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by Glenn CHAPMAN SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) — Facebook announced over $9 billion in quarterly profits on Monday, hours after a US news collective published a deluge of withering reports arguing the company prioritizes its growth over people’s safety. The social media giant has been battling a fresh crisis since former employee Frances Haugen leaked reams of internal studies showing executives knew of their sites’ potential for harm, prompting a renewed US push for […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Covid vaccine requirements taking effect next month for people entering the United States by air will not apply to children, a senior US official said Monday. “For children under 18 there is a uniform exemption from that vaccination requirement,” the senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters two weeks ahead of the reopening of US borders to much of the world. The Biden administration announced earlier this […]
NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — Vaccine-reluctant New York firefighters took to the streets Monday to demonstrate against the city’s requirement that they get inoculated against Covid-19 or risk losing their jobs. Several thousand municipal workers, mostly firefighters, marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall in Manhattan carrying placards that read “Do we ask your vaccine status when you call 911?” and “Essential yesterday, unemployed today.” Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio announced last week […]
YANGON, Myanmar (AFP) — Myanmar’s junta threatened on Monday to skip an ASEAN summit after the bloc said the country’s military chief could not attend over doubts about the government’s commitment to defusing a bloody crisis. Myanmar has been in turmoil since the generals ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a February coup, triggering nationwide protests and a violent crackdown on dissent. Earlier this month the Association of Southeast Asian Nations — under […]
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AFP) — The EU’s medicines watchdog said on Monday it had started reviewing an oral Covid medication from the US pharmaceutical firm Merck, raising hopes for an easy-to-administer treatment to reduce serious or deadly cases. The move, which could eventually lead to authorization on the European market, comes two weeks after Merck applied for emergency use in the US of the anti-coronavirus drug. “EMA’s human medicines committee (CHMP) has started a rolling […]
KHARTOUM, Sudan (AFP) — Armed forces detained Sudan’s prime minister over his refusal to support their “coup” on Monday, the information ministry said, after weeks of tensions between the military and civilian figures sharing power since the ouster of autocrat Omar al-Bashir. Civilian members of Sudan’s ruling council and ministers in Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok’s transitional government had also been detained, the ministry said in a statement on Facebook. Internet services were cut across the […]
HONG KONG, China (AFP) — Hong Kong’s decision to pursue a zero-Covid strategy and maintain some of the world’s strictest quarantine measures is hammering the city’s business reputation, the top lobby group for financial firms in the city said Monday. The warning came as a survey showed almost half of major international banks and asset managers are considering moving staff out of the city as they struggle to retain employees or attract fresh talent. Hong […]
MONTREAL, Canada (AFP) — The Canadian coast guard has evacuated 16 people from a burning container ship that is expelling toxic gas off Canada’s Pacific coast, but there is “no safety risk” to those on shore, authorities said Sunday. The Zim Kingston is anchored off the city of Victoria in British Columbia, in the Strait of Juan de Fuca which marks the maritime border between Canada and the United States, according to the marine tracking […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — The Wuhan Marathon, which had been due to take place Sunday, has been postponed at short notice as worries increase over a coronavirus resurgence in China ahead of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. China reported 26 new domestic Covid-19 cases on Sunday, in an outbreak that has become the latest test of the country’s zero-tolerance approach with just over 100 days until the start of the Games. Authorities have been racing […]
BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) — An activist who rose to prominence during Myanmar’s 1988 student uprising has been arrested in an overnight raid, his wife said Sunday, in the latest blow to the anti-junta movement as the military cracks down on dissent. Myanmar has been in turmoil since the generals ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a February coup, triggering nationwide protests that have seen more than 1,100 people killed by security forces, according […]
QUITO, Ecuador (AFP) — An avalanche Sunday on a snow-capped Ecuadoran volcano killed at least four climbers and injured a fifth, officials reported. The avalanche struck a group of about a dozen mountaineers while at an altitude of 6,100 meters (20,000 feet) on the dormant Chimborazo volcano, Ecuador’s highest peak, in the central Andean region, the ECU911 security service said. “The existence of four dead people (and) one injury is confirmed,” the agency said, adding […]
by Huw GRIFFITH with Brian KNOWLTON in Washington Agence France-Presse LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — The police investigation into a fatal shooting with a prop gun fired by actor Alec Baldwin on a film set was focusing Saturday on the specialist in charge of the weapon and the assistant director who handed it to Baldwin. Ukraine-born cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, 42, was struck in the chest and died shortly after the incident Thursday in New […]
