This graphic giving the current coronavirus situation across Africa, including numbers of confirmed cases and deaths, has been put together by @WHOAFRO. pic.twitter.com/Rrca9C6xaV
Brazil?€?s health minister, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, has admitted authorities will have to deal with drug traffickers and paramilitary gangs as they seek to stop the spread of Covid-19 through the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Tom Phillips, the Guardian?€?s Latin America correspondent, reports.
Heavily armed criminal gangs control many of the city?€?s thousand-or-so favelas, which this week suffered their first coronavirus deaths. And at a press conference on Wednesday, Mandetta conceded his workers would have to talk to them.
The euro has risen to its highest level today after Germany?€?s finance minister, Olaf Scholz, said it appeared that the EU would reach a deal on an economic support package.
EU finance ministers had reconvened today after failing to agree a deal on Tuesday in 16-hour talks. A dispute between Italy and the Netherlands over possible debt sharing had held up agreement.
German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz on today´s Eurogroup meeting: "It looks like an agreement is possible today."
Here is a flavour of the big jump in oil prices in recent minutes.
Brent crude futures prices, the North Sea oil benchmark, rose to almost $36 per barrel, slightly below their highest level since the crisis hit Europe in the middle of March. Prices have fallen as low as $33 per barrel today.
Holding hands, kissing, sharing drinks from the same glass all helped spread the virus
On 15 February, a merry crowd wearing clown wigs and jester hats gathered in the town hall of Gangelt, a small western German municipality nestled by the Dutch border, to ring in the peak of the carnival season.
Beer and wine flowed aplenty as approximately 350 adults in fancy dress locked arms on long wooden benches and swayed to the rhythm of music provided by a live band.
Its more than 35,000km (21,750 miles) of coastline was always going to be Australia?€?s strongest advantage in keeping coronavirus at bay, but even so, the speed with which it was used was breathtaking.
Without warning on Thursday 19 March, the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, announced: ?€?Australia is closing its borders to all-non citizens?€?. The ban was effective from 9pm the next day.
As health experts in Hong Kong call for masks to be made mandatory to tackle coronavirus, a ban on their use that was introduced in response to protests has been largely upheld by the appeal court.
The court also used its ruling to push back at accusations that its role in assessing the constitutionality of laws was an affront to Beijing.
Saudi Arabia has started a two-week unilateral ceasefire in Yemen, in a move designed to show its awareness of the threat the coronavirus poses to a war-torn country with only rudimentary health services.
So far no Covid-19 cases have been reported in the country. However, Saudi Arabia, with which Yemen shares a border, has suffered more than 40 deaths and is projecting many more. Yemen has closed its borders.
It would be ?€?legally wrong?€? to conclude that the high court ruling undermined the point of bringing cases to trial, professor says
Victims of child sexual abuse should not be dissuaded from coming forward and reporting perpetrators as a result of the jury conviction of Cardinal George Pell being overturned by the high court, a barrister and professor of law at La Trobe University in Melbourne says.
Prof Gideon Boas said he was concerned by those questioning the merit of future cases brought in the criminal or civil jurisdiction based on the Pell ruling.
Experts reexamine eggs - some dating back to bronze age - to understand origins and designs
They are about the same size as a standard Easter egg, but are rather older - with some specimens dating back five millennia, to the early bronze age.
A collection of decorated ostrich eggs belonging to the British Museum in London has been reexamined by experts in an effort to understand where they originated, and how their often elaborately painted or engraved designs were created.
The Chinese government has signalled an end to the human consumption of dogs, with the agriculture ministry today releasing a draft policy that would forbid canine meat.
Citing the ?€?progress of human civilisation?€? as well as growing public concern over animal welfare and prevention of disease transmission from animals to humans, China?€?s Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs singled out canines as forbidden in a draft ?€?white list?€? of animals allowed to be raised for meat.
The head of the International Monetary Fund has warned that all but a handful of the organisation?€?s 189 member states will suffer falling standards of living this year as a result of the worst global economic crisis since the 1930s.
Kristalina Georgieva said the sudden onset of the Covid-19 pandemic meant the IMF?€?s new forecasts for the world economy were going to be grim when released next week - and there was a risk that the impact could be even worse than currently expected. She said more than 170 countries will suffer a reversal of living standards in 2020.
Research on Massospondylus carinatus embryossheds new light on animals?€? development
The fossilised skulls of dinosaur embryos that died within their eggs about 200m years ago, have been digitally reconstructed by scientists, shedding new light on the animals?€? development, and how close they were to hatching.
The rare clutch of seven eggs, some of which contain embryos, was discovered in South Africa in 1976, with the developing young found to be a species of dinosaur called Massospondylus carinatus.
Vladimir Putin has taken a backseat in tackling Russia?€?s coronavirus outbreak, working remotely from his residence in the Moscow suburbs and delegating powers that he has spent a generation mostly accumulating in the Kremlin.
Strict quarantine measures and border closures have been imposed by trusted lieutenants including the Moscow mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, and the new prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, with officials leading parallel efforts to contain the virus and its economic fallout.
From Herculean efforts to keep children from interjecting in conference calls to fitness classes derailed by daytime drinking, a new sitcom in Spain - billed as the first of its kind on primetime TV - is set to tackle the quirks of life in lockdown.
The show aims to offer a humorous take on the sweeping changes unleashed by the pandemic, said Álvaro Longoria, the creator and producer of Quarantine Diaries. ?€?We are in no way trying to make fun of the people that are suffering. The focus is on those trying to make normal life out of an extraordinary situation.?€?
The Senakw development aims to ease the city?€?s chronic housing crisis - and to challenge the mindset that indigeneity and urbanity are incompatible
The scrubby, vacant patch beneath the Burrard Street Bridge in Vancouver looks at first glance like a typical example of the type of derelict nook common to all cities: 11.7 acres of former railway lands, over which tens of thousands of people drive every day.
This is not any old swath of underused space, however. It?€?s one of Canada?€?s smallest First Nations reserves, where dozens of Squamish families once lived. The village was destroyed by provincial authorities more than a century ago.
Amazon have arrived in force in rapidly expanding Hyderabad, with designs on the currently almost non-existent Indian e-commence market
The futuristic lobby of the new Amazon building in Hyderabad feels as though it should have a permanent orchestra blasting out Also Sprach Zarathustra. The scale is intended to awe. A large slogan on a wall suggests the company is ?€?Delivering smiles?€?. The only sound that rises above the hush is a synthesised beep, coming from a giant screen playing a video of the campus at various stages of its construction.
Built on nine acres in this Indian city?€?s financial district, it is Amazon?€?s single largest building globally and the only Amazon-owned campus outside the US. It can house over 15,000 employees, but its size is its main architectural feature: it resembles the same cube of glass steel and chrome seen in corporate offices across Hyderabad, though a flash of magenta reflected in one of the top floor windows, from a billowing sari across the road, is a nice Indian touch.
Minibuses that run on Friday evenings and Saturdays buck state?€?s religious restrictions
Tel Aviv is one of Israel?€?s most dynamic cities, but the latest local craze could appear fairly humdrum to outsiders - a bus service that runs at weekends.
Packed 19-seat minibuses fill up fast with passengers, who excitedly gossip about the new routes. People patiently queue at bus stops, knowing they might have to wait for two or three buses to pass before there is a space. Still, they are upbeat. ?€?It?€?s a pleasure,?€? said Ben Uzan, a 30-year-old electronic engineer. ?€?It?€?s a blessed initiative.?€?
The Garbage Cafe in Ambikapur, India, is helping to tackle the country?€?s plastic waste problem - and their novel idea is catching on
On bad days, when his employer made some excuse for not paying him his paltry daily wage, Ram Yadav?€?s main meal used to be dry chapatis, with salt and raw onion for flavour. Sometimes he just went hungry. For a ragpicker like him, one of the thousands of Indians who make a living bringing in plastic waste for recycling, eating in a cafe or restaurant was the stuff of fairytales.
But last week, Yadav was sitting at a table at the Garbage Cafe in Ambikapur, in the state of Chhattisgarh, over a piping hot meal of dal, aloo gobi, poppadoms and rice. He earned the food in exchange for bringing in 1kg of plastic waste. ?€?The hot meal I get here lasts me all day. And it feels good to sit at a table like everyone else,?€? he said.
As fans puzzle out the epic Murder Most Foul, we count down the best of Bob, from the fury of Pay in Blood to the pure genius of Simple Twist of Fate
Street Legal delivered fans a shock: Dylan fronting a large band, with female backing singers to the fore. The words, meanwhile, might well represent an oblique personal history, from adolescence through marriage to religious conversion: whatever they were about, they reduced Patti Smith to tears on first hearing.
New police tools that encourage the public to report people they suspect of breaching coronavirus restrictions risk fuelling ?€?social mistrust and division?€?, a barrister has warned, as the majority of the UK?€?s forces adopt the scheme.
Twenty-six of the 43 police forces in England and Wales have launched dedicated online forms allowing people to report suspected breaches of the lockdown, such as large gatherings in parks.
Guide to Britain?€?s array of culinary sauces lauds bread sauce but calls Branston pickle ?€?a snack for drunk people?€?
Continental Europe may long have looked, askance and appalled, at Britons?€? ability to hit the sauce on an empty stomach, and then to keep on hitting it. Before hitting it some more.
But, equally baffling to foreign eyes, noses and stomachs is the UK?€?s consumption of a rich and strange array of actual sauces.
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The Guardian?€?s David Smith and Emily Holden report:
Faced with not one but two crises - public health and economic - Trump and his allies are advancing their agenda, whether in plain sight as a direct response to the pandemic, or under cover while the nation is deeply distracted.
The office of Vice President Mike Pence, who is leading the White House coronavirus task force, has blocked CNN from access to health experts in an effort to pressure the network to carry the full daily White House briefing.
Pence?€?s office has declined to allow the nation?€?s top health officials to appear on CNN in recent days and discuss the coronavirus pandemic killing thousands of Americans, in an attempt to pressure the network into carrying the White House?€?s lengthy daily briefings in full.
Pence?€?s office, which is responsible for booking the officials on networks during the pandemic, said it will only allow experts such as Dr. Deborah Birx or Dr. Anthony Fauci to appear on CNN if the network televises the portion of the White House briefings that includes the vice president and other coronavirus task force members.
Authorities around the world are preparing to use curfews, roadblocks, travel bans, surveillance technology and threats of fines and arrests to deter people from travelling and congregating over Easter.
Many governments have already announced tighter restrictions and increased police enforcement in an effort to sustain lockdowns during a holiday period traditionally associated with trips and socialising.
Dan Tehan wants all schools to provide in-person teaching to children whose parents want it; NRL says it will return on 28 May. This blog is now closed
The Daily Telegraph is reporting that the New South Wales arts minister, Don Harwin, has been fined for breaching the state?€?s public health orders.
It has been a bad 24 hours for Harwin. The Telegraph reported today that he?€?d been commuting to his property on the central coast, despite the Berejiklian government urging the public to delay non-essential travel.
While I was assured I was compliant with the guidelines, I apologise to the premier and the people of NSW.
Court application warns ?€?many lives will be lost?€? without urgent action to provide face masks
The Zimbabwean government has been taken to court over its failure to provide doctors working on the frontline of the Covid-19 pandemic with masks.
The Zimbabwe Association for Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) is seeking to compel the authorities urgently to provide personal protective equipment (PPE) for medical practitioners, warning that medics in the country?€?s troubled health sector will otherwise die.
Ibado Mohammed Abdulle is a counsellor, friend and campaigner for women who have been made refugees in their own country by the impact of the climate crisis
The long, black hem of Ibado Mohammed Abdulle?€?s diya drags in the sand, creating mini tornadoes of dust under her sandals. At a circular fence of waist-high thorny bushes, she knocks on the metal sheet serving as a makeshift door. A woman?€?s face, partially hidden by a bright green hijab, appears. ?€?Salaam Alaikum,?€? Abdulle says, ?€?peace be upon you.?€?
Holding up a hand to the armed guards tasked with accompanying the visiting charity staff following her around the displacement camp, she instructs them to stay outside.
With over 1,000 refugees and migrants left without proper sanitation, water supplies or food there is no way to contain virus, say volunteers
The last remaining volunteers working with refugees and migrants in northern France have warned that Covid-19 is spreading quickly through the makeshift camps where over 1,000 people are sheltering without proper sanitation, water supplies or food.
Care4Calais, one of the only organisations still providing emergency services to migrants and refugees in Calais, said the number of people exhibiting symptoms of Covid-19 rose from two to nine in just three days last week.
Half a billion people could be pushed into poverty as economies around the world shrink because of the coronavirus outbreak, a new study has warned.
Poverty levels in developing countries could be set back by up to 30 years, research released by the United Nations University?€?s World Institute for Development Economics Research warned on Thursday.
A masked healthcare worker stands valiant as a soldier, flanked by a bold slogan proclaiming that ?€?to stay at home is to love your country?€?. Beneath, fine print implores residents to declare symptoms or report anyone escaping quarantine.
The poster, by artist Le Duc Hiep, is just one of numerous art forms to emerge from Vietnam - from viral hand washing songs to state stamps - that reflect the war-time spirit many in the country are invoking as they try to contain the virus.
It is New Year?€?s Eve 2019 and around the world stock markets are closing for business on a high note. Shares in the US are up by almost 30% on the year, those in Japan by 18%. Even in Britain, where the mood has been dampened by months of Brexit uncertainty, the FTSE 100 has risen by 12%.
Overall, it had been the best year for stocks since 2009 and traders saw no real reason why the party should not continue into 2020. The US and China looked close to an armistice in their trade war, the US central bank was stimulating the world?€?s biggest economy, and Boris Johnson?€?s decisive victory in the general election had removed any lingering doubts about whether Britain would leave the European Union.
Contest will unfold in a political landscape transformed by pandemic that has claimed thousands of lives and millions of jobs
Democrats made their choice and on Wednesday Bernie Sanders made it official. His withdrawal from the Democratic primary race leaves Joe Biden with only one opponent: Donald Trump.
Now the stage is set for a November general election battle between two candidates with radically different visions of presidential leadership and America?€?s role in the world. The contest will unfold in a political landscape transformed beyond all recognition by the coronavirus pandemic that has already claimed at least 14,000 American lives and nearly 10mjobs.
With coronavirus occupying people?€?s attention, the Trump administration is giving handouts to big business, appointing judges and rolling back regulations
The last time America was facing a possible economic depression, Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama?€?s chief of staff, observed: ?€?Never allow a good crisis go to waste. It?€?s an opportunity to do the things you once thought were impossible.?€?
It is advice Donald Trump and his Republican allies appear to have taken to heart.
Wearing a face mask is certainly not an iron-clad guarantee that you won?€?t get sick - viruses can also transmit through the eyes and tiny viral particles, known as aerosols, can penetrate masks. However, masks are effective at capturing droplets, which is a main transmission route of coronavirus, and some studies have estimated a roughly fivefold protection versus no barrier alone (although others have found lower levels of effectiveness).
How can we understand the risk of dying from Covid-19 when there are so many numbers flying around? There are actually three types of fatality rate, which are calculated in different ways and tell you different things. When we know what each means and how they work, we can learn more about how new infections such as the coronavirus affect us
In just three months, the coronavirus has turned the world upside down. But how did it play out so quickly? We take a look back to where it all began - from its origins in south east Asia, to its acceleration across Europe and the US. As the infection rate increased and countries went into lockdown, people began to find imaginative and inspiring ways of coping with our new reality
Tropical Cyclone Harold lashed the South Pacific island of Vanuatu , ripping off roofs and downing telecommunications, before moving towards Fiji and Tonga. The powerful cyclone made landfall on Monday in Sana province, an island north of Vanuatu's capital Port Vila, with winds as high as 235 kilometres an hour. Aerial videos showed buildings with missing roofs, with some flattened to the ground from the impact of the cyclone. The weather system weaken slightly as it moved towards Fiji but still brought high winds and flooding before moving towards Tonga
The New York governor has said the state is seeing the effect of physical distancing and that the curve of coronavirus cases is starting to flatten, despite the largest single-day death toll increase on Tuesday. However, he emphasised that citizens need to continue to be vigilant
Bernie Sanders has formally announced he is suspending his presidential campaign for the 2020 Democratic nomination.
Here is a look back at the speeches that outline his views on key issues including the economy, the climate crisis, healthcare, immigration and gun control
Bernie Sanders, the 78-year-old senator from Vermont who reshaped American politics with his youth-led movement for sweeping social change, announced on Wednesday that he was ending his presidential campaign for the 2020 Democratic nomination. 'I wish I could give you better news, but I think you know the truth,' Sanders said. 'I have concluded that this battle for the Democratic nomination will not be successful, and so today I am announcing the suspension of my campaign'
The Guardian's health editor, Sarah Boseley, explains the different ways coronavirus can affect people, the likelihood of going to hospital and what will happen to people who are admitted.
Large number of US citizens demonstrated against the war in Iraq (and the possible war in Iran) during this October weekend. Massive turnout in Boston and San Fransisco, and also in Chicago, LA and DC people took to the streets. The message was: NO more war in Iraq! NO to a war with Iran!
