French PM joins nationwide tributes to beheaded teacher

People gather at the Place de la Republique in Paris to pay tribute to Samuel Paty, the French teacher who was beheaded on the streets of the Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, France, on Sunday. France’s prime minister joined demonstrators on Sunday who rallied together across the country in tribute to Paty. Paty was beheaded on Friday by a 18-year-old Moscow-born Chechen refugee who was shot dead by police.

SD-Agencies

New virus restrictions in Europe come into effect

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide passed 40 million on Monday, as fresh measures to combat the spread of the virus came into effect in several European countries.

Belgium imposes a nationwide overnight curfew from Monday and Switzerland has made wearing face masks compulsory in indoor public spaces, the latest measures by European governments to fight a powerful second coronavirus wave.

In Europe, more than 250,000 people have died, but the deepening crisis there stands in contrast to Australia, where the second biggest city has begun easing a lockdown that kept millions of people largely confined to their homes for months.

90 dead in Vietnam’s floods, landslides

Floods, landslides and other natural disasters triggered by downpours have left 90 people dead and 34 others missing in Vietnam’s central region over the past two weeks, the Central Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control said on Monday.

The fatalities were mainly reported in the provinces of Quang Tri, Thua Thien Hue and Quang Nam, according to the committee’s latest report.

As of 6 a.m. local time on Monday, around 37,500 households with 121,280 people in the localities of Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue had been evacuated to safe areas. Some 121,700 houses were still inundated, the committee said.

Ardern credits virus response for election win

A day after winning a second term in a landslide victory, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Sunday she sees the election result as an endorsement of her government’s efforts to stamp out the coronavirus and reboot the economy.

Speaking at a cafe near her Auckland home, Ardern said she expects to form a new government within three weeks and to prioritize work on the virus response.

“We’re cracking on very quickly with the work we need to do as a new team,” Ardern said.

Biden leads Trump in TV viewership ratings

U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s town hall on ABC drew 14.1 million viewers on Thursday, surpassing the Nielsen ratings for President Donald Trump’s town hall on NBC, according to data from Nielsen Media Research on Friday.

Trump’s event, aired across NBC and its sibling cable channels of MSNBC and CNBC in the same hour, drew 13.5 million viewers altogether. It was “a result virtually no one in the TV business expected,” said a CNN report.

Armenia, Azerbaijan announce new cease-fire

Armenia and Azerbaijan on Saturday announced a new attempt to establish a cease-fire in their conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh starting from midnight, a move that comes a week after a Russia-brokered truce frayed immediately after it took force.

The new agreement was announced following Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s calls with his counterparts from the two nations, in which he strongly urged them to abide by the Moscow deal. There were no immediate claims of violations after the truce took effect at midnight.(SD-Agencies)