Coronavirus live news: Peru death toll more than doubles after review, WHO renames variants

Peru’s death toll soars to 180,000 after excess deaths added; the WHO introduces new names for Covid variants; EU announces plans to lift quarantine obligations for people who have been vaccinated from July

• Analysis: If India variant starts a third wave, England’s Covid rules may have to stay
• EU plans to lift Covid quarantine rules for vaccinated from 1 July
• US gun sales spiked during pandemic and continue to rise
• See all our coronavirus coverage

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And in more Australia-related Covid news, the country’s drug regulator is considering referring Covid vaccine misinformation posts to the federal police, after anti-vaccine campaigners targeted an MP who posted about getting the jab.

In response to a viral post of Labor backbencher Julian Hill receiving his vaccine, numerous users posted false material purportedly from the Therapeutic Goods Administration wrongly claiming Covid-19 vaccines have caused more than 200 deaths.

Related: Australia’s drug regulator may refer anti-vaccination Facebook posts to federal police

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source https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/jun/01/coronavirus-live-news-peru-death-toll-more-than-doubles-after-review-who-renames-variants

Disaster patriarchy: how the pandemic has unleashed a war on women

As Covid-19 has swept the world there has been an explosion of violence against women, and a full-blown assault on their rights. It’s time to fight back against a system that allows women to be sacrificed, erased and violated

Covid has unleashed the most severe setback to women’s liberation in my lifetime. While watching this happen, I have started to think we are witnessing an outbreak of disaster patriarchy.

Naomi Klein was the first to identify “disaster capitalism”, when capitalists use a disaster to impose measures they couldn’t possibly get away with in normal times, generating more profit for themselves. Disaster patriarchy is a parallel and complementary process, where men exploit a crisis to reassert control and dominance, and rapidly erase hard-earned women’s rights. All over the world, patriarchy has taken full advantage of the virus to reclaim power – on the one hand, escalating the danger and violence to women, and on the other, stepping in as their supposed controller and protector.

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source https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jun/01/disaster-patriarchy-how-the-pandemic-has-unleashed-a-war-on-women

Why every single statue should come down | Gary Younge

Statues of historical figures are lazy, ugly and distort history. From Cecil Rhodes to Rosa Parks, let’s get rid of them all

Having been a black leftwing Guardian columnist for more than two decades, I understood that I would be regarded as fair game for the kind of moral panics that might make headlines in rightwing tabloids. It’s not like I hadn’t given them the raw material. In the course of my career I’d written pieces with headlines such as “Riots are a class act”, “Let’s have an open and honest conversation about white people” and “End all immigration controls”. I might as well have drawn a target on my back. But the only time I was ever caught in the tabloids’ crosshairs was not because of my denunciations of capitalism or racism, but because of a statue – or to be more precise, the absence of one.

The story starts in the mid-19th century, when the designers of Trafalgar Square decided that there would be one huge column for Horatio Nelson and four smaller plinths for statues surrounding it. They managed to put statues on three of the plinths before running out of money, leaving the fourth one bare. A government advisory group, convened in 1999, decided that this fourth plinth should be a site for a rotating exhibition of contemporary sculpture. Responsibility for the site went to the new mayor of London, Ken Livingstone.

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source https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/jun/01/gary-younge-why-every-single-statue-should-come-down-rhodes-colston

Mark Rylance: arts should tell ‘love stories’ about nature to tackle climate crisis

Exclusive: actor says individuals rather than government should lead way as he launches wetlands drama

Sir Mark Rylance has called on the arts to help solve the climate crisis by telling stories that persuade people to “fall in love with nature again” and prompt government to back green policies.

The Oscar-winning actor is starring with Sophie Okonedo in an innovative BBC Radio 4 drama set in a nature reserve that charts the challenges conservationists face in a time of rapid environmental change.

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source https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/jun/01/mark-rylance-arts-should-tell-love-stories-about-nature-to-tackle-climate-crisis

How Prescot’s Shakespeare theatre plays into Merseyside regeneration

Town on edge of Knowsley – and Liverpool city region’s mayor – use cultural pull to help rebuild area’s economy

Levelling up Britain’s unbalanced economy comes in many guises and in Prescot, a town on the edge of Knowsley on Merseyside, it comes in the form of a replica cockpit-in-court theatre.

Shakespeare is reported to have connections with Prescot when he was a travelling player in the late 16th century and the idea is to make the new theatre, scheduled to be opened by Prince Charles next summer, the third side of a cultural triangle along with London and Stratford-upon-Avon.

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source https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/01/how-prescot-shakespeare-theatre-plays-into-regeneration-of-merseyside

China accuses Morrison and Ardern of ‘gross interference’ on Xinjiang and South China Sea

Beijing says the prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand made ‘irresponsible’ comments after Wellington talks

Beijing has accused the prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand of making “irresponsible” comments, after the pair condemned “destabilising activities” in the South China Sea and raised grave concerns about human rights in Xinjiang.

China’s foreign ministry says it “firmly opposes” the joint statement issued by Scott Morrison and Jacinda Ardern after talks in Wellington, arguing the trans-Tasman allies had “grossly interfered in China’s internal affairs” but would not shake Beijing’s resolve.

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source https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/01/china-accuses-morrison-and-ardern-of-gross-interference-on-xinjiang-and-south-china-sea

Glasgow to plant 18m trees as city readies for Cop26 climate summit

Clyde Climate Forest project hopes to plant 10 trees for every resident over next decade

Councils in the Glasgow area have pledged to plant 18m trees – equivalent to 10 trees for every resident – as the city prepares to host a global climate summit later this year.

The Clyde Climate Forest (CCF) project hopes to increase tree cover in urban areas of Glasgow to 20% and ensure that a fifth of the region’s rural landscape is forested or planted with native woodland over the next decade.

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source https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/01/glasgow-to-plant-18m-trees-as-city-readies-for-cop26-climate-summit