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KINSHASA, DR Congo (AFP) – Uganda launched air strikes and artillery attacks targeting the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebel group in eastern DR Congo on Tuesday, in an operation agreed with Congolese forces, both sides said. “As announced, targeted and concerted action with the Ugandan army started today with air strikes and artillery fire from Uganda against positions of the terrorist ADF in the DRC,” Congolese government spokesman and Communications Minister Patrick Muyaya wrote on […]
BARCELONA, Spain (AFP) – A fire ripped through an abandoned bank occupied by squatters in central Barcelona on Tuesday, killing four people, including a baby and a three-year-old boy, Spanish firefighters said. “While we were battling the fire, we found four people. Emergency services tried to revive them but unfortunately they failed, they could not do anything to save them,” the head of the firefighting operation, Angel Lopez, told reporters. Firefighters rescued four other people who […]
by Kareem Smith Agence France-Presse BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (AFP) – The Caribbean island nation of Barbados will on Monday night sever centuries-old ties to the British monarchy, ditching Queen Elizabeth II as head of state and declaring itself the world’s newest republic. The Royal Standard flag that represents the queen will be lowered in the capital Bridgetown and — at midnight (0400 GMT) — the current governor-general, Dame Sandra Mason, will be inaugurated as the first president. […]
HONG KONG, China (AFP) — Asian equity and oil traders were sent running Tuesday after the head of Moderna warned current coronavirus vaccines might be less effective at fending off the Omicron variant, fuelling fears that countries could be forced back into economically painful lockdowns. Stocks had mostly been edging up after a two-day sell-off that followed news Friday of the new variant, which some observers said was overdone as billions of people have […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan on Tuesday confirmed its first case of the Omicron coronavirus variant, a day after authorities announced new Covid border restrictions. “Regarding the traveller arriving from Namibia, it was confirmed to be a case of Omicron after analysis at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases,” government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters. “This is the first Omicron case confirmed in Japan,” he said, adding that the infected traveller, a man in […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The US military will re-inforce deployments and bases directed at China and Russia, while maintaining forces in the Middle East adequate to deter Iran and jihadist groups, the Pentagon said Monday, referencing results of a review. The US Defense Department will be upgrading and expanding military facilities in Guam and Australia, underscoring its focus on China as the country’s leading defense rival, officials said. The details of the “global posture […]
by Sofia CHRISTENSEN Agence France Presse JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AFP) — The newly-discovered Omicron variant is likely to fuel a surge in South Africa’s coronavirus cases that could see daily infections treble this week, a top epidemiologist warned Monday. Health monitors reported over 2,800 new infections on Sunday, up from a daily average of 500 in the previous week and 275 the week before. “We can expect that higher transmissibility is likely and so […]
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 […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Health officials said Sunday they had detected the Covid Omicron strain in Australia for the first time in two passengers who were tested after flying into Sydney from southern Africa. The eastern state of New South Wales’ health authority said it had conducted urgent genomic testing and confirmed the new strain was present in the two people who landed in Sydney on Saturday. Both passengers came from southern Africa and arrived […]
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 […]
LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — G7 health ministers were to hold an emergency meeting Monday on the new Omicron Covid-19 strain spreading the globe and forcing border closures, as experts race to understand what the variant means for the fight to end the pandemic. The meeting was called by G7 chair Britain, which is among a steadily growing number of countries detecting cases of the heavily mutated new strain. Omicron, first discovered in southern Africa, […]
GABORONE, Botswana (AFP) –Botswana, the only African country outside South Africa to have reported Omicron cases, said Sunday it had detected 19 infections of the new Covid variant, including the first four declared last week. “As of today we have recorded a total of 19 cases of the variant,” Health Minister Edwin Dikoloti said at a press conference in the capital Gaborone. The southern African country had on Friday declared that the highly-mutated variant was […]
