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by Susan STUMME Agence France-Presse WASHINGTON DC, United States (AFP) — For many Americans, checking the mailbox is a daily ritual, a constant in a quickly changing world that can yield anything from wedding invitations to tax audits to new clothes. But as with many ordinary things as the coronavirus crisis unfolds, the US Postal Service — already compromised by a mountain of debt — has a most uncertain future. “The Postal Service is holding on […]
by Dave CLARK Agence France-Presse BRUSSELS, Belgium (AFP) — Prominent French intellectual, Bernard-Henri Levy, argues that the coronavirus epidemic is not an unprecedented health threat but that the way societies are responding is both new and dangerous. In an AFP interview, the 71-year-old philosopher and writer said the so-called “Asian Flu” outbreak in 1957 to 1958 and the “Hong Kong Flu” pandemic of 1968 to 1969 were similar in scale to the current deadly global situation. […]
by Camille LAFFONT Pictures by FLORENT VERGNES Agence France-Presse DZANGA-SANGHA NATIONAL PARK, Central African Republic (AFP) — The prehistoric shape is hard to make out as it moves slowly through the gloomy forest, so trackers listen for the rustle of scales against the leaves to pick up its trail. Their target is the long-tailed pangolin — a little mammal also called the scaly anteater, which will be lucky to survive to the end of this century. […]
by Victoria LOGUINOVA-YAKOVLEVA Agence France-Presse MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) —A vast and contentious network of facial recognition cameras keeping watch over Moscow is now playing a key role in the battle against the spread of the coronavirus in Russia. The city rolled out the technology just before the epidemic reached Russia, ignoring protests and legal complaints over sophisticated state surveillance. Since last month, thousands of Muscovites have been confined to their homes for 14 days of compulsory […]
by Alice RITCHIE / Phil HAZLEWOOD / Joe JACKSON Agence France-Presse London, United Kingdom (AFP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government on Tuesday unveiled a huge package of support for businesses to help them survive the introduction of tough new social measures to stem the coronavirus outbreak. The Conservative leader said Britain needed to act “like any wartime government”, as finance minister Rishi Sunak unveiled a £330 billion ($400 billion, 363 billion euros) package of […]
PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AFP) — The Czech premier, whose country depends on nuclear energy and coal, said Monday the European Union should shelve its landmark green law seeking carbon neutrality as it battles the novel coronavirus. “Europe should forget about the Green Deal now and focus on the coronavirus instead,” Prime Minister Andrej Babis told reporters, without explaining how the two are connected. “Europe is now the biggest epicenter of the coronavirus in the world,” the […]
Singapore, Singapore (AFP) — Oil prices extended the gloom on Monday after a Saudi-Russian price war and an equities meltdown sparked by the coronavirus pandemic saw their biggest weekly losses in more than a decade. US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) briefly fell below $30 a barrel, or 5.5 percent, in morning Asian trade before regaining its footing. It was trading at $31.14 a barrel at around 0200 GMT, down nearly two percent from Friday’s […]
By Alice RITCHIE Agence France-Presse London, United Kingdom (AFP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday called for urgent action to deal with global warming, after his ex-climate envoy warned his own plans for UN talks later this year were “miles off track”. In a speech ahead of the COP 26 talks in Glasgow in November, Johnson said the evidence of climate change was “overwhelming”. At an event with naturalist and broadcaster David Attenborough, he called […]
by Hamza Mekouar Agence France-Presse CASABLANCA, Morocco (AFP) — From Casablanca to Algiers via Tunis, the chants belted out across football stadiums echo young North African fans’ frustrations not connected to the highs and lows of the beautiful game. Chants of “F’bladi delmouni!” (“Oppressed in my country!”) at the demonstrations that have been commonplace in Algeria since last year originated on the noisy terraces manned by the ultras of Morocco’s Raja Casablanca. The song of […]
by Guillaume Lavallee with Michael O’Hagan in Entebbe Agence France-Presse JERUSALEM, Undefined (AFP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Sudan’s leader Monday to discuss normalizing ties, his office said, a potentially landmark step that caught Khartoum by surprise and was denounced by the Palestinians. Netanyahu’s office said he met Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, chairman of the ruling sovereign council in fast-changing Sudan, in the Ugandan city of Entebbe. Israel remains technically at war with Sudan, which […]
by Rob Lever Agence France-Presse WASHINGTON, D.C., United States (AFP) — Facebook’s massive settlement in a class action case over violating a state law on how it uses facial recognition is being hailed as a watershed moment for “biometric privacy.” The leading social network said Wednesday it agreed to the $550 million payout after failing to win dismissal of the case alleging it illegally collected biometric information for “face tagging” in violation of a 2008 Illinois […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — The French parliament on Thursday passed a law forbidding retailers from destroying unsold clothes and banning single-use plastic containers by 2040, part of the government’s efforts to reduce waste. The bill adopted by the Senate, after being cleared by the lower house National Assembly last week, bans fast-food restaurants from serving food that is not for takeaway in plastic containers beyond 2023. All single-use plastic packaging will be banned 17 years […]
