna Taylor protests after officers not charged – video Posted: 26 Sep 2020 07:36 AM PDT Protests over a decision not to indict any of the three police officers involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor continued more peacefully on Friday in Louisville, Kentucky |
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