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GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The WHO said its emergency committee would meet Tuesday to discuss whether the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo still constitutes an international health emergency after fresh cases were detected. The meeting comes a day after DR Congo had been expected to announce that the outbreak in the east of the country that began in August 2018 was over. The epidemic has killed 2,276 people to date. For […]
TEHRAN, Iran (AFP) –Iran said on Tuesday that the number of lives lost in the country to the novel coronavirus dropped to double figures for the first time in one month. Health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said 98 deaths from the COVID-19 disease were recorded in the past 24 hours, bringing the overall toll to 4,683. “Unfortunately, we lost 98 of our compatriots infected with the disease… but after a month of waiting, this is […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — China has approved clinical trials for two more experimental vaccines to combat the novel coronavirus, officials said Tuesday, as the world’s scientists race to beat the pandemic. The vaccines use inactivated coronavirus pathogens, and the approvals pave the way for early-stage human trials, Wu Yuanbin, an official from China’s Ministry of Science and Technology told a regular press briefing. China’s state food and drug administration on Monday approved one vaccine developed […]
ADIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AFP) — Swarms of locusts in Ethiopia have damaged 200,000 hectares (half a million acres) of cropland and driven around a million people to require emergency food aid, the United Nations said Monday. The findings from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which recently concluded a joint assessment with the Ethiopian government, come as the region is bracing for new swarms that could be even more destructive. Billions of desert locusts, […]
ROME, Italy (AFP) — Italy’s death toll from the novel coronavirus topped 20,000 on Monday but its number of critically ill patients dropped for the 10th successive day. The 566 new deaths reported by the civil protection service take Italy’s fatalities total to 20,465 — officially second in the world behind the United States. The drop in patients in intensive care from a peak of 4,068 on April 3 to 3,260 on Monday confirmed a […]
by Alice RITCHIE Agence France Presse LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — The British government warned Monday it would not be lifting a nationwide lockdown anytime soon as the country remains in the grip of a coronavirus outbreak that has claimed more than 11,000 lives. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who is deputizing for Prime Minister Boris Johnson as he recovers from his own bout of COVID-19, said there were some “positive” signs of progress. But he […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — France reported 574 new deaths from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said Monday, bringing the total to 14,967 since the coronavirus outbreak began. A total of 335 of the deaths occurred in hospitals, up from 315 the previous day, while 239 deaths were recorded in nursing homes. For the fifth day in a row, the number of patients in intensive care fell, with 24 fewer people, leaving […]
TRIPOLI, Libya (AFP) — The forces of Libyan military strongman Khalifa Haftar rained rockets on the capital Tripoli early Tuesday after being ousted by government loyalists from a string of towns to its west. Salvo after salvo of rockets caused loud explosions throughout the night, AFP correspondents reported. Several homes were hit around Mitiga airbase in the eastern suburbs, the capital’s sole if intermittently functioning airport. There was no immediate word on any casualties. The […]
SUVA Fiji (AFP) — Tens of thousands of people remain homeless in Vanuatu a week after Tropical Cyclone Harold pummelled the impoverished Pacific nation, smashing houses and destroying crops, aid workers said Tuesday. The cyclone careened through the South Pacific last week, peaking as a Category Five superstorm that gouged a trail of destruction across the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and Tonga. With aid efforts hampered by coronavirus-related travel restrictions, World Vision said up to […]
KIEV, Ukraine (AFP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has promised a $1 million reward to the country’s scientists if they manage to develop a coronavirus vaccine, his spokeswoman said Monday. The ex-Soviet country with a population of around 42 million has confirmed 3,102 cases of COVID-19 and 93 people have died. The president “believes a million dollars is a good incentive,” his spokeswoman Yuliya Mendel said in a statement sent to AFP, with the aim […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korea on Tuesday fired several suspected cruise missiles towards the sea, the South’s military said. The “multiple projectiles” fired from Munchon in the east of the country were believed to be “short-range cruise missiles,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. The test comes a day before the nuclear-armed North marks the 108th anniversary of the birth of its founder Kim Il Sung, grandfather of the current […]
by Abhaya SRIVASTAVA Agence France Presse NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — India’s nationwide coronavirus lockdown, the biggest in the world, will be extended until at least May 3, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Tuesday. The current three-week-old lockdown of the nation of 1.3 billion people had been scheduled to end at midnight Tuesday. “From the economic angle, we have paid a big price,” Modi said in a nationwide address. “But the lives of the people […]
