Teachers are in class today for the last time before the lockdown begins and they are all preparing exactly the same lesson for the nation’s 800,000 school children that even during a global emergency there is no escape from school work; and the Tokyo Olympic Games are to be postponed for a year because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
1.The Finance Minister Grant Robertson, says the Universal Basic Income (UBI) is one of the options being considered to help people who lose their jobs because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Government has announced a $9.3 billion business support package including a wage subsidy for workers.
2.The Council of Trade Unions is deeply concerned by reports of some employers behaving badly during the Covid-19 crisis. It says even though the Government intends to raise the $150,000 cap on its wage subsidy scheme, some firms are wrongly telling staff to use their leave.
3.The Tokyo Olympic Games are to be postponed for a year because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Officials stressed that the games will take place no later than next year’s northern hemisphere summer and will retain the name “Tokyo 2020”.
4.India is to impose a nationwide lockdown in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced. The restrictions will apply from midnight local time and will be enforced for 21 days.
5.Teachers are in class today for the last time before the lockdown begins and they are all preparing exactly the same lesson for the nation’s 800,000 school children that even during a global emergency there is no escape from school work.
6.The German Government says it intends to evacuate nearly 80,000 of its citizens stranded abroad, including some in New Zealand.
7.Spanish soldiers helping to fight the coronavirus pandemic have found elderly patients in retirement homes abandoned and, in some cases, dead in their beds, the defence ministry has said. Spanish prosecutors said an investigation had been launched.
