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German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday announced a hard five-day lockdown over Easter, as the country battles a sharp rise in new coronavirus infections. Almost all shops will be closed over the Easter period from April 1 to 5, and no more than five people over the age of 14 from two households can gather. Grocery stores would be allowed to open for one day only, on Saturday, April 3.
The crisis engulfing Australia’s politics has continued to grow following the emergence of videos showing staff members performing sex acts in parliament, leading to one senior aide being fired. One video showed the aide performing a sex act on a female MP’s desk. It comes after a former staff member revealed how she feared losing her job following an alleged sexual assault.
Israelis voted on Tuesday in a fourth election in two years, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hoping a world-beating COVID-19 vaccine rollout will win him another term. Israel’s longest-serving head of government, Netanyahu has managed to hold on to power through two years of inconclusive elections despite facing corruption allegations. He is now on trial on bribery and abuse of power charges, which he denies.
At least 15 people have been killed after a “devastating” fire ripped through a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh, the UN refugee agency has said. At least another 400 remain missing, the UNHCR added. Seven deaths have been confirmed so far by police. The fire tore through the Balukhali camp in the town of Cox’s Bazar late on Monday, destroying more than 17,000 shelters as people tried to save their meager possessions.
Twitter boss Jack Dorsey has sold his first tweet from over a decade ago in the form of a unique digital asset for slightly more than $2.9m. The tweet was sold on Monday as a non-fungible token (NFT) – a kind of digital certificate that has exploded in popularity so far in 2021. The token is a digital seal of authenticity that confirms an item is one of a kind and real.