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Deborah James is a deputy head teacher, a mother of two children and, since her devastating diagnosis with bowel cancer, she has become an inspiration to many for her frank discussions on the subject. She’s written a best-selling book, raised significant sums for charity and become a regular voice in the media despite 17 tumours … Read more
It has taken 14 months since a sinister new disease emerged in Wuhan for the global health body responsible for protecting the world to be allowed into the Chinese city to investigate the origins of the pandemic. The belated arrival last week of a team from the World Health Organisation (WHO) follows persistent stonewalling from Beijing … Read more
It is a year since the world learned of a deadly new respiratory disease stalking the central Chinese city of Wuhan. Yet we still know little about how and why the virus spread with such devastating consequences. It can almost certainly be traced to bats. But we do not know how this pathogen – having … Read more
When a new disease erupted one year ago in Wuhan, a group of journalists and activists rushed to the central Chinese city to document the extraordinary events, as hospitals were flooded with patients and authorities struggled to cope. Among them was an idealistic lawyer from Shanghai called Zhang Zhan who filmed the overflowing hospitals, deserted … Read more
Explosive emails from a group of top-level scientists and Government doctors in the United States reveal one suggested Covid-19 could have originated from human activities rather than arising naturally from animals. Another asked if it might have been deliberately engineered. The documents also show that a key letter sent early in the pandemic from America’s … Read more
You have probably never heard of Zhou Qiang but he is one of the key Communist Party leaders in China and president, since 2013, of the Supreme People’s Court. This body oversees ‘justice’ in a country that jails dissidents and harvests body parts from criminals. As a loyal apparatchik, he has argued that China’s courts … Read more
The mood outside the Philadelphia counting centre was ebullient, with balloons, banners and music blasting out and scores of young people dancing in the street. Joe Biden had just taken the lead in their state of Pennsylvania’s vote. Beside me, two men were laughing at a small crowd of Trump supporters penned in behind a … Read more
As the sun slid from the evening sky over Minsk, clusters of people thronged the imposing entrance of the Bolshoi Theatre of Belarus clutching their tickets for the ballet. Many had dressed up to attend one of the city’s landmark buildings, a legacy of the Stalin era that was inspired by Roman amphitheatres. ‘We don’t want … Read more
The first arrest was a man clutching a black flag inscribed with the words ‘Hong Kong Independence’ in both English and Chinese. By the time dusk fell over the skyscrapers and ferries of one of the world’s great cities, another nine protesters —including a 15-year-old girl and a woman with a sign featuring the British … Read more
The carnage is horrific as this hideous pandemic carves through care homes across the country, killing hundreds of residents despite the best efforts of devoted staff. Thirteen people died with coronavirus symptoms at Stanley Park home in County Durham. Fifteen fatalities at care homes in Liverpool and Luton. Thirteen deaths at one in Glasgow, nine … Read more