Six In The Morning Sunday 29 November 2020

 

In Japan, more people died from suicide last month than from Covid in all of 2020. And women have been impacted most

By Selina Wang, Rebecca Wright and Yoko Wakatsuki, CNN

Updated 1146 GMT (1946 HKT) November 29, 2020

Eriko Kobayashi has tried to kill herself four times.

The first time, she was just 22 years old with a full-time job in publishing that didn't pay enough to cover her rent and grocery bills in Tokyo. "I was really poor," said Kobayashi, who spent three days unconscious in hospital after the incident.

Now 43, Kobayashi has written books on her mental health struggles and has a steady job at an NGO. But the coronavirus is bringing back the stress she used to feel.

A year after Wuhan alarm, China seeks to change Covid origin story

Reports in state media signal an intensifying propaganda effort to place the birth of the virus in other countries

Emma Graham-Harrison and Robin McKie

Sun 29 Nov 2020 07.15 GMT

Nearly a year after doctors identified the first cases of a worrying new disease in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the country appears to be stepping up a campaign to question the origins of the global Covid-19 pandemic.

State media has been reporting intensively on coronavirus discovered on packaging of frozen food imports, not considered a significant vector of infection elsewhere, and research into possible cases of the disease found outside China’s borders before December 2019.

The official People’s Daily newspaper claimed in a Facebook post last week that “all available evidence suggests that the coronavirus did not start in central China’s Wuhan”.

Police tear gas Parisian protesters after tens of thousands demonstrate against new law that bans filming police

Proposed law makes filming or photographing police a criminal offence punishable by jail 

Maya Oppenheim@mayaoppenheim

Protesters have been tear gassed by the police after tens of thousands took to the streets across France in protest against a controversial new law which makes filming or photographing the police a criminal offence.

Journalists and human rights groups have raised concerns the proposed legislation gravely breaches the media and general public’s ability to keep a record of police brutality.

The law that curbs sharing photos of officers, which gained the backing of the lower house of parliament last week but needs to be upheld by the senate, would punish transgressors with up to a year in jail and a hefty fine of €45,000 (£40,445).

The Search for a Coronavirus PillResearchers Explore Promising New Therapies for COVID-19

All eyes are on coronavirus vaccines at the moment. But efforts to find successful treatments against COVID-19 are rapidly moving along as well. Initial laboratory tests have been encouraging.

By Jörg Blech

Effective in 70 percent of cases, in 90 percent, even in 95 percent: The recent triumphant announcements from AstraZeneca, BioNTech and Moderna, rooted in preliminary results from ongoing clinical trials, make it look as though a vaccine against the coronavirus could soon be approved.

'Why now?' Dismay as US considers troop pullout from Somalia

CARA ANNA

No country has been involved in Somalia’s future as much as the United States. Now the Trump administration is thinking of withdrawing the several hundred U.S. military troops from the Horn of Africa nation at what some experts call the worst possible time.

Three decades of chaos, from warlords to al-Qaida affiliate al-Shabab to the emergence of an Islamic State-linked group, have ripped apart the country that only in the past few years has begun to find its footing. The U.S. Embassy returned to Somalia just last year, 28 years after diplomats and staffers fled.

Sydney records hottest November night on record

Sydney has reported its hottest November night on record, with the official start of summer still days away.

The city recorded a minimum overnight temperature of 25.4C and then hit 40C during the daytime on Sunday.

Dozens of bush fires are already burning in New South Wales with hotter weather predicted on Tuesday.

The states of Victoria and South Australia also reported soaring heat over the weekend.