Six In The Morning Friday 6 March 2020

Coronavirus latest updates: Iran warns it could use force to limit travel as cases rise sharply

First cases reported in Vatican City and Serbia, and first deaths in UK and the Netherlands, as WHO warns of sustained community transmission

• ‘Fake, Fake’: senior Chinese leader heckled by residents
• ‘More scary than coronavirus’: South Korea alerts expose private lives
• Has Covid-19 mutated? Busting the myths
• Trump calls WHO’s global death rate ‘a false number’
• Share your experiences

Sarah Marsh (now) and Helen Sullivan (earlier)

Slovakia reported its first case of the novel coronavirus on Friday, after a man whose son visited Venice in Covid-19 area Italy, tested positive.

“Today, a 52-year-old patient was confirmed to be infected,” Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini told journalist Friday.

He said the man, who has not been named, is currently hospitalised in Bratislava.

“The patient did not travel anywhere recently but his son returned from Venice a couple of weeks ago,” Pellegrini added.

The ‘landmine girls’ who clear Vietnam’s unexploded bombs

Estimates suggest 10 per cent of the 80 million tons of bombs dropped on Vietnam did not explode
Minh Nguyen

Two petite women in protective gear walk slowly down an empty field in Vietnam, carrying a large metal detector that clicks and whirrs, searching for unexploded ordnance.

Medic and safety officer Nguyen Thi Ha Lan supervises her teammates, the “landmine girls” as they are known, preparing to detonate a cluster bomb left behind from the war with the United States that ended in 1975.

It is one of many underneath the soil in Quang Tri province, north-central Vietnam.

"This Was a Real Lunatic"AfD Fails To Change Tune after Racist Killings

Public pressure against Germany’s right-wing populist AfD party has been growing in the wake of a racist killing spree in Hanau that left 10 dead. Many people in the country believe the tone set by the party helped form the radical views leading to the murders.

By Ann-Katrin Müller

"Dear friends," said Gottfried Curio, "we need to adopt a more serious tone in these days following the terrible events in Hanau." Curio, a member of German federal parliament with the right-wing radical Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, was standing on a stage in the southern state of Bavaria. The hall was full and the beer mugs on the tables were already half empty. Most of those in Curio's audience were older men, though there were a couple of women and a young couple with a baby. A boy wearing a suit and tie also wandered through the hall.

Nearly 90 percent of world population biased against women, UN study finds

Nearly 90 percent of the world's population – of every gender – holds some prejudice against women, according to a UN study published Thursday, ahead of International Women's Day.

The United Nations Development Programme studied 75 countries representing 80 percent of the world's population and found that nine in 10 people – including women – hold such beliefs.

The prejudiced views include: that men are better politicians and business leaders than women; that going to university is more important for men than women; and that men should get preferential treatment in competitive job markets.

Sexist abuse of AFL Women's players has become so bad a newspaper is shutting down its comments section

By Rob Picheta, CNN

Updated 1144 GMT (1944 HKT) March 6, 2020

An Australian newspaper has shut down comments on its coverage of the women's Australian Football League, after being inundated with sexist remarks and trolling.

The Herald Sun said it took the step after receiving "vile" abuse directed at the athletes and journalists covering the sport, a problem that a handful of AFL Women's stars have spoken out about.

"If you don't like something, no one is forcing you to read, or watch, or engage," the paper wrote in an editorial explaining its decision. "Some of the comments that our athletes are subjected to are simply too vile to publish.

Nathaniel Woods executed in Alabama despite campaign to save him

A man in Alabama has been put to death for the murder of three police officers despite a campaign to save him .

Nathaniel Woods, 43, was convicted of masterminding an ambush against the officers as they tried to arrest him on drugs charges in 2004.

He had always protested his innocence. Activists and celebrities including Martin Luther King III and Kim Kardashian West intervened in the case.

On Thursday the US Supreme Court issued a stay of execution but then lifted it.

This allowed the execution by lethal injection to go ahead at Holman Prison. Woods was pronounced dead at just after 09:00 (15:00 GMT).