What are the rules for the Covid-19 lockdown in the UK? The Guardian political correspondent Peter Walker clarifies what we are and are not expected to do to limit the spread of the coronavirus across the country

Treasury warned that British air hubs may close without urgent Covid-19 rescue deal

Latest coronavirus measures still not as stringent as some others around the world

Fears are growing about the spread of coronavirus in camps where few can afford soap, water is rare and social distancing impossible

Health minister Greg Hunt has asked for an urgent briefing on hydroxychloroquine but it has been known to cause heart damage and toxicityThe health minister Greg Hunt has asked for an urgent briefing about the clinical trial of a decades-old drug in the prevention of Covid-19, as countries race to find a way to prevent serious cases and slow the spread.But infectious disease experts have warned the drug, hydroxychloroquine, is far from proven as effective in treating Covid-19 and that it could take several months for results to be conclusive. In previous studies for other conditions, hydroxychloroquine has been shown to cause heart damage and toxicity. Continue reading...

Australia’s authorities warned that overcrowded jails face ‘uncontrollable’ coronavirus outbreakHundreds of New South Wales prisoners could be released early under new emergency powers announced on Tuesday by the attorney general, Mark Speakman.The powers will give the corrections minister authority to release inmates who are nearing the end of their sentences, or on remand awaiting court, on case-by-case basis. Continue reading...

Despite national cabinet process aiming for consistency, states and territories now have a patchwork of responses

Britons should ditch their reserve and get used to telling people to stay back, say experts

Woman in 70s taken to hospital after sustaining black eye in incident in HertfordshireThree teenagers have been arrested after an elderly couple were allegedly coughed at and assaulted in Hertfordshire.Police said the couple were approached by three males before one coughed in their faces in Paynes Park in Hitchin shortly before 1pm on Friday. Continue reading...

Australian welfare benefit for unemployed has been doubled to deal with fallout from outbreak

Police say 30-year-old suspect held after ‘totally unprovoked and random’ attack on SundayA woman has been arrested after the “totally unprovoked and random” murder of a seven-year-old girl in Bolton.The 30-year-old suspect, who has not been named, did not know the girl, Greater Manchester police (GMP) said. Continue reading...

EasyJet and Ryanair to stop flying on Monday and less than 5% of passengers expected at airports amid coronavirus

Carlos Eduardo Nascimento is the latest apparent victim of a trend aided by police impunity and Bolsonaro’s rhetoric, activists sayCarlos Eduardo Nascimento was at a bar with friends in the city of Jundiaí, 50km from São Paulo, when the police arrived.The only black man in the group, Nascimento, 20, was handcuffed, bundled into a squad car and driven away. Continue reading...

The pandemic is ravaging an already weakened economy. But Iranian activists across society are stepping upOn Monday evening, just five days ahead of Nowruz, the Persian new year holiday, police descended upon a small local market in west Tehran. They ordered local vendors to pack up their wares, their socks, colanders, and plastic flowers, telling them that by selling goods in public they were helping spread the coronavirus. On Tuesday evening, they returned, and found one tenacious seller hawking in the same place. “You, here again!” barked a security officer. “If I don’t sell, how am I going to pay my rent?” the woman asked plaintively.Related: UK presses US to ease Iran sanctions to help fight coronavirus Continue reading...

Suspected short-range missile launches come as Pyongyang announces legislature to meet in April amid coronavirus pandemicNorth Korea fired two projectiles that appeared to be short-range ballistic missiles into the sea off the east coast of the Korean peninsula, South Korea’s military reported.The launch on Saturday follows two earlier this month, when North Korea fired short-range missiles and multiple projectiles, according to South Korea’s military, drawing US and Chinese appeals for Pyongyang to return to talks on ending its nuclear and missile programmes. Continue reading...

Video shared on social media shows clear and calm water in Venice as animals take advantage of the lockdown in Italy to move into usually crowded spaces. Dolphins and wild boar have been spotted as ports and roads have been quiet as the country remains under strict quarantine at least until 3 April

Pair lighten a grim week by getting married with the street as witness in Spain’s answer to Italy’s balcony singing

A&E doctor Nishant Joshi has highlighted the plight of NHS staff facing a shortage of protective equipment while on the frontline of the coronavirus outbreak. Joshi, who works at Luton and Dunstable general hospital, said: ‘If we don’t have masks to protect ourselves … It’s just bits of cloth. If that’s the problem at the start, what’s it going to be like in a few months’ time?’

Until India accepts brutality begets brutality, plague of sexual violence will go on

As coronavirus continues to spread around the world, the Marseille tradition of soap-making is enjoying a renaissance, as the French public rediscovers this essential local product

My newspaper has found itself on the frontline of the crisis. Free information is more important now than ever

Management says it is ‘taking latest government advice’ and terminating employment

Authorities fear that passengers from Ruby Princess might be unaware Covid-19 cases were onboard and be ‘wandering around’ city

Jobseekers can now request appointments be carried out over the phone or online, while Centrelink debt recovery continues despite Covid-19Welfare recipients will have their mutual obligations relaxed during the coronavirus crisis, but the government has stopped short of heeding calls from Labor, the Greens and social service groups to suspend them entirely.Facing growing pressure to ease the burden amid a looming economic downturn and increasingly strict social-distancing guidelines, the employment minister, Michaelia Cash, said on Friday the government had adopted a range of measures aimed at making the system more flexible during the Covid-19 outbreak. Continue reading...

Australian academic, psychologist and author Lea Waters discusses how altruistic behaviours are vital for our mental health as we come to grips both personally and as a society with the coronavirus crisis. This video is one of a multi-part series looking at ways we can all stay positive during the coronavirus crisis.

With limited intensive care beds, governments are putting their hopes in preventing and detecting the outbreakCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageGovernments across Africa are rushing to reinforce measures to contain the spread of coronavirus, fearing that fragile health systems will be swiftly overwhelmed if the disease spreads beyond a small number of cases on the continent.World Health Organization (WHO) officials have called for a strong response to a “tremendously fast rise in the number of countries with cases being confirmed”. Continue reading...

As climate change makes winemaking a torrid business in southern Europe, viniculture is taking off in ScandinaviaIn a corner of his whitewashed 18th-century homestead, Håkan Hansson – the fifth generation of his family to farm this gently undulating stretch of land in southern Sweden – keeps a worn set of diaries, but not just for sentimental reasons.Related: Climate change forces cognac makers to consider other grape varieties Continue reading...

Volunteer army led by a local taxi driver scours the streets in the middle of the night to save endangered birdsA taxi driver in New Zealand has swapped drunken revellers for wayward seabirds in an attempt to halt the decline of one of the nation’s endangered species.Local cabbie Toni Painting leads a volunteer army that scours the streets of the South Island town of Kaikoura in the middle of the night in search of Hutton’s shearwater chicks that crash-land onto the road – mistaking the shiny bitumen for the sea. Continue reading...

Parisians have been told to remain indoors for 15 days, with exemptions on buying groceries, visiting doctors and getting medication, or commuting for those unable to work from home

Alliance of 16 anti-racism groups says report on scandal proves ‘institutional failures to understand racism’

Jury hears that Salmond preyed on young women for nearly eight yearsAlex Salmond, Scotland’s former first minister, has been accused of being a “sexual predator” who abused his power to sexually assault women for personal gratification.A jury in Edinburgh was told by the prosecutor Alex Prentice QC on Thursday that Salmond preyed for nearly eight years on young, aspirational women who worked for him while he was first minister, often when they were alone at night. Continue reading...

Amer Fakhoury allegedly oversaw torture at Lebanese jail during Israeli occupationAn American citizen detained in Beirut on accusations of overseeing torture and murder at a southern Lebanese prison during Israel’s occupation of the region has been spirited out of the country by helicopter.A Lebanese military tribunal ordered earlier this week that Amer Fakhoury, 57, be released after it ruled too much time had passed since his alleged crimes. It was immediately unclear whether he had been released and the next day a military prosecutor filed an appeal against the decision. Continue reading...

The world was astonished by the Wuhan quarantine but it seems to have worked

Row after Eduardo Bolsonaro claims ‘it’s China’s fault’, drawing a ferocious rebuke from senior Chinese diplomatsBeijing’s ambassador to Brazil has launched a stinging attack on the son of its far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, after he claimed the Chinese Communist party was to blame for the coronavirus crisis sweeping the world.On Wednesday, Bolsonaro’s influential politician son Eduardo – who many regard as Brazil’s de facto foreign minister and has close ties to Steve Bannon – enraged Beijing with an incendiary tweet about its role in the pandemic. Continue reading...

Wendy Williams’ key findings on treatment of people wrongly labelled illegal immigrants

Government seeks to quash reports of strict lockdown but says pubs and cafes could face new measures

Concerns have been raised over response to outbreak in world’s fourth most populous country

New South Wales chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant addresses a misconception around paracetamol and the coronavirus crisis. With pharmacies and stores running low on supplies of the painkiller due to hoarding, Chant explained paracetamol only treats symptoms of Covid-19, not the virus itself

Waterloo and City line will stop running, up to 40 other stations will shut down, and overnight tube services will be suspended

Australian airline Qantas has temporarily stood down two-thirds of its staff amid plans to half international flights and curb domestic services by 60 per cent following the coronavirus outbreak. The airline will ground 150 aircraft with domestic and local travel restrictions leading to major changes for the company. As well as the chief executive and chairman earlier announcing they will forgo pay, executives will also go unpaid until at least the end of the financial year. The news arrives after $715m rescue package for the aviation industry was announced

Announcement follows temporary release of 85,000 to ease pressure on prisons amid coronavirus crisisIran is to pardon 10,000 prisoners including political ones in honour of the Iranian new year on Friday, according to state TV.It was not stated whether the pardons would include the British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – who was released on Tuesday for two weeks, when 85,000 were let out temporarily because of coronavirus – or the British-Australian academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who was not known to have been released. Continue reading...

Train and bus services are to be limited as travel is restricted, raising questions for both passengers and operators

MoD doubles size of force amid fears over ability of police and NHS to cope with crisis

Plants responsible for two-thirds of UK’s output and employing 17,000 workers have ceased operating

Her blend of steel and kindness is praiseworthy but come voting time in September the state of the economy will be the deciding factor

Watchdog says intelligence officers destroyed documents despite being told to keep themA secretive Scotland Yard intelligence unit shredded a large number of documents after a public inquiry was set up into the undercover infiltration of political groups, a watchdog has found.The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) announced on Wednesday that it had found that documents had been destroyed despite an instruction that they had to be preserved. Continue reading...

The truth about how you can catch coronavirus, who is most vulnerable and what you can do to avoid infection

Camp residents set up mask factory and awareness teams amid fears overcrowding and poor sanitation will spread virus