Six In The Morning Tuesday 19 January 2021

 

London's ICU nurses detail 'diluted' care, depression and disaster during the UK's deadly second wave

By Kara Fox, CNN

Updated 1151 GMT (1951 HKT) January 19, 2021

Last summer, when England's first peak of the coronavirus pandemic had subsided, Fazilah, an ICU nurse at a central London hospital, sat down to write her resignation letter.

For months, she says, a wave of depression had enveloped her, but she had been too busy saving other people's lives to be able to identify it, or process it.

Instead she "shoved" her feelings down into a "dark part" of her brain. The stress manifested physically: She had constant headaches, a short fuse, and couldn't eat, she said.

Vladimir Putin is not scared of Alexei Navalny, says Kremlin

Moscow authorities likely to block protests planned for Saturday in support of jailed opposition leader

Andrew Roth in Moscow

Tue 19 Jan 2021 12.21 GMT

Vladimir Putin is not scared of Alexei Navalny, a Kremlin spokesman has said, but Moscow authorities still appear likely to block Saturday’s planned protests in support of the jailed opposition leader.

Navalny “has no relation to the Russian president and can in no way be associated with the president”, said Dmitri Peskov, when asked whether Putin viewed Navalny as a rival.

“Various suggestions that someone is scared of someone else are absolute rubbish.”

Woman jailed for 43 years for ‘insulting’ Thailand’s royal family

Amnesty International has claimed that this is the longest ever sentence in Thailand for insulting the monarchy

Shweta Sharma@Ss22Shweta

A 65-year-old Thai woman has been handed a ‘shocking’ 43-year jail term, a sentence which Amnesty International claims is the longest ever handed out in the southeast Asian country for criticising the monarchy.

Former civil servant, Anchan Preelert, was sentenced to 87 years in jail but her sentence was reduced to half after she pleaded guilty to 29 separate violations. Her total sentence was 43 years and six months.

She was convicted for violating Thailand’s controversial and toughest lèse-majesté law, after audio clips were posted online with comments deemed critical of the royal family.

Coronavirus: WHO chief blasts rich countries for hoarding vaccines

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that the rich countries' behavior would only prolong the coronavirus pandemic, adding that the restrictions needed to contain COVID-19 would increase human and economic suffering.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), has warned that the inequitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines between rich and poor countries will prolong the pandemic.

He slammed wealthier countries for buying up and hoarding all the available vaccines.

"More than 39 million doses of vaccine have now been administered in at least 49 higher-income countries. Just 25 doses have been given in one lowest-income country. Not 25 million; not 25,000; just 25," Tedros said at the opening of a week-long meeting of the WHO Executive Board on Monday.

Trump supporters rally for gun rights in Virginia ahead of Biden swearing-in

Security has been ramped up in state capitals across the United States ahead of Joe Biden's inauguration on Wednesday. In Virginia, just two hours' drive from Washington, DC, protesters and militia members turned out to lobby against gun control, although not in large numbers as the tense countdown to the handover of power continues. Hardline conservatives are vowing to keep making their voices heard – for the next four years.

Convoys of gun proponents, many of them fervent supporters of outgoing president Donald Trump, converged on the city of Richmond to defend their cause. Of those, only a handful of far-right hardline groups chose to march to centre of the city.

"Any further gun legislation will be seen as an act of war," said Boogaloo Bois militia member Mike Dunn, armed and dressed in military fatigues, told FRANCE 24 in the Virginia capital. "We're not going to stand for it."

Uganda accuses US of ‘subverting’ presidential election

US Ambassador Natalie E Brown was stopped from visiting Bobi Wine who is effectively under house arrest.

Uganda’s government accused the United States of trying to “subvert” last week’s presidential elections after the US ambassador attempted to visit opposition leader Bobi Wine, who has been under house arrest.

US Ambassador Natalie E Brown was stopped from visiting Wine at his residence in a suburb in the northern outskirts of the capital, the embassy said in a statement late on Monday.