Top story: ‘Beijing has entered an extraordinary period’
Hello, Warren Murray popping up on your screen with the news this Monday morning.
A coronavirus lockdown is being reimposed across parts of Beijing because of a “cluster” centred on the large Xinfadi food market that has resulted in dozens of cases. “Beijing has entered an extraordinary period,” city spokesman Xu Hejian told a news conference. Authorities have said today that “multiple cases” were also found at the Yuquandong market in the Beijing district of Haidian, all linked to the Xinfadi market. Ten residential communities nearby have been closed while residents were put under home quarantine and ordered to be tested. At least 10 Chinese cities have urged residents not to travel to the capital and report to authorities if they have done so recently.
In Britain, retailers are appealing to customers to support their local shops as thousands of stores reopen in England today. The lockdown has cost non-food retailers £1.7bn a week in lost sales, according to the Office for National Statistics. “It’s really important people go back to using their high street,” said Gary Grant, owner of toy chain The Entertainer. “We employ local people in local towns and if I want to hold on to my staff I need turnover.”
For the latest updates your best bet is to monitor our global live blog.
There’s more in our Coronavirus Extra section further down … and here’s where you can find all our coverage of the outbreak – from breaking news to factchecks and advice.
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Ressa guilty of ‘cyber-libel’ – A Philippines court has convicted of libel Maria Ressa, a journalist who has scrutinised the extrajudicial killings and abuses of President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration. The verdict could lead to seven years in prison and is likely to be viewed as a major setback for democratic rights in the country. Rappler, one of the Philippines’ most influential news websites, its editor Ressa, and former researcher and writer Reynaldo Santos Jr were accused of cyber-libel in 2017 over a five-year-old story about a businessman.
The case is widely seen as an attempt to muzzle the media in the Philippines – Duterte stated in 2016: “Just because you’re a journalist, you are not exempted from assassination.” Journalists have been targeted through judicial harassment, online campaigns waged by pro-Duterte troll armies, and violence.
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Johnson ‘victimisation’ remark jars – Boris Johnson has responded to Black Lives Matter protests by announcing a government commission on racial inequalities. But he immediately prompted criticism over his choice of language by saying he wanted to end “the sense of victimisation”. Priti Patel has been urged to impose an emergency ban on all protests following the “mindless hooliganism” and “utterly shocking” violence of far-right activists against police in London. Ken Marsh, chair of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said: “We’re in the middle of a Covid-19 pandemic. It is unlawful what is taking place under the Covid legislation. Ban them.” Patel said police would need to apply for a ban – she repeated that the protests “are illegal and are putting the public at risk” and people should not attend.
In the US, the fatal police shooting of Rayshard Brooks at a Wendy’s drive-through has been ruled a homicide – the case has further stoked protests that began over the death of George Floyd. The veteran civil rights campaigner Angela Davis, a former Black Panther, tells Lanre Bakare that “as long as the violence of racism remains, no one is safe [but] we’ve never witnessed sustained demonstrations of this size that are so diverse. Many people previously, in response to the slogan Black Lives Matter, asked: ‘But shouldn’t we really be saying all lives matter?’ They’re now finally getting it.”
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Croatian border brutality – EU officials have been accused of an “outrageous cover-up” after withholding evidence of a failure by Croatia’s government to supervise police accused of robbing, abusing and humiliating migrants at its borders. European commission emails seen by the Guardian reveal officials were fearful of a backlash when deciding against full disclosure of Croatia’s lack of commitment to EU-funded monitoring. Supervision of border officers was a condition for a larger grant of EU funds to Croatia. There have been multiple allegations of violent pushbacks of migrants and refugees, including an incident in which a migrant was shot. Croatia is seeking to enter the EU’s passport-free Schengen zone – a move that requires compliance with European human rights standards at borders.
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Murder the US military would forget – US prosecutors have failed to include one of WikiLeaks’ most shocking video revelations in the indictment against Julian Assange, a move that has brought accusations the US doesn’t want its “war crimes” exposed in public.
Former Reuters journalist Dean Yates was in charge of the bureau in Baghdad when his Iraqi colleagues Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh were machine-gunned by a US Apache helicopter gunship. A WikiLeaks video called Collateral Murder later showed how it all unfolded. Yates tells his side of the story to Paul Daley.
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Payout to drone arrest couple – Paul and Elaine Gait, who were detained during the Gatwick airport drone chaos in December 2018, are to be paid £200,000 in compensation and legal costs by Sussex police. Drone sightings near the runways over three days of the Christmas period forced the airport to close for 30 hours, disrupting 1,000 flights and more than 140,000 passengers. The Gaits were arrested in an armed police raid and held for 36 hours before being released without charge. They sued for wrongful arrest. The investigation of the drone incidents has cost £790,000. No one has ever been charged.
Coronavirus Extra
Employers across Britain face a deadline this week to make job cuts as the furlough scheme is gradually wound down from August. The all-party Treasury select committee says large numbers of people have not benefited from schemes to help salaried employees and the self-employed. They are calling on Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, to address the gaps in the coronavirus job retention and self-employment support schemes through which people including the newly employed or newly self-employed and freelancers have fallen.
China has beaten the US in the battle for world opinion over the handling of coronavirus, according to new polling, with only three countries – Taiwan, the US and South Korea – believing the United States has dealt with the pandemic better than its superpower rival.
Today in Focus podcast: Amid pandemic, an IVF journey
Laura Barton has always known that she wanted to have children. After years of miscarriages, and a breakup from her partner last year, she decided to embark on solo IVF. In early March, as the world shut down, she found herself flying to Crete to undergo treatment.
Lunchtime read: ‘She just started blooming’
On one side of the debate are people who think a child’s gender dysphoria will fade by adulthood. On the other are the vast majority of mental health professionals who study gender dysphoria insisting that affirming a child in whatever way they express their gender is beneficial to their mental health.
At the centre are the lives of trans and gender-variant kids who need a safe family home and a supportive school environment – regardless of what others think. In New York, the Gender and Family Project advises parents how to support their children’s gender expression.
Sport
Tennis is fighting for survival, according to Feliciano López, and the veteran Spaniard says players, rich and struggling, will have to accept “significant” cuts in prize money to save their sport. An emotional Novak Djokovic broke down in tears in front of a 4,000-strong crowd at his own tennis tournament after his win against Alexander Zverev sent a fellow Serb, Filip Krajinovic, into the final. Gary Neville has warned football still needs to take a giant leap forward to tackle “the distress and discrimination that we don’t see” – and urged the game to deliver real structural change and not just lofty words and campaigns against racism.
Alice Dearing, Britain’s best open water swimmer, has told the Guardian of her experiences of racism and how she is breaking barriers for black people to take up the sport. Tom Bosworth has revealed an athletics volunteer abused the British race walker on social media to say “fags aren’t welcome” in the sport. And Daniel Berger won his third PGA Tour title after defeating Collin Morikawa in a playoff at the Charles Schwab Challenge.
Business
The British economy will shrink by 8% this year and is unlikely to recover from the coronavirus crisis until 2023, according to the EY Item Club, a leading economic forecaster. In April the group of economists had predicted a 6.8% fall in output for 2020, but it has produced its first ever mid-quarterly report to downgrade that figure to 8%. It has also increased the size of the contraction expected in the second quarter of this year from 13% to 15%. Today so far, benchmarks in Tokyo, Sydney and Shanghai have fallen after China reported an outbreak of new Covid-19 infections in Beijing. This morning the pound is worth $1.251 and €1.111 while the FTSE is trending around 80 points lower at time of writing.
The papers
The Guardian leads with the WHO telling Boris Johnson: “Don’t lift lockdown until contact tracing works”. The front page picture is that extraordinary image of a BLM supporter carrying a counter-protester to safety during Saturday’s protests in London. The Metro calls Patrick Hutchinson the “Demo hero” and can’t resist quipping “He ain’t heavy”.
The Mail has praise as well for the man it calls the protest’s “good samaritan” – its splash is “Closed schools obesity crisis” as experts worry about the health of children under lockdown. “State’s income support schemes leave 1m out in the cold” – the FT’s take on the gaps in Rishi Sunak’s assistance packages. The Telegraph quotes Boris Johnson on the statues debate: “We can’t photoshop our history” – the downpage story is hospitality firms warning the government to “Review 2m rule within a week or we let staff go”. Boris Johnson has said that when it comes to physical distancing restrictions there is “margin for manoeuvre” – what a non-Etonian might call wriggle room …
Others get behind the prescription of retail therapy for the good of the economy. “Shop for Britain” says the Mirror while the i reckons we will see “High streets sparking back to life”. “Boris: time to spend for our country” says the Express. It quotes the PM telling us to “shop, and shop with confidence” which makes for an interesting contrast with the Times which has “Nervous shoppers could be tempted with tax cut” – about the possibility of a VAT reduction to coax wallets open.
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