As we told you earlier quarantine measures could be reintroduced for people arriving to the UK from Portugal amid a rise in coronavirus cases there.

As of 31 August Portugal had 21.1 cases per 100,000 people. Being above 20 per 100,000 is one of the key triggers for a UK quarantine to be imposed. The country was taken off the quarantine list as recently as 22 August.

The graphic below shows how the number of cases in other European holiday destinations. Spain, Croatia and France are already on the UK list.

Image source, Getty Images

Police in Birmingham have broken up an unlicensed music event attended by more than 50 people.

Officers said music equipment was being set up when they arrived at the venue in Lozells at about 01:45 BST.

West Midlands Police said it dealt with about 90 reports of possible breaches of coronavirus restrictions over the weekend. Birmingham is on Public Health England's coronavirus watchlist.

"We are still in a pandemic, these events will not be tolerated," officers from Lozells Police tweeted.

Since Friday, police in England have been able to fine organisers of illegal gatherings of more than 30 people - such as raves - up to £10,000.

One such event included a rave in a Norfolk forest attended by more than 500 people. The unlicensed event started at about 23:20 on Saturday and was closed down at 18:30 on Sunday.

Image source, Reuters

Some encouraging news coming from Germany, Europe's largest economy. The country's recession is expected to be weaker than earlier predicted because of a stronger-than-expected recovery from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier has said.

Recession is now forecast to reach -5.8% for 2020, compared with an earlier projection of -6.3%, Altmaier said.

"The recession in the first half of the year turned out to be less severe than we had feared and the upswing after the low point and the peak of the restrictions is happening faster and more dynamically than we dared hope," he said.

"This shows that the German economy was in good shape before the start of the pandemic and that its forces are strong."

He also said he did not expect the authorities to impose another round of lockdown measures, with restrictions in place able to limit transmission.

The UK is in a recession for the first time in 11 years, and there are some suggestions unemployment could reach three million.

The last time unemployment reached these heights, was in the recession of the 1980s. Our colleague Megan Fisher looks back at the causes and consequences of that recession.

We told you earlier about the charity Save The Children's warning that nearly 70,000 children in sub-Saharan Africa risk dying of extreme hunger before the end of the year as a result of the pandemic.

It says lockdown measures have meant families are facing a serious decline in their livelihoods, and nutritious food is becoming increasingly hard to find, or expensive.

Dr Adelheid Onyango, regional adviser on nutrition at the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa, told the BBC World Service's Newsday programme: "We know that the underlying conditions were already setting us on the path towards this food insecurity because in the eastern and south African region, there were locusts, and there was drought and now, there is some flooding.

"The same thing is happening in the western African region, where in addition to the usual difficulties that we have with food insecurity and health, there is also the insecurity, due to all the political strife that exists there. The activities that put everybody at very high risk."

She says lockdowns and restrictions due to the pandemic have severely affected the ability of the authorities in African countries to get food to children:

"We know from the World Food Programme, for example, that many children in the eastern and southern African region, who depend for a decent meal on the school's feeding programme, are unable to have recourse to this because schools are closed in many cases."

Image source, PA Media

Small businesses are warning of "a huge increase in mass unemployment" if the UK's furlough scheme ends in October as planned with no extension.

Craig Beaumont of the Federation of Small Businesses told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that a million small employers had furloughed staff and 23% were considering redundancies in the next three months.

"This is very, very serious. That's a huge section of the economy," he said. "Sixty per cent of those who work in the private sector do so for a small business, so if that happens without any intervention, then that's a huge increase in mass unemployment."

The UK's support for retaining jobs "looks a little bit short" compared to countries such as France and Germany, said Paul Dales, chief UK economist at Capital Economics.

Last week, Germany agreed to extend a scheme that tops up pay for workers affected by the coronavirus pandemic until the end of 2021.

But Dales said many jobs would not return after the coronavirus crisis and it was important to start "reallocating" workers into roles with a lasting future.

India has reported nearly two million Covid-19 cases in August, the highest monthly tally in the world since the pandemic began.

August was also the worst month for fatalities with 28,000 virus deaths.With 3.6 million confirmed cases, India has the third-highest caseload in the world, after the US and Brazil.

The government continues to lift restrictions to try to boost an economy that lost millions of jobs because of a strict lockdown which began in March. In August, India saw an average of 64,000 cases per day - a 84% hike from average daily cases in July, according to official data.

This number is the highest in the world - for example, the US, which has the most number of cases, saw 47,000 daily cases on average last month. The spike in numbers comes as the country expands its testing amid concerns that the virus has started to spread in many rural areas as well.

Image source, Reuters

Parents in Wales will not be threatened with fines if their children do not return to school at the start of term, the nation's education minister said.

Kirsty Williams told the BBC: "We want to have reassuring conversations with parents, rather than threatening them with fines."

The approach contrasts with that in England, where Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has said parents will face fines "unless there's a good reason for absence".

Williams acknowledged that some parents had been "reluctant" to send children back in the first few days of catch-up sessions at the end of summer.

She said the use of fines would be reviewed as the term progressed.

"At this stage it's absolutely appropriate that we have those conversations to understand why parents may have concerns, why they don't want to send their children back, and to work with parents, school by school, on an individual basis, to reassure them," she said.

Is’haq Khalid
BBC News, Abuja

Doctors in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, have begun an "indefinite" strike over the non-payment of what they call Covid-19 hazard allowances and other benefits since April.

The Association of Resident Doctors said the authorities had failed to fulfil promised to staff working in coronavirus isolation and treatment centres as well as in hospitals. It said the strike comes after the authorities were given a 14-day ultimatum.

The authorities have not yet commented. The doctors say they will not go back to work until their demands are met.

Nigeria has so far confirmed 54,008 coronavirus cases with 41,638 recoveries and 1,013 deaths, according to the country’s Centre for Disease Control.

Abuja is the second-worst hit city after the commercial hub, Lagos. But the country’s number of daily confirmed infections is beginning to decline.

Image source, Getty Images

The travel industry has complained that UK holidaymakers face more "chaos" as Portugal is on the brink of quarantine rules being reimposed.

But how does the government decide which travellers should quarantine and how can you avoid a fortnight's self-isolation after your trip?

The decision is generally triggered when 20 or more people out of every 100,000 in a country are infected over seven days.

But the UK's Joint Biosecurity Centre also looks at things such as trends in infection, how much of the population is currently infectious, clusters of cases and the level of transmission in the community.

People entering the UK from most countries have to quarantine, but you can find out the list of countries that are currently exempt here, external.

Things can change fast, however: cases in Spain rose so rapidly that quarantine was imposed with just five hours' notice. And in other countries, travellers have faced a dash home with around 30 hours' notice to beat the deadline.

When Uganda went into lockdown and schools closed, many private school teachers found they were no longer getting paid.

Many had to look for alternative forms of employment, like street hawking. However the job is not without its challenges, as our colleague Atulinda Allan shows us.

Image source, Getty Images

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has said he is moderately optimistic about the country's economic recovery despite the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking on Tuesday, he said GDP was growing faster than 10% in the third quarter and that partial employment data was very positive.

"The situation is delicate with many uncertainties caused by the pandemic, but the resilience our workers are showing fuels a moderate optimism about the recovery of the country," he told Spanish radio , external(in Spanish).

His comments come after new figures showed the number of foreign tourists visiting Spain fell 75% in July from a year earlier.

One of the top tourist destinations in the world, Spain normally welcomes some 80 million visitors a year, but only saw 2.5 million foreigners in the month of July, the National Statistics Institute said , external(in English).

The country has seen a sharp rise in Covid-19 cases in recent weeks.

Jeremy Hunt, former health secretary and now chair of the House of Commons health committee, said England's public health body - which is being replaced - "basically did what ministers told them to do".

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that it was unfair to blame Public Health England for failings over testing in the early part of the pandemic and it would be "wrong to make them a scapegoat".

The testing issues, a result of focusing on flu pandemics rather than Sars-like viruses, "went back to my time as health secretary", Hunt acknowledged.

But he said it could still be a "positive thing" to reform the public health structures.

Hunt also called for mass testing of secondary teachers every couple of weeks to give them confidence in their safety as they return to work.

Image source, Kemi Oloyede

Many teachers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are heading back to the classroom to see some of their students in person for the first time since March. So how do they feel about this year's return to school?

"I'm ready to go back to work because the students have missed out on a lot due to schools closing down back in March," says Kemi Oloyede, a Londoner who works in a pupil referral unit. "But mentally, because of the anxiety, maybe not so much."

Living with her parents who are classed as being at risk has impacted how she feels about her return. "I won't lie to you, I probably will be wearing a mask in the building and wearing gloves as well. I'm trying to be as safe as safe as I can be."

Image source, Tom Clarke

Geography teacher Tom Clark say it is normal for teachers to feel butterflies before the start of a new term. But this one feels different.

"I don't know how the kids are going to be," he says. "I haven't seen them for six months. I've seen them on screen but I don't know how they are as people."

But the private school teacher says "intensive training" meant that remote learning was a "huge success", so he feels ready if there is another shutdown.

"The idea of doing online learning would have filled me with terror eight months ago but it has become part and parcel of my daily life," he said.

Catherine Byaruhanga
Africa correspondent

Image source, EPA

The charity Save The Children is warning that nearly 70,000 children in sub-Saharan Africa are at risk of dying from extreme hunger before the end of this year.

It says the Covid-19 pandemic is adding to the pressures some families and communities face in accessing food.

The aid organisation says it is already treating an increased number of children suffering from malnutrition at its clinics in east and southern Africa.

Save The Children adds lockdown measures have meant families on the continent are facing a serious decline in their livelihoods, and nutritious food is becoming increasingly hard to find or simply too expensive.

According to its analysis, over 67,000 children could die as a result in 2020. It follows a similar warning by the United Nations’ World Food Programme about rising levels of hunger around the world due to coronavirus.

Before the pandemic, communities most at risk were already facing food insecurity because of floods, displacements and swarms of locusts in East Africa. Providing support to those most vulnerable is also harder with restrictions on movements and funding shortfalls.

Image source, PA Media

From today, companies will have to begin contributing to the wages of workers on the furlough scheme, which has seen the government pay 80% of wages up to a maximum of £2,500 a month.

Now employers will have to pay 10% and the government will contribute the remaining 70%. By the end of October, the scheme is due to end altogether.

Employers have already resumed paying the pension contributions and National Insurance.

In October, the government's contribution to wages will drop to 60% and employers will pay 20%.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has repeatedly ruled out extending the furlough scheme for longer, saying it is "wrong to keep people trapped" in a situation where they have no prospect of returning to work.

Nearly 1.4 million children in Wuhan, eastern China, have gone back to school or nursery in the city where the coronavirus pandemic started in December. The city accounted for nearly 80% of China's total deaths and endured nearly 11 weeks of lockdown from January.

Qing Qing Chen, a journalist for the Chinese newspaper Global Times, described some of the measures in place.

"During the weekend, a lot of schools across the city have taken a series of preventative measures, for example setting up checkpoints at each entrance to the [high school] campus," she told the BBC's Newsday programme.

"And this morning, before the kids go into the school, they have to [have] body temperature checks... Inside the campus, it's not mandatory to wear a mask, but students can always bring them along."

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty

Image source, Getty Images

Schools Minister Nick Gibb has also been on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, where he was asked about calls from the Labour Party and some teachers to delay next year's exams in England, giving students more time to prepare.

He said that the education secretary had asked exams regulator Ofqual to consider the issue in July and a decision was due "very soon".

Gibb also said the government had "nearly 150,000 computers in reserve in those circumstances where there might be a closure" of a school due to an outbreak of the virus. But he said "all schools are open" as term starts.

The survey of teachers about students' lost learning in lockdown found that a quarter did not have the equipment for remote learning, equating to around two million pupils in England.

About 200,000 laptops were distributed to schools during the lockdown.

With about 17% of parents saying they are considering not sending their children back to school as term begins in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, School Minister Nick Gibb insisted schools were "very safe".

"I'd urge parents to send them back to school, help them to catch up on the lost education they'll have inevitably have suffered in the lockdown period," he told BBC Breakfast.

Asked about research suggesting that pupils had lost an average of three months' learning, with poorer children worse affected, Gibb said it was a "concern we’ve had for a long time", adding that the government had provided a £1bn fund for catch-up tuition.

Carole Willis, chief executive of the National Foundation for Educational Research, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the government and school inspectors should not "expect this to be a quick fix and for this to be a long process of learning recovery".

The NFER's survey of teachers found that almost half of pupils would need intensive catch-up.

Willis said the evidence suggested that it could allow students to regain four or five months of additional learning over the year, but she questioned whether £1bn was enough "given the scale of need".

Image source, Reuters

A new school term and a new school year like no other start this morning in many European countries:

• 12.4 million children in France are heading back after a very long summer break. President Emmanuel Macron says the challenges are numerous but he has appealed to everyone to adopt the same responsible approach as they have for months. "Don't be scared!" is the message to parents from Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer. Monday saw new infections in France down to 3,082 - a big drop on last week
• 1 September is traditionally the first day of term across Russia and today is no different. But there will be no traditional celebrations - as the number of infections nationally approaches a million
• In Italy there will be one-metre social distancing in class or face coverings where that is not possible. Capacity on public transport is being increased to 80% to enable students to return to school
• In Belgium, 1.2 million children are going back, with rules requiring no mixing of classes in between lessons, regular ventilation of classrooms and teachers and students wearing masks in the classroom
• It is a new term in Poland too - with 10 rules for safe learning for students, involving compulsory hand-washing and regularing airing of classrooms
• Children in Portugal have another fortnight before they go back to school - but several education groups say the country is not yet ready because the rules are unclear