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by Joe JACKSON LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was embroiled Tuesday in another scandal over his government’s alleged lockdown breaches as police said they were investigating a Downing Street gathering attended by dozens of top officials. In the latest in a string of such allegations, Johnson and others allegedly held a drinks gathering in the garden of his official residence in May 2020 when any in-person socialising was outlawed. An […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan will extend measures barring almost all new foreign arrivals until the end of February and reopen mass-vaccination centres as it battles an Omicron-fuelled coronavirus surge, the government said Tuesday. “We will keep the current border control policy until the end of February while taking necessary measures from a humanitarian viewpoint and considering the national interest,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters. Local media said there would be some new […]
by Matthew Walsh with Jerome Taylor in Hong Kong BEIJING, China (AFP) — Five million residents of a central Chinese city were confined to their homes Tuesday while another megacity shuttered all non-essential businesses, as the country battles a spate of coronavirus outbreaks including from the Omicron variant. Beijing is on high alert as it prepares to host the Winter Olympics next month, sticking to a zero-Covid strategy of targeted lockdowns, border restrictions and lengthy […]
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AFP) — A 6.6-magnitude quake hit off the west coast of Cyprus early Tuesday, the US Geological Survey said. The relatively shallow quake was centered 48 kilometers (30 miles) west-northwest of the town of Polis on the Mediterranean island, the USGS said. © Agence France-Presse
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AFP) — Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Monday that he had caught Covid-19 for a second time and was experiencing mild symptoms. “I inform you that I am infected with Covid-19 and although the symptoms are mild, I will remain in isolation and will only do office work and communicate virtually until I get through it,” he tweeted. Hours earlier the 68-year-old, who rarely wears a face mask, had appeared […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korea fired an “unidentified projectile” into the sea, South Korea’s military said Tuesday, less than a week after Pyongyang reported testing a hypersonic missile. The projectile was fired into the sea east of the peninsula, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement, without giving further details. The launch was also reported by Japan’s coast guard, which said the North had fired a “ballistic missile-like object”. […]
ROME, Italy (AFP) — People in Italy who are not vaccinated against Covid-19 are barred from restaurants or taking domestic flights under new rules which came into force Monday as schools reopened nationwide. Only those who have recently recovered from a coronavirus infection are exempt from the regulations, which represent a further tightening of restrictions in the face of rising infections. The majority of schools opened Monday for a new term under government orders, despite […]
SHANGHAI, China (AFP) — The northern Chinese city of Tianjin on Sunday advised its nearly 14 million people to stay home while it conducted mass Covid testing after a spate of recent cases, including two caused by the Omicron variant, state-controlled media reported. Tianjin emerged as a new area of concern after more than 20 Covid cases were reported there in the last few days, most of them imported from abroad, according to the National […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — China reported more cases of the highly transmissible Omicron coronavirus variant on Monday, with authorities on high alert over flare-ups in major cities just weeks ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics. The emergence of the fast-spreading variant is yet another test of China’s zero Covid strategy, with authorities already battling several outbreaks — including in Xi’an where 13 million city residents were in their third week of lockdown. Fears grew about […]
YANGON, Myanmar (AFP) — A Myanmar junta court on Monday convicted Aung San Suu Kyi of three criminal charges, sentencing her to four years in prison in the latest in a slew of cases against the ousted civilian leader. The Nobel laureate has been detained since February 1 when her government was forced out in an early morning coup, ending Myanmar’s short-lived experiment with democracy. The generals’ power grab triggered widespread dissent, which security forces […]
by Christopher RICKLETON Agence France Presse ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN (AFP) — More than 160 people were reported Sunday to have died in several days of unrest in Kazakhstan and almost 6,000 have been arrested after riots in Central Asia’s largest country. The energy-rich nation of 19 million people has been rocked by a week of upheaval, with a number of foreigners detained over the unrest. A government-run information portal on Sunday said that 164 people […]
JERUSALEM, Undefined (AFP) — Israel could see up to nearly 40 percent of the population infected by coronavirus during the current wave, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Sunday, as testing facilities nationwide buckled. “Data presented at the cabinet meeting indicates that here, in Israel, between two to four million citizens in total will be infected during this current wave,” Bennett wrote on his Twitter account. A country of just 9.4 million, Israel has seen infections […]
