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- Covid-19 prompts 'enormous rise' in demand for cheap child labour in India
- UK coronavirus live: Robert Jenrick defends decision to ignore Sage's lockdown advice
- 'They refused to act': inside a chilling documentary on Trump's bungled Covid-19 response
- Covid-19: training dogs to sniff out the virus
- Trench warfare, drones and cowering civilians: on the ground in Nagorno-Karabakh
- Trump holds packed rally after Covid diagnosis as he struggles in polls
- Johnson & Johnson pauses Covid vaccine trial over participant's 'unexplained illness'
- Malaysia's Anwar Ibrahim to meet king in decades-long push to become PM
- 'Golden week': wedding season boom in China with 600,000 couples tying knot
- Peru opens Machu Picchu ruins for one tourist
- BTS faces China backlash over Korean war comments
- Stop CO2 emissions bouncing back after Covid plunge, says IEA
- China still allowing use of pangolin scales in traditional medicine
- Belarus police will fire on protesters if necessary, says deputy interior minister
- Knock knock, who's there? The Nobel prize for economics
- Isabella Rossellini: ‘Ageing brings a lot of happiness. You get fatter – but there is freedom’
- Trans woman struggled to get help for mental illness before death, inquest told
- JCB challenged over machinery used to demolish Palestinian homes
- Firefighters battle to contain blaze on Kilimanjaro
- Arctic ice
- Bridge over troubled forests: how Java's slow lorises are creeping back
- Curtin University roof collapse leaves construction worker dead at Perth campus
- Fruits of shared labour: the Indian women joining forces for food security
- Amy Coney Barrett's hearing kicks off with hypocrisy and healthcare | David Smith
- England's simpler three-tier Covid system may not be enough
- What Amy Coney Barrett's likely confirmation means for America
- US election 2020: why are so many Americans being denied a vote? – podcast
- Joe Biden in Ohio: Trump 'turned his back on you' – video
- Amy Coney Barrett: US supreme court nominee delivers opening statement – video
- Nigerian president speaks on dissolution of notorious police unit – video
- Kim Jong-un cries during speech at North Korean military parade – video
| Covid-19 prompts 'enormous rise' in demand for cheap child labour in India Posted: 12 Oct 2020 09:00 PM PDT Charities warn that seven months of the pandemic has set the country back decades on child exploitation Over 70 children were crammed into a bus, heading from Bihar to a sweatshop in the Indian city of Rajasthan, when the authorities pulled it over. Among the faces half hidden behind colourful masks was 12-year-old Deepak Kumar. Before the coronavirus pandemic, Kumar had been enrolled in grade four at the school in his small district of Gaya in the impoverished Indian state of Bihar. But when Covid-19 hit and the country went into lockdown, the school gates shut across India and have not opened since. With his parents, both daily wage labourers, unable to make money and put food on the table, last month Kumar was sent out to find work. Continue reading... |
| UK coronavirus live: Robert Jenrick defends decision to ignore Sage's lockdown advice Posted: 13 Oct 2020 01:45 AM PDT Latest updates: minister says Covid restrictions require 'difficult judgment' of protecting lives while prioritising education and jobs
The Government Office for Science normally publishes a batch of Sage background papers every Friday. Over recent months its transparency record has been impressive, and we have been able to read internal government papers within weeks of their circulation, instead of having to wait years for the public inquiry. But, unusually, the documents showing that Sage (the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) was calling for a full fortnight-long lockdown three weeks ago were released to journalists last night, shortly after the PM's press conference was over. It is not clear yet whether this was because the Government Office for Science (ie, Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser) wanted the public to know that the scientists were being ignored, or because No 10 thought this would be a good time to "bury" embarrassing material. (If it was the latter, that hasn't worked.) A package of interventions will need to be adopted to prevent this exponential rise in cases. Single interventions are unlikely to be able to reduce incidence. If schools are to remain open, then a wide range of other measures will be required. The shortlist of non-pharmaceutical interventions that should be considered for immediate introduction include: A circuit-breaker (short period of lockdown) to return incidence to low levels. o Advice to work from home for all those that can.
Good morning. Ministers used to claim that they were "following the science" in their response to the coronavirus pandemic. That claim is now in tatters following the publication last night of documents from Sage, the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, showing that three weeks ago they called for a fortnight-long full lockdown (a "circuit breaker") to halt the spread of the virus. Boris Johnson rejected that advice. My colleague Ian Sample has the story here. Related: Covid: ministers told weeks ago to impose short lockdown or face 'large epidemic' We have to take a balanced judgment - these are not easy decisions. But the prime minister has to balance protecting people's lives and the NHS from the virus while also prioritising things that matter to us as a society, like education and keeping as many people in employment as possible, and also ensuring that other health risks, like mental health and illnesses, don't get neglected as a result Related: Coronavirus live news: Trump 'tests negative' for Covid; major vaccine trial paused Continue reading... |
| 'They refused to act': inside a chilling documentary on Trump's bungled Covid-19 response Posted: 12 Oct 2020 11:10 PM PDT Totally Under Control recounts the early days of the pandemic in the US, revealing in clinical detail a disastrous federal response to a preventable crisis In May, as their city began to emerge from the paralyzing grip of coronavirus that killed over 33,000 residents, New York City-based film-makers Alex Gibney, Ophelia Harutyunyan and Suzanne Hillinger started retracing still-raw recent history on film. They tracked whistleblowers, and noted comparisons between the disastrous sprawl of coronavirus in the US and South Korea, which received their first positive coronavirus diagnoses on the same day: 20 January. Meetings were held by Zoom, interviews by remote camera draped by a shower curtain — a large, amorphous ghost, compliant with quickly adopted social distancing guidelines. Related: Totally Under Control review – shocking film on Trump's failure to handle Covid-19 Continue reading... |
| Covid-19: training dogs to sniff out the virus Posted: 12 Oct 2020 09:00 PM PDT What does a disease smell like? Humans might not have the answer, but if they could talk, dogs might be able to tell us. Able to sniff out a range of cancers and even malaria, canines' extraordinary noses are now being put to the test on Covid-19. Nicola Davis hears from Prof Dominique Grandjean about exactly how you train dogs to smell a virus, and how this detection technique could be used in managing the spread of Covid-19 Continue reading... |
| Trench warfare, drones and cowering civilians: on the ground in Nagorno-Karabakh Posted: 12 Oct 2020 10:00 PM PDT The battle over Nagorno-Karabakh, waged on and off for a century, has flared anew and civilians once again suffer the consequences Over the road from the 8-metre-deep crater left by a medium-range missile, Sergei Hovhnnesyan and three of his neighbours are hunkering down in the basement storage space of their local grocery shop in Stepanakert, a mountain town in the heart of the Nagorno-Karabakh territory claimed by both Armenia and Azerbaijan. Continue reading... |
| Trump holds packed rally after Covid diagnosis as he struggles in polls Posted: 12 Oct 2020 06:37 PM PDT President addresses mostly maskless crowd in key swing state of Florida: 'I feel so powerful' Keen to appear lively and well after his recent hospitalization for Covid-19, Donald Trump held his first rally since being diagnosed, addressing a packed, largely maskless crowd in Florida – a state he desperately needs to win. Related: California investigates unauthorized ballot boxes installed by Republicans Continue reading... |
| Johnson & Johnson pauses Covid vaccine trial over participant's 'unexplained illness' Posted: 12 Oct 2020 07:20 PM PDT Company is unclear about whether patient was receiving vaccine or placebo in 60,000-patient study Johnson & Johnson has paused its Covid-19 vaccine trial due to an "unexplained illness" in a participant, the company confirmed. The pharmaceutical giant was unclear if the patient was administered a placebo or the experimental vaccine, and it's not remarkable for studies as large as the one Johnson & Johnson are conducting – involving 60,000 patients – to be temporarily paused. Continue reading... |
| Malaysia's Anwar Ibrahim to meet king in decades-long push to become PM Posted: 12 Oct 2020 05:19 PM PDT Opposition leader, who has been on the brink of power several times, claims to have enough support to lead, but doubts persist Malaysia's opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, will at last be granted an audience with the king on Tuesday, a meeting his supporters hope could lead to the culmination of his decades-long quest to lead the country. Anwar stated last month that he had majority support from lawmakers required to form a new government, but an earlier meeting was postponed because the king was in poor health. Continue reading... |
| 'Golden week': wedding season boom in China with 600,000 couples tying knot Posted: 12 Oct 2020 09:05 PM PDT Months of delayed nuptials have been crowded together with one man having to attend 23 celebrations Couples have rushed to get married over China's national day holiday in the first wedding season since the coronavirus pandemic began. Months of delayed nuptial celebrations were crowded into the "golden week" holiday, traditionally a popular time for weddings, that ended on Wednesday as hotels, banquet halls and other wedding venues were booked out. Continue reading... |
| Peru opens Machu Picchu ruins for one tourist Posted: 12 Oct 2020 02:22 PM PDT Japanese tourist waited almost seven months to enter Inca citadel while trapped in country during coronavirus pandemic Peru has opened the ruins of Machu Picchu for a single Japanese tourist after he waited almost seven months to enter the Inca citadel, while trapped in the Andean country during the coronavirus outbreak. Jesse Takayama's entry into the ruins came thanks to a special request he submitted while stranded since mid-March in the town of Aguas Calientes, on the slopes of the mountains near the site, said the minister of culture, Alejandro Neyra, on Monday. Continue reading... |
| BTS faces China backlash over Korean war comments Posted: 12 Oct 2020 09:37 PM PDT Boyband member RM told award ceremony they would always remember sacrifices of US and South Korea in war K-pop phenomenon BTS is facing a barrage of criticism in China after the South Korean boyband cited their country's solidarity with the US stemming from the Korean war. The band's leader, RM, sparked outrage on social media in China when he cited the "history of pain" shared between South Korea and the US, who fought alongside each other in the 1950-53 conflict. Continue reading... |
| Stop CO2 emissions bouncing back after Covid plunge, says IEA Posted: 12 Oct 2020 09:00 PM PDT Governments are not doing enough to prevent rapid rebound, says agency's report The coronavirus pandemic is expected to cause a record 7% decline in global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in 2020, but governments are not doing enough to prevent a rapid rebound, according to an influential report. Carbon dioxide emissions from energy use are expected to fall to 33.4 gigatonnes in 2020, the lowest level since 2011 and the biggest year on year fall since 1900 when records began, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its annual world energy outlook. Continue reading... |
| China still allowing use of pangolin scales in traditional medicine Posted: 12 Oct 2020 04:01 PM PDT Report reveals country has failed to fully regulate trade despite promises to crack down The Chinese government continues to allow the use of pangolin scales for traditional medicine despite promises to crack down on a trade that has made them the most illegally trafficked mammals in the world. A report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) reveals online sales platforms such as eBay and Taobao continue to advertise pangolin products, while major pharmaceutical companies, including the leading China Beijing Tong Ren Tang Group, offer similar items directly on their websites. Continue reading...This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Belarus police will fire on protesters if necessary, says deputy interior minister Posted: 12 Oct 2020 05:29 PM PDT Gennady Kazakevich accuses protesters of anarchy and threatens use of 'lethal weapons' Security forces in Belarus could fire on protesters if they deem it necessary, a minister has warned, as EU foreign ministers agreed to impose sanctions personally targeting President Alexander Lukashenko. Gennady Kazakevich, the first deputy interior minister, said in a video statement: "We will not leave the streets, and law enforcement officers and internal troops if necessary will use riot control equipment and lethal weapons." Continue reading... |
| Knock knock, who's there? The Nobel prize for economics Posted: 12 Oct 2020 05:32 PM PDT Paul Milgrom could not be roused in the middle of the night when news broke, so his fellow winner, Bob Wilson, had to go and wake him up When the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced on Monday that the American economists Paul Milgrom and Bob Wilson had won the Nobel prize for economics, both men were fast asleep in their beds in Stanford, California. Eventually the committee managed to get hold of Wilson to tell him the news. But Milgrom was asleep and nobody could contact him. So it was up to Wilson – who happens to be Milgrom's neighbour – to go to the home of his former student in his pyjamas to relate the happy tidings, that he had won the prize worth US$1m. Continue reading... |
| Isabella Rossellini: ‘Ageing brings a lot of happiness. You get fatter – but there is freedom’ Posted: 12 Oct 2020 10:00 PM PDT The actor's latest project is about the joy of sex, as well as its capacity to exploit, control and kill. She discusses the pleasure of life after being written off by Hollywood and the beauty business Isabella Rossellini is a busy woman. It is hard to know how the model, actor, writer, animal behaviourist and farmer finds so much time to talk about sex. But she does. In recent years, she has made numerous tiny films about the sex lives of animals under the umbrella titles Green Porno and Seduce Me. Now she hopes to take them to a larger audience – or, to be more accurate, she hopes to bring a larger audience to her farm. With theatre stymied by the pandemic, she is livestreaming a show from Mama Farm in Long Island, New York, where she lives with her sheep, goats, chickens, ducks and dogs. The show, called Sex & Consequences, is part circus, part animal cognition lecture and part penetration. Continue reading... |
| Trans woman struggled to get help for mental illness before death, inquest told Posted: 12 Oct 2020 10:17 AM PDT Family of Alexandra Greenway say she was passed 'pillar to post' and not given psychiatric support The family of a transgender woman who was found dead at her flat in Bristol have said at her inquest that she was passed from "pillar to post" in her efforts to seek help for her mental illness. Alexandra Greenway's relatives told the inquest the 23-year-old recruitment consultant did not receive the psychiatric support she required before her death on 11 May last year. Continue reading... |
| JCB challenged over machinery used to demolish Palestinian homes Posted: 12 Oct 2020 07:02 AM PDT Foreign Office quango says firm may have broken OECD guidelines on human rights The British heavy machinery firm JCB's sale of equipment used in the destruction of Palestinian villages in the Israeli-occupied West Bank may have breached Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development guidelines on human rights, a UK government body has assessed. The case is likely to test the degree to which multinationals are responsible if their export goods are being sold by local distributors in ways that infringe human rights. Continue reading... |
| Firefighters battle to contain blaze on Kilimanjaro Posted: 12 Oct 2020 07:58 AM PDT Fears for climbers who may have been in area of fire on slopes of Africa's tallest mountain near Tanzanian border with Kenya A huge fire has broken on Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak and a key attraction for tourists in Kenya and Tanzania. According to Tanzanian national park authorities, the fire broke out on Sunday afternoon and is yet to be contained. Continue reading... |
| Posted: 13 Oct 2020 02:00 AM PDT The region is unravelling faster than anyone could once have predicted. But there may still be time to act At the end of July, 40% of the 4,000-year-old Milne Ice Shelf, located on the north-western edge of Ellesmere Island, calved into the sea. Canada's last fully intact ice shelf was no more. On the other side of the island, the most northerly in Canada, the St Patrick's Bay ice caps completely disappeared. Continue reading... |
| Bridge over troubled forests: how Java's slow lorises are creeping back Posted: 13 Oct 2020 12:30 AM PDT A pioneering project uses water pipes suspended in the trees to allow the endangered primates to gather food in safety Photographs by Andrew Walmsley Largely solitary, nocturnal, venomous and pint-sized, slow lorises are strong contenders for the primates that least resemble humans. Which may be why they are among the least studied, least protected and most poorly understood primates, according to Anna Nekaris, professor of primate conservation and biological anthropology at Oxford Brookes University. "Out of over 600 primate species, we have five great apes, and everybody wants to study them," she says. Continue reading... |
| Curtin University roof collapse leaves construction worker dead at Perth campus Posted: 13 Oct 2020 01:16 AM PDT One person has died and two others are in hospital after the workplace incident at the Bentley campus in south-east Perth A 23-year-old worker has died after he fell 20 metres when a roof collapsed on a building being constructed at Curtain University in Perth. Two other men in their 20s have been taken to Royal Perth hospital with multiple injuries following the workplace incident at the Bentley campus which occurred before 12.30pm local time on Tuesday. Continue reading... |
| Fruits of shared labour: the Indian women joining forces for food security Posted: 12 Oct 2020 11:15 PM PDT Rural women in Tamil Nadu are mostly excluded from land ownership, but collective farms can offer self-sufficiency When all the shops closed due to the coronavirus lockdown, pulling together in small collectives was key to remaining self-sufficient for widow farmers in India's southern state of Tamil Nadu. "We had sufficient grains and vegetables at home, while others in the village were seeking government support," says 46-year-old Poongani, one of the nine widowed Dalit women who form the Sivanthi Poo farming collective in the village of Thottampatti. Continue reading... |
| Amy Coney Barrett's hearing kicks off with hypocrisy and healthcare | David Smith Posted: 12 Oct 2020 02:38 PM PDT Republicans sought to normalise her rushed nomination while Democrats maintained a laser-like focus on the future of Obamacare That was rich. Senate Republicans, otherwise known as Donald Trump's Praetorian Guard, lined up on Monday to pay pious homage to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the separation of powers and the halcyon days of political bipartisanship. Related: What Amy Coney Barrett's likely confirmation means for America Continue reading... |
| England's simpler three-tier Covid system may not be enough Posted: 12 Oct 2020 12:27 PM PDT New rules should cut infection rates but are too late and open to abuse, say scientists The three-tier Covid alert system is a significant shift in the government's approach to the coronavirus crisis in England, and, while scientists broadly welcomed the simplified rules, there are concerns the restrictions come too late and are open to abuse. A major benefit of the new system is that it clears up the confusing and messy patchwork of different rules in different places, which arose as regions in northern England, the Midlands and other parts of the country battled to contain local outbreaks. With simplicity and stability should come better compliance, and with that more control of the epidemic. Continue reading... |
| What Amy Coney Barrett's likely confirmation means for America Posted: 12 Oct 2020 09:42 AM PDT Barrett's expected elevation will give conservatives a bulletproof court majority, and many progressive causes are under threat Senate Republicans have begun hearings to confirm Amy Coney Barrett as a supreme court justice. If confirmed as expected, Barrett would become the third justice on the court to be appointed by Donald Trump. Here's what it means: Continue reading... |
| US election 2020: why are so many Americans being denied a vote? – podcast Posted: 12 Oct 2020 07:00 PM PDT Millions of American voters will be unable to cast their ballot in this year's presidential election and those affected will be disproportionately first-time voters and from minority groups, reports Sam Levine As the November election approaches, Donald Trump is continuing to make stark claims about voter fraud, particularly focused on postal voting. Despite a lack of evidence, many are interpreting the president's claims as a prelude to his challenging the result should he be defeated. Fears of fraud are also being used by many states to place more hurdles in the way of voters trying to cast their ballots. The Guardian's Sam Levine tells Anushka Asthana about the bureaucratic steps required to cast a legal vote in some states and how research shows that they mean the discounting of votes from disproportionately younger and minority voters. He also describes how millions of former prisoners are being denied votes decades after release due to bureaucratic errors or minuscule unpaid fines. He met Alfonso Tucker, a resident in Alabama, who was struck from the register over a $4 fine and whose son of the same name was also prevented from voting. Meanwhile, there are growing fears of intimidation at the polls, not least following Trump's performance at the presidential debate in which he failed to denounce white supremacists, telling the rightwing Proud Boys group to "stand back and stand by". Continue reading... |
| Joe Biden in Ohio: Trump 'turned his back on you' – video Posted: 12 Oct 2020 04:18 PM PDT Joe Biden told a drive-in rally in Ohio that Donald Trump 'turned his back on you' during the pandemic and its economic fallout. Biden questioned why Republicans had time for supreme court hearings but no time to come to an agreement with House Democrats on another economic relief package to help individuals, businesses and city and state governments. Trump has alternately called off Covid-19 relief talks, then pushed for a deal. Late last week, the White House expanded its offer to Democrats, but the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said it was unlikely Congress could pass a bill before the election and House speaker Nancy Pelosi said the White House offer didn't include enough money. Trump won Ohio by eight percentage points in 2016, but polls have tightened and it is now a key battleground state in the upcoming election. Continue reading... |
| Amy Coney Barrett: US supreme court nominee delivers opening statement – video Posted: 12 Oct 2020 01:49 PM PDT US supreme court nominee Amy Coney Barrett was sworn in during Monday's opening confirmation hearing before the Senate judiciary committee and told senators she was humbled to be considered to fill the seat left by Ruth Bader Ginsburg. President Donald Trump formally nominated Barrett on 26 September. Trump's nomination of Barrett to a vacancy created by the death last month of Ginsburg just weeks before the election enraged Democrats, still furious about Republicans' refusal to consider a nominee from Barack Obama some 10 months before the 2016 election. Continue reading... |
| Nigerian president speaks on dissolution of notorious police unit – video Posted: 12 Oct 2020 06:51 AM PDT Muhammadu Buhari has given a speech after the Nigerian government dissolved a controversial police unit alleged to have carried out extrajudicial killings. The announcement came after days of protests against police brutality. Outrage had been fuelled over the last week by the emergence online of graphic footage and shared experiences of abuses by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, commonly called Sars Continue reading... |
| Kim Jong-un cries during speech at North Korean military parade – video Posted: 12 Oct 2020 06:00 AM PDT The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, became emotional during a speech at a military parade marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers' party. Kim removed his glasses and wiped away tears in an indication, analysts say, of mounting pressure on his regime. He said his 'efforts and devotion' had not been enough to help all North Koreans |
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