World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk

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World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk


'On the brink of disaster': Europe's Covid fight takes a turn for the worse

Posted: 16 Oct 2020 06:14 AM PDT

As France imposes curfews, even countries that previously managed well are struggling badly

"It's not a word I've heard in a long, long time," an elderly Paris resident said, leaving her apartment in mask and gloves for an early expedition to the shops. "A curfew. That's for wartime, isn't it? But in a way I suppose that's what this is."

Europe's second coronavirus wave took a dramatic turn for the worse this week, forcing governments across the continent to make tough choices as more than a dozen countries reported their highest ever number of new infections.

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Most US home health aides ‘can’t afford not to work’ – even without PPE

Posted: 16 Oct 2020 01:18 PM PDT

Home health caregivers have been key to the Covid response – but they often work for low wages and without overtime, hazard pay, sick leave or insurance

In March, Sue Williams-Ward took a new job, with a $1-an-hour raise.

The employer, a home healthcare agency called Together We Can, was paying a premium – $13 an hour – after it started losing aides when Covid-19 safety concerns mounted.

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US passes 8m coronavirus cases as death toll approaches 220,000

Posted: 16 Oct 2020 12:55 PM PDT

Trump claims virus will 'peter out' in country with most cases and highest death toll

The US passed 8m recorded coronavirus cases on Friday, another unwelcome mark for the country with the most cases and the worst death toll from the global pandemic, approaching 220,000.

Despite there being no sign that the pandemic is under control in the US, on Thursday Donald Trump said that the virus would "peter out".

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Boris Johnson wrongly suggests new Covid rules will stop some parents seeing children – video

Posted: 16 Oct 2020 12:03 PM PDT

Responding to a question at a televised Downing Street press conference, the prime minister wrongly suggested that new coronavirus restrictions meant separated parents might not be able to see their children. This is not only incorrect, but has been so throughout Covid restrictions, with children allowed to move between the homes of separated parents even during the peak of lockdown in March

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NZ election 2020: Judith Collins congratulates Jacinda Ardern – live results

Posted: 17 Oct 2020 02:19 AM PDT

New Zealand has voted in an election dominated by Covid and partial results show support collapsing for the opposition National Party. Follow results live:

Deputy labour leader Kelvin Davis is speaking now as we wait for Ardern.

The Maori MP from northland was minister for corrections and has worked to reduce the rate of incarceration for Maori.

As we prepare to hear from Jacinda Ardern:

The previous best result for Labour under the MMP system was in 2002, when Helen Clark was up for re-election after her first term in power. Clark had governed in partnership with the left-wing Alliance for her first term, but the Alliance imploded in the lead-up to the 2002 election and were mostly wiped out.

The result saw National reduced to just 27 seats, including 21 electorates. Labour won three extra seats for a total of 52 seats. That was collectively twenty less seats than Labour and National are on track to win at the moment. That Parliament included a lot more minor parties. New Zealand First, ACT, Green and United Future all won between eight and twelve seats, along with two Progressives.

New Zealand politics has become much more consolidated behind the major parties in the last eighteen years, which means a Labour landslide looks set to have produced a Labour majority, while a massive National defeat still leaves them with eight more seats than their last massive defeat.

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Teacher decapitated in Paris named as Samuel Paty, 47

Posted: 17 Oct 2020 02:00 AM PDT

Terrorism investigation opened after 18-year-old attacker shot dead by police

The history teacher decapitated outside his secondary school near Paris by a terrorist on Friday after he reportedly showed a caricature of the prophet Muhammad to his pupils has been named.

Samuel Paty, 47, who taught history and geography at the school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine , north-west of the French capital, was attacked on Friday evening by an 18-year-old assailant who was shot dead by police shortly afterwards.

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Coronavirus live news: UK government adviser supports 'circuit breaker' lockdown; Angela Merkel urges Germans to stay home

Posted: 17 Oct 2020 02:17 AM PDT

Austrian foreign minister tests positive; Russia records nearly 15,000 new cases; UK police arrest protesters in Soho, London

Chancellor Angela Merkel today urged Germans to curb social contacts and keep travel to a minimum, making a personal appeal after the federal and state governments struggled to agree on ways to contain a second wave of coronavirus infection.

"We have to do everything to prevent the virus from spreading out of control. Every day counts," Merkel said in her weekly video podcast.

We have to go further. I appeal to you: Meet with fewer people, either at home or outside. Please forsake any journey that is not absolutely essential, every party that is not absolutely essential. Stay at home, where at all possible.

More than half of England is living with heightened coronavirus restrictions after the severest measures came into force in Lancashire and Londoners were banned from meeting indoors.

Here is an explainer to what you can and cannot do depending on where you live.

Related: What tier am I in and what am I allowed to do? England's Covid rules explained

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Linda Evangelista praises women accusing her ex-husband of rape

Posted: 16 Oct 2020 12:00 PM PDT

Exclusive: supermodel speaks out after four more women accuse Gérald Marie of sexual misconduct

The supermodel Linda Evangelista has praised the "courage and strength" shown by a growing number of women accusing her ex-husband, the model agency boss Gérald Marie, of sexual misconduct and rape.

Speaking exclusively to the Guardian's Weekend magazine, Evangelista said she believed the women's accounts of their experiences with Marie, who for over three decades was among the most powerful figures in the fashion industry.

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Trump condemned for QAnon dodge as Biden town hall wins TV ratings battle

Posted: 16 Oct 2020 09:58 AM PDT

  • President refused to disavow baseless QAnon conspiracy theory
  • TV figures show rival Biden event drew about 1m more viewers

Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in their TV ratings battle from their duelling town hall events, figures showed Friday, while the president faced condemnation over his failure to disavow the QAnon conspiracy theory.

Related: Biden's town hall drew 2 million more viewers than Trump's in early figures – live

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UK churches urged to wake up to spiritual abuse of LGBT people

Posted: 16 Oct 2020 10:00 PM PDT

Online conference this weekend will discuss how churches can defuse 'ticking timebomb'

Spiritual and emotional abuse of LGBT people is a "ticking timebomb" for churches in the UK and could lead to legal action and demands for redress, campaigners have said.

"Churches urgently need to wake up to spiritual, emotional and psychological abuse. If they don't protect young people, the consequences will be massive. This is coming, and it will be a disaster," said Steve Chalke, a Baptist minister and founder of the Oasis charity.

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UK bans any use of mobile phones while driving

Posted: 16 Oct 2020 10:00 PM PDT

Government updates law to ban drivers from using phone in any way, not just calling and texting

Drivers who use hand-held phones in any way behind the wheel will face £200 fines and possible bans when changes in the law take account of smartphones.

While making calls or texting on a hand-held mobile while driving is already illegal, taking photos, scrolling through a playlist or even playing games on phones has not been outlawed until now – allowing drivers to escape charges when spotted with a phone.

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Nagorno-Karabakh: Azerbaijan says 12 civilians killed by shelling in Ganja

Posted: 16 Oct 2020 10:33 PM PDT

Rescuers pull men, women and children out of rows of houses turned to rubble in latest escalation of conflict

Azerbaijan has said at least 12 people have died after shelling levelled a row of homes in the city of Ganja, with 40 more wounded in a sharp escalation of the conflict with Armenia over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The Azeri prosecutor general's office said that two shells hit apartment buildings in the country's second largest city. There has been no official reaction from Armenia as yet.

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Covid reinfections 'to be expected' as virus spreads, say government scientists

Posted: 17 Oct 2020 12:00 AM PDT

Reports suggest timeframe between recovery and reinfection 'relatively short' for those who contracted virus twice

Government science advisers have warned that reinfections with Covid-19 are "to be expected" as the virus spreads, based on what is known about people's immunity to other coronaviruses that cause the common cold.

Researchers on the Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium said it was unclear at what point people who had recovered from the virus became vulnerable to reinfection, but cited emerging reports of second infections that suggested the timeframe was "relatively short".

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Justin Trudeau hits back at China after threat to Canadians in Hong Kong

Posted: 16 Oct 2020 05:49 PM PDT

Prime minister says Canada will 'stand up loudly' for human rights after China's ambassador against welcoming Hong Kong pro-democracy activists

Canada will continue to defend human rights in China, prime minister Justin Trudeau has pledged, after a top Chinese diplomat warned Ottawa against welcoming Hong Kong pro-democracy activists.

China's ambassador to Ottawa, Cong Peiwu, warned Canada on Thursday against granting asylum to Hong Kong activists, which he said could have consequences for the "health and security" for the 300,000 Canadians living in the theoretically autonomous Chinese territory.

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Forbidden fruit: Australian police seize half a tonne of cocaine hidden in banana pulp

Posted: 16 Oct 2020 07:07 PM PDT

Police allege Mark De Hesselle collected 139 boxes of the pulp and searched through them to remove the drug

A Sydney man is facing life in prison after federal police intercepted cocaine worth $248m concealed in frozen fruit products from Brazil.

AFP and Border Force officers seized 552kg of the drug hidden in pallets of banana pulp and branded with koala pictures in Sydney on Friday.

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‘He wanted to control me completely’: the models who accuse Gérald Marie of sexual assault

Posted: 16 Oct 2020 11:00 PM PDT

Elite Models boss Gérald Marie was one of the most powerful men in fashion. Was he also a sexual predator? As French prosecutors investigate, four women tell their stories for the first time

A special investigation by Lucy Osborne

In the spring of 1980, Wendy Walsh and her mother flew to Paris from their home in a suburb of Toronto, Canada. Walsh was 17, a straight-A student who excelled at maths. She was also an aspiring model whose blond, blue-eyed, girl-next-door look had already got her noticed; at a local hairdressing event, a couple of stylists from a Paris salon had offered to send her headshots to a leading model agency, Paris Planning. Letters and phone calls had been exchanged, and Walsh was invited to Paris.

At the agency's offices, Walsh and her mother, Ellen, were introduced to the charismatic 30-year-old boss, Gérald Marie. Marie offered to take them to lunch. "So we went to a little outdoor bistro in the Place de la Madeleine, around the corner from the agency," says Walsh, speaking on the phone from her home in Los Angeles. "It was the first time I ever had a croque monsieur, and he was explaining what it was. I realise now it's a fancy grilled cheese sandwich. And I remember distinctly him fawning over my mother, and this was surprising to me. She had been an extremely beautiful woman in her youth, but lupus had left scars on her face.

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Liverpool mayor pleas people follow Covid-19 rules as brother in ICU

Posted: 16 Oct 2020 01:28 PM PDT

City region was first area to face tier 3 local lockdown restrictions in England

The mayor of Liverpool has revealed his brother is in intensive care with Covid-19 and urged people to follow the rules to prevent the spread of the virus.

Joe Anderson said on Twitter that his eldest brother was in a "very serious condition" in hospital. He tweeted on Friday: "10 mins ago my sister-in-law a Nursing Sister has told me my eldest brother her husband has got Covid-19."

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Man can drop part of name denoting slave ancestry, Tunisian court rules

Posted: 16 Oct 2020 09:59 AM PDT

Case expected to open door for others wanting to drop 'atig' or 'liberated by' from their name

A court in Tunisia has allowed an 81-year-old man to remove a word from his name that marked him out as descended from slaves, in the country's first ruling of its kind, his lawyer has said.

Tunisia abolished slavery in 1846, but critics say it has not done enough to address racism against black Tunisians, who make up 10-15% of the population and are mostly descended from slaves.

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Trump to hold Wisconsin rally despite warning over public gatherings

Posted: 17 Oct 2020 02:00 AM PDT

  • Wisconsin placed in 'red zone' for high infection rates
  • Experts urge people to avoid crowds to stop 'preventable deaths'

Donald Trump will hold a rally in Wisconsin on Saturday evening, despite state health officials declaring a crisis over the coronavirus pandemic and his own experts warning that public gatherings there risk causing "preventable deaths".

Related: America's Black colleges take measured approach in bid to weather Covid crisis

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Is Bolivia poised to swing back towards socialism?

Posted: 17 Oct 2020 02:00 AM PDT

A year after the country's first indigenous president was controversially ousted, his party is well placed to win a rerun presidential election

David Ticona Mamani felt despair and foreboding when Evo Morales was forced from his Andean homeland last November amid civil unrest, electoral meltdown and what supporters of Bolivia's first indigenous president called a racist, rightwing coup.

"I wept," remembered the 56-year-old lawyer, a fervent supporter of Morales and his Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas).

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Residents evacuated at Sydney's North Head as hazard reduction burn jumps containment lines

Posted: 16 Oct 2020 10:59 PM PDT

Authorities upgraded the fire to 'watch and act' level, but say the blaze is under control and no homes are under threat

A hazard reduction burn around North Head on Sydney's northern beaches which jumped containment lines has prompted the evacuation of nearby residents.

New South Wales police said in a statement that commercial premises and residential properties around North Head had been evacuated.

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'Call out the lies': UK charities hit back over bids to blame refugees for housing crisis

Posted: 16 Oct 2020 03:44 AM PDT

Far-right harassment of asylum seekers and refugees in emergency accommodation comes as Home Office gears up for mass evictions

Thousands of asylum seekers and refugees temporarily housed in emergency accommodation across the UK are being "unfairly and inaccurately" blamed for the national housing crisis, according to a coalition of more than 100 housing organisations.

Charities including Shelter, Homeless Link and the Big Issue say the housing emergency is the fault of the government, not those who have fled trafficking, violence and conflict.

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'Things have changed': can Biden overcome the racist legacy of the crime bill he backed?

Posted: 17 Oct 2020 02:00 AM PDT

The 1994 crime bill paved the way to mass incarceration of Black Americans. Biden says his support was a 'mistake'

In 1994, Senator Joe Biden of Delaware stood proudly behind Bill Clinton as he signed into law a reform bill that touched nearly every aspect of the US criminal justice system.

Related: Trump trails Biden with two weeks to go – but there could yet be surprises

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