Friday 13 November
- Dominic Cummings to leave Downing Street by Christmas.
- UK records another 33,470 coronavirus cases – the highest daily figure to date.
- Met police told 40% of recruits must be from BAME backgrounds.
- Gates Foundation pours another $70mn into pushing Covid-19 vaccines on 3rd world countries as safety & efficacy questions remain.
- US election officials find ‘no evidence’ of lost or changed votes.
- Bangladesh extends school shutdown over second COVID-19 wave.
- Rain and dam discharge cause flooding in southern Mexico.
- Australia forecasts prolonged wildfire seasons, more droughts from climate change.
Dominic Cummings to leave Downing Street by Christmas
BBC News says Boris Johnson’s senior adviser Dominic Cummings is expected to leave his position by the end of the year.
Mr Cummings told the BBC “rumours of me threatening to resign are invented”, after speculation this week.
But he added that his “position hasn’t changed since my January blog” when he said that he wanted to make himself “largely redundant” by the end of 2020.
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UK records another 33,470 coronavirus cases – the highest daily figure to date
Sky News says another 33,470 people have tested positive for coronavirus in the last 24 hours – the highest figure recorded since the pandemic began, according to government figures.
It brings the total number of cases in the UK to 1,290,195.
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Met police told 40% of recruits must be from BAME backgrounds
The Guardian says Britain’s biggest police force must hire 40% of new recruits from ethnic minority backgrounds, while officers will have to justify stop and search to community panels under new plans designed to quell the race crisis engulfing Scotland Yard.
The Guardian has learned details of the new initiative on race and policing hammered out by London’s mayor and the Metropolitan police after months of negotiations.
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Gates Foundation pours another $70mn into pushing Covid-19 vaccines on 3rd world countries as safety & efficacy questions remain
RT News says Billionaire vaccine evangelists Bill and Melinda Gates have topped off the global effort to roll out a shot against the novel coronavirus as some question the vague clinical trial results of the Gates-funded Pfizer jab.
The couple’s foundation will pour $70 million more into the vaccine development and distribution effort, they announced on Thursday in a press release, adding that Melinda Gates would make the official statement during the Paris Peace Forum.
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US election officials find ‘no evidence’ of lost or changed votes
TRT World says senior US federal and state election officials have said that there was “no evidence” that votes were lost or changed, or voting systems corrupted, in the presidential election.
“The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history,” they said in a statement on Thursday. “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised,” they said.
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Bangladesh extends school shutdown over second COVID-19 wave
Aljazeera says Bangladesh has extended its closure of schools and educational institutions, which were last open in March, until December 19 amid fears of a second wave of coronavirus infections during the coming Bangladeshi winter, the education ministry said on Thursday.
Experts said the South Asian country, with patchy healthcare facilities, could face another surge in infections, having so far confirmed 427,198 cases and 6,140 deaths from COVID-19.
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Rain and dam discharge cause flooding in southern Mexico
France24 says torrential rain from Hurricane Eta and water discharged from a dam that had reached capacity meant continued flooding in parts of the southern Mexican state of Tabasco Thursday.
“What we want most is food and sustenance,” cried a man who watched the flood from the second floor of his home.
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Australia forecasts prolonged wildfire seasons, more droughts from climate change
Reuters says Australia’s climate will continue to warm, resulting in prolonged wildfire seasons and less rain in the southeast and southwest that will lead to more frequent droughts, the country’s weather bureau said on Friday.
Australia’s changing climate patterns can be attributed to an increase in greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere triggering more extreme weather events, the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) said in its biennial climate report.
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