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TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan will reinstate tough border measures, barring all new foreign arrivals over the Omicron Covid variant, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced Monday, just weeks after a softening of strict entry rules. “We will ban the (new) entry of foreigners from around the world starting from November 30th,” Kishida told reporters. Japan’s borders have been almost entirely shut to new overseas visitors for most of the pandemic, with even foreign residents at […]
SINGAPORE, Singapore (AFP) — Singapore and Malaysia eased coronavirus travel restrictions on one of the world’s busiest land borders Monday after nearly two years, allowing some vaccinated people to cross without quarantine. Before the pandemic, about 300,000 people used to commute across the border from Malaysia every day to the neighbouring city-state, to work in areas ranging from public transport to electronics manufacturing. But most travel was halted in March last year, leaving many who […]
The world’s largest vaccine maker Serum Institute of India on Friday resumed exports of Covid-19 shots, it said, in a boost for poorer countries that have struggled to secure supplies. The shipment to Tajikistan under the COVAX vaccine-sharing initiative agreement was the company’s first in seven months. “This will go a long way in restoring vaccine supply equality in the world,” tweeted billionaire chief executive Adar Poonawalla. “It’s a huge moment to begin exports again, […]
by Daniel Woolls with AFP bureaus The United States, Brazil, Canada, and Saudi Arabia became the latest countries Friday to restrict travel from southern Africa, where a new Covid strain labelled a “variant of concern” has been discovered in a potentially heavy blow to the world’s efforts to end the coronavirus pandemic. The World Health Organization said the new variant is more infectious than the dominant, highly transmissible Delta strain, and renamed this B.1.1.529 strain […]
by Paul RICARD Agence France Presse It is, scientists say, the most worrying Covid-19 variant since delta and perhaps ever. Here is what we know — and what we don’t — about the strain thought to have originated in Southern Africa. – How worrying? “This one is worrying and I’ve not said that since delta,” British virologist Ravi Gupta said on Twitter, about the variant labelled B.1.1.529. Concerns among disease experts stem from the variant’s […]
by Agnès PEDRERO Next week’s World Trade Organization ministerial conference, the global trade body’s biggest gathering in four years, was postponed at the last minute Friday due to the new Omicron Covid-19 variant. The WTO hoped the four-day gathering in Geneva would breathe new life into the crippled organisation, which has been stuck for years trying to make progress on resolving issues like fishery subsidies. New director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was also hoping, against the odds, […]
JERUSALEM, Israel (AFP) — Israel has identified a case of a Covid-19 variant with a large number of mutations first detected in South Africa, the health ministry said Friday. “The variant discovered in southern African states has been identified in Israel,” the ministry said, adding it was recorded “in a person who returned from Malawi”. Two more cases were detected in “people returning from abroad”, it said, adding that they had been placed in quarantine. […]
SHANGHAI, China (AFP) — Hundreds of flights were cancelled, some schools shut and tour groups suspended on Friday after three coronavirus cases were reported in Shanghai, as China continues its strict zero-Covid policy. Beijing has largely succeeded in controlling the spread of the coronavirus within its borders through travel restrictions and snap lockdowns, but frequent domestic flare-ups have tested its no-tolerance strategy in recent months. The three positive cases are friends who travelled to the […]
CHONGLI, China (AFP) — At just 11 months old, Wang Yuji can’t even walk, but she is already snowboarding and taking the slopes — and the internet — by storm. The smallest of all the riders at a resort near Beijing, which is set to host the 2022 Winter Olympics in just a few months, Yuji is clipped into tiny boots by her parents and padded out with layers of protective clothing. Once her parents […]
GRAMOTEINO, Russia (AFP) — More than 50 people were reported to have died Thursday after smoke filled a Siberian coal mine and a rescue effort ended in tragedy. Senior managers at the mine in Russia’s Kemerovo region had been detained for suspected safety violations, after the latest deadly accident to hit the country’s vast mining industry. Russian news agencies quoted local authorities as saying that 52 people were dead, including miners and six rescuers who […]
HONG KONG, China (AFP) — Cathay Pacific on Thursday said it will slash passenger flights into Hong Kong next month as the city’s strict travel curbs keep international travellers away while rivals see prospects improve. Hong Kong has maintained some of the world’s harshest quarantine measures and travel restrictions during the pandemic, which has kept infections low but ensured a business hub that dubs itself “Asia’s World City” has been cut off internationally for […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The United States is shipping another four million Covid-19 vaccine doses to Vietnam, the White House said Tuesday, bringing the total of US doses donated globally to nearly 270 million. A senior administration official told AFP that 4,149,990 doses of the Pfizer vaccine are being sent, bringing the total delivered to Vietnam by the United States to 17,589,110 doses. Shipments began Tuesday. Globally, there have now been 268,472,780 doses sent […]
