Uniquely Nelson

Refugee rights activists have vandalised Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison's car with red paint during his visit to the University of Queensland today. Protesters in Australia splashed red paint on windows and buildings at the University of Queensland. Photo: Screengrab / ABC About 50 protesters gathered at the university's Australian Institute of Bio-engineering and Nanotechnology, where the prime minister was touring earlier today. Police formed a barrier outside the entrance to the building where protesters were chanting "lock up Scomo" while carrying signs and tomatoes. It is understood the Morrison was escorted out through a loading bay, shortly after the building went into lockdown. Red paint was thrown against the glass doors and windows of the building at both entrances. One of the university's security guards was also hit with the paint. Scott Morrison is hustled into a police car while being heckled. Video: ABC Some of the protesters were seen wearing masks and holding signs that read "free the refugees" and "indefinite detention is torture". After discovering the prime minister was no longer inside the building the protesters left the site. The protesters are part of the same group that have been taking action outside the Kangaroo Point Central Hotel and Apartments this year. They are protesting the indefinite detention of 120 men inside the accommodation facility who were moved there from offshore detention as part of the medevac bill. Over the last month, protest action outside the hotel in Kangaroo Point has become less frequent. Protesters threw paint and fruit at buildings and Scott Morrison's car. Video: ABC 'Just a vocal protest' Senior Sergeant Leonie Scott told the ABC that protesters "wilfully damaged the site of the building by throwing paint, tomatoes and other fruit items". "The building went into lockdown [so] it didn't disturb the business continuity of the people occupying the student facility," he said. "Because of the damage done to the front door people are able to leave but no one is able to go into the building at this stage. "The prime minister has left unscathed." One woman was arrested at the scene. Scott said she was not expecting protesters to attend the university today. "We knew that the prime minister was in attendance but it was surprising that the protesters arrived," she said. "We were able to give a good policing response to the event and there's been no further issues. "Protesters were just wanting to give a vocal protest. I didn't see any disturbance otherwise. "Now it seems quelled and everything is back to normal." - ABC

Azerbaijan and Armenia accused each other of serious violations and crimes against civilians, and Azerbaijan also said it had launched airstrikes as a day-old humanitarian ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh looked increasingly frayed. A house and a row of barns destroyed by a recent shelling in Stepanakert, a self-proclaimed Republic of the Nagorno-Karabakh. Photo: AFP The Russian-brokered ceasefire, clinched after marathon talks in Moscow, was meant to halt fighting to allow ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh and Azeri forces to swap prisoners and war dead. The talks were the first diplomatic contact between the two since fighting over the mountainous enclave erupted on 27 September, killing hundreds of people. Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, but is populated and governed by ethnic Armenians. Both sides accused one another of breaking the ceasefire almost immediately, and Azerbaijan gave the impression in public comments from top officials that it saw it as only a brief breathing space anyway. Azerbaijan, making the first claim of an attack since the truce, said on Sunday it had carried out airstrikes against an ethnic Armenian regiment, inflicting heavy losses. Reuters could not independently verify that claim. A spokesman for the leader of Nagorno-Karabakh told Reuters he did not have information about the alleged attack. Earlier on Sunday, Azerbaijan accused Armenia of heavily shelling a residential area in Ganja, its second largest city, in the early hours of the morning, and of hitting an apartment building. The Azeri Prosecutor General's Office said nine people had been killed and 34 wounded in the attack. Reuters could not independently verify Azeri assertions about the number of deaths or injuries. A Reuters photographer in Ganja saw rescue workers carrying one dead person from the ruins of the apartment building on Sunday morning. The structure had been almost levelled. An excavator was clearing the debris. Buildings and cars in the immediate vicinity had also been severely damaged. Casualties mount Baku says more than 40 civilians have been killed and 200 injured since the start of the conflict. The Armenian defence ministry called the Azeri allegations about the attack on Ganja "an absolute lie" and accused Azerbaijan of continuing to shell populated areas inside Karabakh, including Stepanakert, the region's biggest city. Reuters footage from Stepanakert showed a small brick house damaged by shelling, its windows shattered and its roof caved in. The Karabakh authorities said at least five civilians had been killed since the ceasefire was supposed to take effect on Saturday and that 429 servicemen had been killed since fighting erupted last month. Azerbaijan accused Armenia of also launching an unsuccessful rocket attack on an Azeri hydro-electric power station in Mingachevir. Ethnic Armenian forces in Karabakh denied the assertion. Arayik Haratyunyan, the leader of ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh, early on Sunday described the overall situation as relatively calm, but said he did not know how long it would last and that the frontline remained tense. He accused Azeri forces of trying to unsuccessfully take control of the town of Hadrut, and said the process of the two sides exchanging prisoners should have started on Sunday, but that it was unclear if and when that would happen. Renewed fighting in the decades-old conflict has raised fears of a wider war drawing in Turkey, a close ally of Azerbaijan, and Russia, which has a defence pact with Armenia. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu asked his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in a phone call on Sunday to press Armenia to abide by the terms of the truce, Turkey's foreign ministry said. Armenia's foreign minister was due in Moscow on Monday for talks with officials from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) Minsk group led by France, Russia and the United States. The fighting is the worst since a 1991-94 war that killed about 30,000 people and ended with a ceasefire that has been violated repeatedly. - Reuters

Security forces in Belarus detained dozens of protesters on Sunday and used force, including water cannon and batons, to break up crowds demanding a new presidential election, TV footage showed. Protesters hold historical white-red-white flags of Belarus during a rally, in Minsk, Belarus Photo: AFP Footage published by local news outlets showed police officers wearing black balaclavas dragging protesters into unmarked black vans and beating protesters with their batons at a rally that drew thousands onto the streets of the capital Minsk. One sequence showed a police van unleashing a powerful jet of water from a cannon into crowds, visibly pushing them back. Belarus, a former Soviet republic closely allied with Russia, has been rocked by street protests and strikes since authorities announced that veteran leader Alexander Lukashenko had won an 9 August vote by a landslide. People have since taken to the streets every week to demand that Lukashenko step down and allow for a new election to be held. Lukashenko, a former collective farm manager who has been in power since 1994, denies his win was the result of cheating. Security forces have detained more than 13,000 people during a post-election crackdown, some of whom have been later freed. Lukashenko's key political opponents are either in jail or have fled abroad. Sunday's violence followed a meeting Lukashenko held on Saturday in a Minsk jail with detained opposition leaders, an unusual event that prompted some opposition activists to believe he was preparing to make concessions. In a rare concession, two people who had taken part in the meeting with Lukashenko -- businessman Yuri Voskresensky and Dmitry Rabtsevich, director of the Minsk office of PandaDoc software maker -- were released late on Sunday, Belarus state television reported. The United States, the European Union, Britain and Canada have imposed sanctions against a string of senior officials in Belarus accused of fraud and human rights abuses in the wake of the presidential election. Opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who is now based in Lithuania, has called for new elections and for all political prisoners to be freed. "We will continue to march peacefully and persistently and demand what is ours: new free and transparent elections," Tsikhanouskaya wrote on her Telegram channel on Sunday. Similar rallies were held in other cities across the country on Sunday. - Reuters

Victoria does not need to get down to just five cases a day to ease its three-month lockdown which residents are fed up with, says a leading epidemiologist. Victoria is due to ease some of its strict lockdown measures next weekend. Photo: AFP Premier Daniel Andrews said yesterday that Victoria would take a step towards opening up next Sunday, but it would not be as big as was originally hoped. "It is in no way warranted for people to be despondent, or for people to lose any sense of hope," he said. This strategy is working, but you have got to do it properly." Premier Daniel Andrews is trying to reduce hopes of too much relaxation in Victoria's lockdown measures. Photo: AFP The state announced 14 new coronavirus cases yesterday, and a third day in a row of no deaths. The premier said he understood the frustrations with people wanting to get back to a normal way of life, but said any next steps "had to be safe". Professor Tony Blakely who lives in Melbourne is one of four epidemiologists who has carried out modelling for the state government. He said a reduction to five cases a day was based on an elimination strategy but that was becoming very unlikely. Five cases meant a 3 percent likelihood of a big resurgence before Christmas; at 10 cases a day there was a 10 percent likelihood of a major outbreak so that was not a huge difference. "They were trying to get numbers down to a level where we could eliminate but that's looking increasingly unlikely unfortunately, particularly with New South Wales having said that they are not ever assuming they are going to eliminate; they're assuming it's going to keep bobbing along." Once major borders opened between the two states it would be almost impossible to prevent outbreaks, he said. Asked about New Zealand's success in once again eliminating the virus, he replied: "Much bigger country here, there's far more land borders, more stuff coming in and out, it's going to be harder for Australia to achieve elimination." The other major factor was that Victorians were "over it". He, like others, has been in lockdown since 9 July, and working from home since March. "The population is just completely over it. I just don't know if there would be the compliance to keep going at this hard tail end now." Professor Tony Blakely Photo: Billy Wong/University of Auckland The latest setback with numbers not reducing enough was due to "that hard tail, that sort of part where the curve flattens out before it gets to zero". He said about a third of the cases were occurring in aged care which was a complex setting to get on top of the virus, and another three or four outbreaks had occurred in the community. "Which is a bit of bad luck I guess, but it does demonstrate how hard it is to get those numbers down at the end." Four mystery cases in the last week were a worry in New South Wales which had had had "a fantastic run" and a slice of luck. "Maybe their luck is coming to an end... "I think Victoria and New South Wales are becoming increasingly similar. We're starting to converge on this middle ground of tight suppression; trying to keep the numbers at about 10 per day seems to be where we're heading." As for Victoria's much criticised contact tracing, Blakely said staff were now hitting targets, contacting 99 percent of people within 24 hours and were working on good quality IT systems that have been used in other states and territories. "We hope it's up to scratch because it's going to need to be. It's the only way we're going to keep the numbers low." - RNZ / ABC Two women walk their dogs in Melbourne where people are "over" Covid-19 restrictions, an epidemiologist says. Photo: AFP

At least 17 people have been killed by floods in Vietnam's central provinces in the past week and 13 are still missing, state media said, as the country braced for another tropical storm. Flooding in the old city of Hoi An, a UNESCO world heritage site, in Quảng Nam province in Vietnam. Photo: AFP In the next few days, the central region should be prepared for another typhoon, Linfa, which will bring more rains and result in more flooding, state broadcaster Vietnam Television (VTV) reported. Footage broadcast by VTV showed fishermen being rescued by coastguard and helicopters as strong winds battered the central Vietnamese coast in the central province of Quang Tri. Floods have cut food supplies to thousands of people. Around 31,000 people have been displaced and more than 33,000 houses submerged and damaged by floods, according to a government report. Houses inundated by floodwaters following heavy rainfall in central Vietnam's Quang Binh province. Photo: AFP The national highway linking northern Vietnam to the south has been flooded, while airlines cancelled some domestic flights, local media report. Vietnam is prone to destructive storms and flooding due to its long coastline. Natural disasters - predominantly floods and landslides triggered by storms - killed 132 people and injured 207 others in the country last year. Roads also turned to rivers and water inundated properties in Thailand's Nakhon Ratchasima province, as residents scrambled to place sandbags and move their belongings to higher ground. In Laos, rising floodwaters have damaged villages and rice fields along the Xepon and Xebanghieng rivers in Savannakhet province with more rain on the way. - Reuters

By James Gallagher BBC Health and science correspondent Scientists in the UK have begun testing the BCG vaccine, developed in 1921, to see if it can save lives from Covid. The BCG vaccine was originally developed in 1921 to stop tuberculosis but it may protect against other infections as well. Photo: 123RF The vaccine was designed to stop tuberculosis, but there is some evidence it can protect against other infections as well. Around 1000 people will take part in the trial at the University of Exeter. But while millions of people in the UK will have had the BCG jab as a child, it is thought they would need to be vaccinated again to benefit. Vaccines are designed to train the immune system in a highly targeted way that leaves lasting protection against one particular infection. But this process also causes wide-spread changes in the immune system. This seems to heighten the response to other infections and scientists hope it may even give our bodies an advantage against coronavirus. Previous clinical trials have shown the BCG jab reduced deaths by 38 percent in newborns in Guinea-Bissau, mostly by reducing cases of pneumonia and sepsis. Studies in South Africa linked the vaccine to a 73 percent reduction in infections in the nose, throat and lungs; experiments in the Netherlands showed BCG reduced the amount of yellow fever virus in the body. "This could be of major importance globally," Prof John Campbell, of the University of Exeter Medical School, told the BBC. "Whilst we don't think it [the protection] will be specific to Covid, it has the potential to buy several years of time for the Covid vaccines to come through and perhaps other treatments to be developed." The UK trial is part of the international Brace-study, which is also taking place in Australia, the Netherlands, Spain and Brazil, recruiting 10,000 people in total. It will focus on health and care workers, as they are more likely to be exposed to coronavirus, so researchers will know more quickly if the vaccine is effective. Sam Hilton, a GP from Exeter, is taking part in the trials since, as a doctor, he is at higher risk of catching Covid. "There's quite a good theory BCG might make you less likely to get unwell when you get Covid," he told the BBC. "So I see it as a potential for me to get protected a bit, which means I'm more likely to come to work this winter." Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization, is one of the authors of a Lancet article saying the BCG vaccine has the potential to "bridge the gap before a disease-specific vaccine is developed". "This would be an important tool in the response to Covid-19 and future pandemics," the article states. However, the BCG vaccine will not be a long-term solution. Any enhanced resilience to Covid is expected to wane meaning people who were immunised with BCG in childhood would no longer have protection. BCG has not been used in the UK since 2005 because levels of tuberculosis are so low. Additionally, the vaccine will not train the immune system to produce the antibodies and specialist white blood cells that recognise and fight off the coronavirus. End game The big goal remains a vaccine that specifically targets the coronavirus. Ten such vaccines are in the final stages of clinical research, including the one developed at the University of Oxford. Prof Andrew Pollard, from the Oxford Vaccine Group, told the BBC: "The way that most vaccines work is to make a very specific immune response against the germ you are trying to prevent. "But in order to make a good immune response, there is also a rather non-specific 'souping-up' of the immune response and that changes the way the immune system is able to respond in the future. "The problem we have today is I can't tell you what you could do with other vaccines to try to improve your ability to respond to coronavirus because we have no evidence at all." - BBC

The virus responsible for Covid-19 can remain infectious on surfaces such as banknotes, phone screens and stainless steel for 28 days, researchers say. Photo: 123rf The findings from Australia's national science agency suggest SARS-Cov-2 can survive for far longer on surfaces than previously thought. The virus is most commonly transmitted when people cough, sneeze or talk. But experts say it can also be spread by particles in the air, as well as on surfaces such as metal and plastic. See all RNZ coverage of Covid-19 Previous laboratory studies have found that SARS-Cov-2 can survive for two to three days on bank notes and glass, and up to six days on plastic and stainless steel, although results vary. But the latest research from Australian agency CSIRO found the virus was "extremely robust," surviving for 28 days on smooth surfaces such as glass found on mobile phone screens and both plastic and paper banknotes, when kept at 20C (68F), which is about room temperature. In comparison, the flu virus can survive in the same circumstances for 17 days. Establishing how long the virus really remains viable on surfaces enables us to more accurately predict and mitigate its spread, and do a better job of protecting our people," said CSIRO chief executive Dr Larry Marshall. The study, published in Virology Journal, found the virus survived for less time at hotter temperatures; it stopped being infectious within 24 hours at 40C on some surfaces. The experiments were carried out in the dark, as UV light has already been shown to kill the virus. The study's authors said the ability of SARS-Cov-2 to persist on stainless steel at cooler temperatures could explain outbreaks of Covid-19 at meat processing and cold storage facilities. Thousands of workers have tested positive at meat processing factories and abattoirs around the world. Other reasons previously suggested include close working conditions, cold and damp environments and the need to shout over noisy machinery. The CSIRO researchers also say their findings support previous research suggesting the virus can survive on fresh and frozen food. The World Health Organization says: "There is currently no confirmed case of Covid-19 transmitted through food or food packaging." But it does list a number of precautions you can take to avoid cross-contamination. -BBC

US President Donald Trump is no longer a Covid transmission risk to others, the White House physician has said. Photo: AFP / 2020 Getty Images Sean Conley's memo is the first update on Trump's health since Thursday. Earlier on Saturday the president delivered a speech in front of cheering supporters at the White House in his first public appearance since being hospitalised with the virus. There had been concerns that he might still be contagious following his three-day hospital stay. The doctor's memo said the latest tests on the president revealed there was "no longer evidence of actively replicating virus", and that his viral load was "decreasing". Trump no longer needs to isolate, his doctor says pic.twitter.com/lQQ6KRANle — David S. Joachim (@davidjoachim) October 11, 2020 However, the statement did not say whether Trump had tested negative for Covid-19. In the memo, Dr Conley said President Trump had been given sensitive lab tests that detect how much of the virus is still in his system. "This evening I am happy to report that in addition to the President meeting [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] criteria for the safe discontinuation of isolation, this morning's Covid PCR sample demonstrates, by currently recognised standards, he is no longer considered a transmission risk to others," he said. Trump first started showing symptoms of coronavirus 10 days ago, and was admitted to Walter Reed Medical Center a day later, on 2 October. While there he was treated with - among other medication - dexamethasone, a steroid medication usually only used on people who are seriously or critically ill with the virus. Dr Conley's latest update comes after President Trump told a crowd at a White House event that he was "feeling great". He has also said that he is no longer taking any medication against Covid-19. The event on Saturday was officially a "peaceful protest", but looked, critics said, much like a Trump campaign rally. His rival in next month's presidential election, Joe Biden, has been campaigning in Pennsylvania. He said his "heart goes out" to all those families who have lost someone they love to coronavirus. Polling suggests Biden has a single-digit lead over Trump and an ABC News/Ipsos poll found that just 35 percent of Americans approved of how Trump has handled the coronavirus crisis. More than 214,000 Americans are known to have died of Covid-19. White House physician Sean Conley said Trump is "no longer considered a transmission risk to others". Photo: AFP What were the concerns over the event? Questions over safety were raised after a gathering to unveil Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court resulted in at least 11 people subsequently testing positive for Covid-19 - including the president. Top US infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci described it as "a super-spreader event". Senior Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff said it was "morally bankrupt" for the president to hold "another super-spreader rally" at the White House. The White House said in advance of Saturday's event that those attending would be required to undergo a temperature check and wear face masks, and encouraged to practice social distancing. However, images from the event showed several hundred people packed closely together. The gathering to unveil Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court has been criticised with at least 11 people who attended subsequently testing positive for Covid-19. Photo: AFP The president's campaign team has also said he is planning to attend a "big rally" in Florida - a battleground state in next month's presidential election - on Monday, followed by trips to Pennsylvania and Iowa. Biden expressed disbelief at the president's plans to hold rallies and criticised the Trump administration's lax stance on mask use as reckless. "I wouldn't show up unless you have a mask and can distance," Biden said, speaking while campaigning in Las Vegas on Friday. Meanwhile, ethics experts say that hosting political events at the White House, as well as being against long-standing convention in the US, could violate federal law. The Hatch Act, dating from 1939, bars federal employees from being involved in campaign activities while on duty. While the president and vice-president are exempt, most White House employees are not. On Thursday Sean Conley said that it would be safe for Trump to return to public engagements on Saturday [10 October] as that would mark "day 10" since his diagnosis on Thursday 1 October. Following his diagnosis, Trump spent three nights in hospital and was treated with the steroid dexamethasone, the antiviral drug remdesivir and a cocktail of manufactured antibodies made by the company Regeneron. The CDC recommends self-isolation for at least 10 days after coronavirus symptoms first appear, with more severe illness, such as that requiring hospital treatment, potentially needing up to 20 days. - BBC

A man was fatally shot on Saturday (local time) during dueling protests by left-wing and right-wing groups in downtown Denver, and police arrested a suspect they said was working as a private security guard. File photo Photo: Photo Credit:Fer Gregorywww.fergregory.com/ 123rf An NBC News affiliate, KUSA-TV, said on its website that the man taken arrested for the shooting was a security guard hired by the television station to provide protection to its crew. "It has been the practice of (KUSA) for a number of months to hire private security to accompany staff at protests," the station said. The shooting took place in a courtyard at the Denver Art Museum during a so-called Patriot Rally that was met by counter-protests by groups who dubbed their rally a BLM-Antifa Soup Drive. Denver Police Chief of Investigations Joe Montoya would not confirm if the suspect worked for the station. Neither the victim nor the suspected shooter has been identified by authorities. Update: Further investigation has determined the suspect is a private security guard with no affiliation with Antifa. Additional information will be released as it becomes available. — Denver Police Dept. (@DenverPolice) October 11, 2020 Montoya said police kept the two groups separated, and there were no other arrests during the competing rallies. A photographer for the Denver Post captured an image of a man spraying a chemical agent at another man with a drawn hand gun.

Rubbish made from natural fibres could be polluting oceans at far greater rates than plastic, an expert on marine plastics says. A world champion free diver in the ocean off the coast of Istanbul to draw attention to the problem of pollution in the ocean. Photo: AFP Professor Peter Ryan of the University of Cape Town has recently had a study published in New Scientist. It showed that the large majority of the microfibres polluting our oceans are not plastic - which has long been assumed - but actually natural fibres like cotton, wool and other celluloses, such as linen and flax. Professor Ryan told Sunday Morning that this was observed by one of his colleagues during an Antarctic circumnavigation expedition, and it was surprising because the Southern Ocean is by far the cleanest ocean in terms of plastic pollution, he said. The fibres are identified by precise "tedious' work involving the use of a small beam of infra-red light shone on the tiny fibres. Only 8 percent of the fibres recovered from the Southern Ocean were plastic. "The natural fibres that we've been putting out for much longer than we've been putting out synthetic fibres are also accumulating in the ocean for some reason. We don't understand why that might be... "Their densities in the ocean are much much higher than so called micro plastics." The biggest concern for marine life was the natural fibres' impact of clogging of filter-feeders which adapted to deal with non-food items in their filter stream so it was a moot point what the full impact was.    Putting plastic items into rivers Ryan's own recent research attracted controversy because it involved putting plastic items into rivers and tracing them. He said most washed ashore - so if beaches are regularly cleaned, especially around rivermouths, it can have a large influence on how much plastic ends up in the ocean. "The plastics we put deliberately into rivers to see where they go we get typically between 80 and 100 percent recovery rates, admittedly from relatively small rivers. If you've got a really big river it might be a different story. "That means that if you clean beaches regularly around river mouths you can make quite a significant impact on the amount of plastic getting out into the ocean." Ryan said close to land, flexible packaging was the most visible sight but the items changed further out. "Interestingly, what we find in terms of washing up on beaches, buoyancy is very important, so the more buoyant an item is the more likely it will wash up on shore." Tourists generate more trash in small island developing states - and 80% ends up in the ocean. Photo: Oleg Doroshenko/123RF He said the evidence was the vast majority of plastic is still in larger form which was good news but once it degraded into micro-plastic it was much harder to deal with.   'Missing plastics' debate Some scientists have estimated that between 5 million and 12 million tonnes of plastic was moving from land into the sea. Ryan said 250,000 to 300,000 tonnes were estimated to be drifting on the surface and while this was an unacceptably large amount, it was a vast difference to some scientists' figures. It had become "the missing plastic plastic debate" with scientists trying to explain the difference. "We're coming to the conclusion in South Africa, at least, that the missing plastic doesn't exist in the first place." He had recently been on Pitcairn Island and found New Zealand trays, used in the fishing industry that were all dated pre-2000, while all those that had washed up on the island that were from South America were a lot more recent. This suggested environmental progress in this country's fishing industry, he said.