Opera to return to Sydney after virus hiatus

Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company returns to the stage after an enforced 18-month absence due to the coronavirus pandemic, at a specially built open-air theatre in the bard's home town. The cast rehearses Phillip Breen's production of The Comedy of Errors.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announces a snap lockdown in Australia's second-largest city, bringing the total number of Australians under stay-at-home orders to around 12 million. Melbourne and surrounding Victoria will join Sydney in a 'hard and fast' lockdown, Andrews says, as Australia battles an outbreak of the Delta variant.

The shocking image of a violently ill Alexander Litvinenko as he lay dying from radioactive poisoning in a London hospital bed is how much of the world remembers the ex Russian spy. But a new opera in London based on a book by his wife Marina and composed by former London financier, Anthony Bolton seeks to tell more of his story. A British public inquiry in 2016 concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin had "probably approved" Litvinenko's killing, which it said was likely to have been FSB-directed, but no one has ever been brought to justice.

Sydney's iconic harbour and city streets are nearly deserted as Australia's largest city reported another record number of new infections. The recent rise in cases has prompted a decision by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to suspend the quarantine-free travel bubble between the two countries for at least eight weeks.

Thousands of protesters march through Sydney railing against lockdowns, with protesters pelting mounted police with a plant pot and bottles in one of several clashes. Police made dozens of arrests from the largely unmasked protest, with chants of "freedom" and banners challenging the stay-at-home orders.

Managers in Germany are not feeling overly optimistic about the coming months, a major business confidence barometer shows. Two major concerns are clouding their outlook.

Australian authorities have extended Sydney's lockdown until August 28 after a spike in COVID cases. Meanwhile, more than half of Germany's population is now fully vaccinated. Follow DW for the latest.

One of America's largest events -- Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago -- is underway this weekend, to the delight of fans and to the despair of others. The four day music festival is expected to draw more than 100,000 people to downtown Chicago each day, at a moment when coronavirus cases are on the rise and vaccinations have plateaued. Lollapalooza has said their policy is for unvaccinated people to wear masks and show a recent negative Covid test.

Crowds of commuters emerge from a train station in Tokyo during morning rush hour. Last week Japan extended the virus state of emergency in Tokyo due to rising cases of the coronavirus in the capital.

Nearly 1,200 people received their Covid-19 vaccine jab in one day says an El Menzah vaccination centre official in Tunis, as the vaccination campaign speeds up in Tunisia, which has suffered the biggest number of Covid-19 deaths in North Africa. The country, which has been struggling to contain its outbreak of Delta variant, hopes to vaccinate half of its population by mid-October.

Australian defence force personnel assist police in several home isolation checks, with officers enforcing stay-at-home orders during Sydney's lockdown. Authorities have been struggling to stop the spread of the highly infectious Delta variant in Sydney, and to ensure that residents follow containment rules as efforts to boost vaccination rates continue.

Indonesia's coronavirus death toll topped 100,000 on Wednesday as the country struggles to control the spread of the Delta variant. The impact of the pandemic can be seen at the Rorotan public cemetery, one of the biggest Covid burial sites in the nation.