Wednesday, July 15, 2020

Six In The Morning Wednesday 15 July 2020



Revealed: Phoenix officer brutalized woman during minor traffic stop, then took her to jail

Body-cam footage shows an officer with a history of misconduct claims slammed 23-year-old Mariah Valenzuela to the ground within seconds of traffic stop



One week after police in Phoenix, Arizona, were caught on camera surrounding a parked car and killing a man inside, a young woman is coming forward with footage of a brutal assault by another officer in the department.
Mariah Valenzuela, 23, was pulled over one night in January for a minor traffic violation. Body-camera footage obtained by the Guardian shows that the officer involved, Michael McGillis, would not tell the unarmed woman why he stopped her, and that seconds after she said she didn’t have ID on her, he tackled and slammed her on to the ground, injuring her head, face, hands and legs.

Coronavirus: Sri Lanka’s ‘patient 206’ speaks out after being blamed for nearly half of country’s cases

33-year-old rickshaw driver says his drug addiction made him a ‘convenient scapegoat’




For months he's been anonymous, but now Prasad Dinesh, linked by Sri Lankan authorities to nearly half of the country's more than 2,600 coronavirus cases, is trying to clear his name, and shed some of the stigma of a heroin addiction at the root of his ordeal.
Under President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a former army lieutenant colonel credited with helping end Sri Lanka's long civil war in 2009 with a brutal military campaign against separatists, the Indian Ocean island nation has used the armed forces to combat the virus.
When Mr Rajapaksa was elected president last year, a health unit was created in the intelligence service that sprang into action when Covid-19 first appeared, according to State Intelligence Service assistant director Parakrama de Silva. Intelligence officers, health workers, police officers and military troops have worked together to identify infected people, trace their contacts and send them to military-run quarantine centres.

Coronavirus latest: EU urges people to get flu shots early

The EU is worried citizens could be hit by simultaneous COVID-19 and flu outbreaks this fall. If early vaccinations go-ahead, EU citizens will get their flu jabs in summer. Follow DW for the latest.

 The European Commission advised member states to start flu vaccinations soon to stop hospitals being hit with flu and COVID-19 patients

12:00 A coronavirus outbreak at a slaughterhouse in Austria has caused at least 29 infections.
All 244 employees at the site close to the Austrian town of Eggenburg have been ordered into quarantine.
The outbreak was discovered after one employee contacted a hotline to report coronavirus symptoms. The company then carried out further tests.

World population in 2100 could be 2 billion below UN projections, new study says

Earth will be home to 8.8 billion souls in 2100, two billion fewer than current UN projections, according to a major study published Wednesday that foresees new global power alignments shaped by declining fertility rates and greying populations.
By century's end, 183 of 195 countries – barring an influx of immigrants -– will have fallen below the replacement threshold needed to maintain population levels, an international team of researchers reported in The Lancet.
More than 20 countries – including Japan, Spain, Italy, Thailand, Portugal, South Korea and Poland – will see their numbers diminish by at least half. 

New York Times to relocate part of Hong Kong office to Seoul


The Times cites uncertainty about Hong Kong security law as well as difficulties in securing visas for its journalists.

The New York Times has announced it will move part of its Hong Kong office to the South Korean capital, Seoul, amid worries a new national security law China imposed on the financial hub would curb media and other freedoms in the city.
"China's sweeping new national security law in Hong Kong has created a lot of uncertainty about what the new rules will mean to our operation and our journalism," the paper's management wrote in a memo to staff on Tuesday.



Artist replaces slave trader statue with one of a Black Lives Matter protester

Written byOscar Holland, CNN

Last month, Black Lives Matter demonstrators in Bristol, UK, made headlines around the world when they toppled a statue of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston and dumped it into the River Avon.
Now, the city has an entirely new figure being celebrated on the once-empty plinth: a protester.
British artist Marc Quinn has erected a statue depicting a woman with her fist raised in a Black Power salute in the place where Colston once stood. He based the artwork on a photograph of Jen Reid, a Bristol resident who had climbed atop the empty plinth as she returned home from the demonstration in June.



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