Accusations of staff breaching Covid rules latest in troubled few years for Hong Kong flag carrier

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As Omicron spread to at least 50 people in Hong Kong last week the government looked to one place in particular for blame – the city’s flagship airline, Cathay Pacific. Two crew were accused of breaching their home quarantine, going shopping or meeting friends, and spreading the highly transmissible variant in the city. As numbers rose, infection flow charts were published marking cases with the airline’s brand while the government launched inquiries and threatened legal action. Pro-Beijing figures and state media called for punishment.

The airline had just come off a government ban on flying key international routes, a punishment for carrying Covid-positive passengers. Around the same time the ban was imposed in late December, quarantine rules were tightened after a pilot tested positive, and then again just days later after three crew also did, and then again after the latest incidents.

More than 20 Peruvian ports closed while TV images show seawater flooding homes and businesses in country’s centre and north

Two people have drowned off a beach in northern Peru, local authorities say, after unusually high waves were recorded in several coastal areas following Saturday’s eruption of an underwater volcano in Tonga.

The deaths occurred on Saturday on a beach located in the Lambayeque region, Peru’s National Institute of Civil Defence (Indeci) said in a statement.

Mortgage approvals have dropped from 30,000 a month to 23,000 as lenders apply stricter rules introduced in December

Banks in New Zealand are rejecting home-loans over minor frivolous spending, including a $187 Kmart Christmas shop and a daily drink bought at a corner store, and money spent on pets or petrol, pushing the government to investigate whether banks are overreacting to new finance rules designed to protect vulnerable borrowers from predatory lenders.

The Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act (CCCFA), updated in early December, requires all lenders to complete thorough checks to ensure loans are suitable and affordable for their customers.

‘It’s as simple as that,’ Scott Morrison says, despite immigration minister not disputing tennis star’s belief he had valid vaccination exemption

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The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, says Novak Djokovic was deported because he tried to breach entry rules at the border, even though the immigration minister did not dispute the tennis star’s belief he had a valid medical exemption.

The Serbian tennis player boarded an Emirates flight from Melbourne to Dubai on Sunday night, hours after the full federal court upheld the minister’s decision to cancel Djokovic’s visa.

South Korean military believes two ballistic missiles were launched, making it the second such test by Pyongyang in three days

North Korea has carried out what could be the second ballistic missile test in a matter of days and the fourth this month, according to reports from Japan and South Korea.

The Japanese prime minister’s office and the South Korean news agency Yonhap both reported Pyongyang firing a ballistic missile on Monday.

Five- to 11-year-olds will be eligible for jabs in New Zealand from today; a vaccine passport will come into force in France in coming days, with proof of vaccination required to enter public places

• ‘Encouraging signs’ plan B Covid measures may soon be lifted in England
• French parliament approves vaccine pass law to tackle Covid
• Boris Johnson will address No 10 ‘party culture’, says Tory chief
• Novak Djokovic deported from Australia hours after losing visa fight
• Concerns grow that scale of No 10 ‘partygate’ too big for Sue Gray inquiry
• Italian nurse accused of giving fake Covid jabs to anti-vaxxers arrested

Hello it’s Samantha Lock with you on the blog today as we unpack all the latest Covid developments from across the world.

I’ll be reporting to you from Sydney and my colleagues from London will take over a little later in the day.

Former Scottish Tory leader says she almost did not run for post in 2011 because of concerns that medical records would come out

The former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson has said she almost did not run for the position because she feared her history of mental health problems would be exposed.

The life peer was diagnosed with clinical depression in her first year at university and said she was concerned that standing for the role of leader in 2011 would result in her medical history coming out.

Oxfam calls for windfall tax as 99% of world population takes a pay cut while top 10 incomes grow by $1bn a day

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The 10 richest men in the world have seen their global wealth double to $1.5tn (£1.01tn) since the start of the global pandemic following a surge in share and property prices that has widened the gap between rich and poor, according to a report from Oxfam.

Urging governments to impose a one-off 99% wealth tax on Covid-19 windfall gains, the charity said World Bank figures showed163 million more people had been driven below the poverty line while the super-rich were benefiting from the stimulus provided by governments around the world to mitigate the impact of the virus.

Australian-trained doctors living overseas are treating patients in rural and regional New South Wales, to curb the bush doctor shortage

Bet Matthews set off on a trip of salvation from Queensland to Victoria last year, to visit her sister and ex-husband who had both been diagnosed with cancer. She was there to assist with whatever they needed, but in the end it was she who needed the help.

Serbia’s leaders say tennis world No 1 has been ‘harassed … but not humiliated’ after he ended his legal fight to play in the Australian Open. Follow all the day’s news

• Serbia’s leaders hit out at ‘scandalous’ treatment of Novak Djokovic
• 100 doctors locked out of WA weeks before state reopens
• ‘Like a lockdown’: Australians feel the fear and anxiety of Covid
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Good morning,

After 11 tumultuous days, world tennis No 1 Novak Djokovic has been deported after the full bench of the federal court upheld the Morrison government’s decision to cancel his visa on the grounds of health and good order.

Monday: Serbia’s leaders hit out at treatment of Novak Djokovic, who boarded a flight out of Australia on Sunday night. Plus: how American tinned meat, Spam, came to be loved in Asia

Good morning. Novak Djokovic has left Australia after his last-ditch court challenge failed. And the England Test side has once again failed to turn up with much fight, handing Australia a 4-0 Ashes series win.

Novak Djokovic has been deported from Australia after the full federal court dismissed his bid to restore his visa. The Serbian tennis player was seen boarding a flight from Melbourne to Dubai hours after the court rejected his challenge to the decision of Australian immigration minister, Alex Hawke, to cancel the visa. In a statement Djokovic said he was “extremely disappointed” with the ruling. “I respect the court’s ruling and I will cooperate with the relevant authorities in relation to my departure from the country,” he said. Serbia’s leaders have hit out at Djokovic’s treatment. The prime minister, Ana Brnabić, criticised the decision to cancel the visa as “scandalous”. “I find it unbelievable that we have two completely contradictory court decisions within the span of just a few days,” she said. The tennis world reacted with a mixture of silence and disappointment to Djokovic’s deportation and frustration that it had overshadowed the Australian Open.

All four hostages survived unharmed while Malik Faisal Akram, 44, was killed when FBI stormed synagogue after 11-hour standoff

US president Joe Biden has condemned a tense 11-hour hostage standoff at a synagogue in Texas on Saturday as “an act of terror”, as the FBI named the armed assailant as Malik Faisal Akram, a 44-year-old British national.

Akram was pronounced dead after the FBI stormed the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in the Dallas suburb of Colleyville on Saturday evening. All four hostages survived the siege and were unharmed, according to local police.

New law will require people to have a certificate of vaccination to enter public places like restaurants and cinemas

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France’s parliament gave final approval on Sunday to the government’s latest measures to tackle the Covid-19 virus, including a vaccine pass contested by anti-vaccine protesters.

Lawmakers in the lower house of parliament voted 215 in favour to 58 against, paving the way for the law to enter force in the coming days.

One woman reportedly taken to hospital after protest calling for right to work and education is stopped

Taliban forces have fired pepper spray at a group of women protesting in Afghanistan’s capital to demand rights to work and education.

Since seizing control of the country by force in August, the Taliban authorities have imposed creeping restrictions on Afghans, especially on women.

Gul Bano and Karima’s former offices are in the hands of the Taliban – and they fear for their lives

Gul Bano* and Karima* are activists who ran provincial branches of the ministry of women’s affairs in two different parts of Afghanistan. Their former offices have been taken over by the Taliban’s feared enforcers, the ministry for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice. They are now in hiding, afraid of the men they helped put in prison for domestic violence and other abuses, many of them in the Taliban or with family links to the militants.

In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org

Family, friends and neighbors of the dead try to make sense of the tragedy as they gather to pay final respects to loved ones

A Bronx community in New York city gathered on Sunday to pay its final respects to loved ones, a week after a fire filled a high-rise apartment building with thick, suffocating smoke that killed 17 people, including eight children.

The mass funeral caps a week of prayers and mourning within a close-knit community hailing from West Africa, most with connections to The Gambia.

President and prime minister condemn Australia’s ‘farcical’ deportation of world tennis No 1

Serbia’s president has said Novak Djokovic had been “harassed … but not humiliated” and the prime minister called his treatment “scandalous” as the world tennis No 1’s home country reacted furiously to his deportation from Australia.

After an 11-day saga, three judges unanimously upheld a decision by the immigration minister to cancel Djokovic’s visa because he was not vaccinated against Covid-19, removing any chance of him winning a 21st grand slam at the Australian Open.

Man in his 40s held on suspicion of manslaughter after accident in region of Flaine, Haute-Savoie

A five-year-old British girl has died after being hit by a skier in the French Alps, according to French media.

A man in his 40s was being held on suspicion of manslaughter on Sunday after the accident in the resort of Flaine, Haute-Savoie, at about 11am on Saturday, Le Dauphine reported. The girl was said to have been taking part in a group ski lesson run by ESF (Ecole du Ski Français) with four other children on a blue (intermediate) piste.

Analysis: Prince believes his family – as well as Britain’s reputation - is at risk while they are in the UK

Security costs are a controversial issue for the royal family, with neither Buckingham Palace nor the government willing to discuss arrangements publicly.

As security is paid for from the public purse, the issue is often weaponised by critics who argue police protection should not automatically be conferred on non-working royals and extended family members.

Shutout doctors and the state opposition raise concerns Mark McGowan’s government is refusing entry for essential workers

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One hundred doctors, including specialists, consultants and locums for remote areas, are locked out of Western Australia, with Mark McGowan’s government refusing G2G passes despite the entry of Covid-19 being mere weeks away.

Since the spread of the Omicron variant in late 2021, the WA government has progressively shuttered entry from anyone entering from the eastern states, making it now close to impossible for anyone to enter WA, diplomats and state officials aside.