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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) — At least two people were killed in a 5.3-magnitude earthquake that shook southwestern Haiti early Monday, officials told AFP, with the tremor followed by several aftershocks. In Anse-a-Veau, a small coastal town 130 kilometers (80 miles) west of the capital Port-au-Prince, a woman died when a wall collapsed. In Fonds-des-Negres, 20 kilometers further south, the second death was caused by a landslide. In the Nippes district, where the epicenter of the […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Seven US sailors were injured Monday in a Navy F-35C fighter “landing mishap” on an aircraft carrier in the South China Sea, the Navy said. The accident occurred while the F-35C Lightning II, a stealth combat aircraft, was attempting to land on the USS Carl Vinson during routine flight operations, the US Pacific Fleet said in a statement. The pilot of the aircraft was in stable condition after ejecting and […]
FRANKFURT, Germany (AFP) — A gunman injured several people in a shooting inside a lecture hall at Heidelberg University in southwestern Germany on Monday, police said, adding that the perpetrator was now dead. “A lone perpetrator injured several people in a lecture hall with a long gun. The perpetrator is dead,” Mannheim police said in a statement. A major police operation was under way at the university’s Neuenheimer Feld campus, they added on Twitter, urging […]
ATHENS, Greece (AFP) — Snowfall blanketed much of Greece on Monday, closing schools, vaccination centres and parliament in Athens, causing blackouts in mountain villages and falling as far south as the island of Crete. Temperatures plummeted to -14 degrees Celsius (6.8 Fahrenheit) overnight as the front dubbed ‘Elpis’ (the Greek word for hope) brought the first snow of the winter to central Athens. Parliament was suspended, schools were shut down across the greater Athens area […]
GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) –The head of the World Health Organization said on Monday that the planet can end the Covid-19 emergency this year, although the virus last week killed someone every 12 seconds. “We can end Covid-19 as a global health emergency and we can do it this year,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the UN health agency’s executive board. To do so, countries need to work harder to ensure equitable access to vaccines and treatment, […]
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AFP) — The Omicron variant has moved the Covid-19 pandemic into a new phase and could bring it to an end in Europe, the WHO Europe director said Sunday. “It’s plausible that the region is moving towards a kind of pandemic endgame,” Hans Kluge told AFP in an interview, adding that Omicron could infect 60 percent of Europeans by March. Once the current surge of Omicron currently sweeping across Europe subsides, “there […]
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AFP) — Two ballistic missiles fired by Yemen’s Huthi rebels have been intercepted and destroyed over the United Arab Emirates, the defence ministry said on Monday. “The attack did not result in any casualties, while the remnants of the intercepted and destroyed ballistic missiles fell in separate areas around the Emirate of Abu Dhabi,” a statement said. The ministry added that it was “ready to deal with any threats” and […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — One of China’s longest coronavirus lockdowns since the start of the pandemic came to an end on Monday as authorities announced the lifting of most restrictions in the northern megacity of Xi’an. The historic city’s 13 million residents had been confined to their homes since December 22 after the discovery of a Covid-19 cluster that grew to over 2,100 cases — China’s largest local outbreak in months. With the Winter Olympics […]
NUKU’ALOFA, Tonga (AFP) – The Tonga volcanic eruption unleashed explosive forces that dwarfed the power of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, NASA scientists have said, as survivors on Monday described how the devastating Pacific blast “messed up our brains”. The NASA Earth Observatory said the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano spewed debris as high as 40 kilometres (25 miles) into the atmosphere during the January 15 eruption that triggered huge tsunami waves. “We think the amount of […]
by Pierre-Henry DESHAYES Agence France-Presse OSLO, Norway (AFP) – Taliban and Western diplomats meet in Oslo on Monday for talks on Afghanistan’s humanitarian crisis and human rights, especially those of women whose freedoms have been curbed by the hardline Islamists. In their first visit to Europe since returning to power in August, the Taliban will meet representatives of the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Italy, the European Union and Norway. The Taliban delegation is headed […]
BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) — Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-cha will this week make the first visit by a Thai leader to Saudi Arabia in more than 30 years following decades of diplomatic tension sparked by a jewel theft from a Saudi palace. Thai-born janitor Kriangkrai Techamong stole $20 million worth of precious gems in 1989 from the home of a Saudi prince, triggering a feud between the countries dubbed the “Blue Diamond Affair” that has yet […]
by Inès BEL AIBA WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Waving signs denouncing President Joe Biden and calling for “freedom,” several thousand people demonstrated in Washington Sunday against what some described as the “tyranny” of Covid-19 vaccine mandates in the United States. Speaker after speaker — including notorious anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust — took to the microphone in front of the white marble Lincoln Memorial to decry the […]
