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SAUDADES, Brazil (AFP) — An 18-year-old attacker armed with a samurai-style sword burst into a daycare center in Brazil Tuesday and killed three children and two staff, local police said, leaving the small southern town in shock. The attacker then turned his weapon on himself, gashing his own neck, abdomen and torso, said authorities in Saudades, a town of 10,000 people in Santa Catarina state. “He was taken to the hospital in critical condition,” police […]
BOGOTA, Colombia (AFP) — At least 17 people died and more than 800 were wounded in clashes that broke out in Colombia during five days of protests against a proposed government tax reform, authorities said on Monday. The Ombudsman’s Office said 16 civilians and one police officer died in violence during the protests that began throughout the country on April 28, while 846 people, including 306 civilians, were injured. Authorities have detained 431 people while […]
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AFP) — Shortages of Covid-19 vaccines have forced several large Brazilian cities to suspend administering second doses, officials and media reports said Monday, the latest breakdown in the hard-hit country’s troubled immunization drive. Seven of Brazil’s 26 state capitals have stopped administering the booster shot of Chinese-developed CoronaVac because of a lack of supply, according to news site G1. And Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s second city, announced Saturday it was halting […]
CARACAS, Venezuela (AFP) — Venezuela nearly tripled its minimum wage Saturday but inflation is so outrageous that that amount of money will not even buy a kilo of meat. Labor Minister Eduardo Pinate announced the raise to government supporters at a May Day rally in Caracas. The new monthly minimum wage is seven million bolivares, which is equivalent to $2.50. A kilo (2.2 pounds) of meat in Venezuela costs about $3.75. The once-wealthy oil […]
BRASILIA, Brazil (AFP) — Several thousand Brazilians marched Saturday in support of far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, ignoring a surging pandemic even as government opponents took their own protests online. There were rallies in Brasilia, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, with many demonstrators wearing the yellow, blue and green of the country’s flag. Brazil, with more than 403,000 Covid-19 deaths, is second only to the United States in that grim category, and Bolsonaro faces […]
by Valeria PACHECO / with Andrea PALASCIANO in Moscow BRASILIA, Brazil (AFP) — Brazil’s health regulator said Thursday its decision to reject the Russian-made Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine was based on the developer’s own data, after the latter threatened to sue for defamation. Brazilian regulators’ decision Monday to deny emergency use authorization for the vaccine has blown up into an all-out international row, with Sputnik V’s makers accusing them of “knowingly spreading false and inaccurate […]
BRASILIA, Brazil (AFP) — Brazil’s death toll in the coronavirus pandemic surpassed 400,000 Thursday, as the country struggled to secure enough vaccines and the Senate investigated whether President Jair Bolsonaro’s government has exacerbated the crisis. The health ministry reported 3,001 Covid-19 deaths in the past 24 hours, bringing Brazil’s overall toll to 401,186 — second only to the United States. With 212 million people, the South American giant also has one of the highest mortality […]
CARACAS, Venezuela (AFP) — More than 500 health workers have died in Venezuela since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, a nongovernmental organization said Monday. “The number of deaths in the health sector with criteria for Covid-19 is accelerating. Information is received of 14 new deaths to reach 513,” Medicos Unidos de Venezuela said on Twitter. Since the first cases were reported in March 2020, health care unions and NGOs have decried precarious conditions in […]
BRASILIA, Brazil (AFP) — Brazil’s health regulator on Monday denied a request from several states to import Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, saying it did not have the data needed to verify the jab’s safety and efficacy. “We will never allow millions of Brazilians to be exposed to products without due verification of quality, safety and efficacy, or at minimum, facing the grave situation we are now going through, that the benefits will outweigh the […]
by Margioni BERMÚDEZ BARCELONA, Venezuela (AFP) — Luz Martinez has caught malaria three times, the last of which was when she was six months pregnant with her fourth child. Like many Venezuelans, she fears malaria more than Covid-19. In her dusty neighborhood on the outskirts of Barcelona, in the eastern state of Anzoategui, some people have contracted malaria up to 20 times. “I gave it to my 12-year-old girl and also to my other child […]
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AFP) — Argentina will be the first Latin American country to produce Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, according to Russia’s RDIF sovereign fund, which financed the development of the shot. A deal to this end has been struck with Argentina’s Richmond pharmaceutical company, the fund announced on Tuesday. The vaccine technology has been transferred to Richmond and full-scale production should start in June, RDIF said in a statement. “Sputnik V is approved […]
by Paula RAMON Agence France Presse SAO Paulo, Brazil (AFP) — In almost three decades of working in Sao Paulo’s largest cemetery, the oldest gravediggers can’t remember performing more than 10 night burials. But since the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic swept across Brazil, that exception has become the rule. The vertiginous rise in deaths in Sao Paulo in recent months has forced the mayor of the country’s richest and most populous city […]
