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by Claire LEE SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — The jailed de facto leader of the giant Samsung group walked free on parole Friday, the latest instance of South Korea’s long tradition of freeing business leaders imprisoned for corruption or tax evasion on economic grounds. Lee Jae-yong — the 202nd richest person in the world according to Forbes, with a net worth of $11.4 billion — was serving a two-and-a-half year prison sentence for bribery, embezzlement […]
MADRID, Spain (AFP) — Firefighters battled three wildfires in Spain on Thursday as a heatwave that has enveloped southeastern Europe in recent days shifted west towards the Iberian peninsula. Dozens of firefighters backed by four water-dropping aircraft were on the scene of a blaze in the northeastern province of Tarragona which has so far destroyed some 40 hectares (100 acres) of protected forest, local officials said. Two smaller fires were burning in the northern wine-producing […]
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AFP) — Argentina on Thursday began distributing the first batch of more than one million doses of the Russian Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine produced domestically. The South American country announced in June that a local pharmaceutical company would manufacture the vaccine using an antigen provided by the Moscow-based maker of Sputnik. So far Laboratorios Richmond, the pharmaceutical company tasked with the effort, has produced 995,000 units of the first dose and 152,000 […]
by Dmitry ZAKS ISTANBUL, Turkey (AFP) — Turkish rescuers distributed food and relocated thousands of people into student dormitories Thursday as the death toll from flash floods that swept across several Black Sea regions rose to 17. The torrential rains descended on Turkey’s northern stretches just as rescuers reported bringing hundreds of wildfires that have killed eight people under near total control in the south. Turkey has been grappling with drought and reeling from a […]
MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — A woman was killed and at least 17 other people injured in an explosion on a bus in western Russia, local authorities said early Friday. Several of the wounded were in serious condition. “So far there is nothing to indicate that this was a terrorist attack,” Sergei Sokolov deputy governor of Voronezh, where the explosion occurred, told the Interfax news agency. The bus driver told state-owned Russia-24 news channel that there […]
by Michel COMTE / with Anne-Sophie THILL in Montreal OTTAWA, Canada (AFP) — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to pull the plug on his minority Liberal government and call snap elections on Sunday despite a nationwide uptick in Covid infections that is worrying voters. Trudeau is to visit the governor general to ask her to dissolve parliament and announce voting will be held on September 20, according to public broadcaster CBC and other […]
by Robin MILLARD GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The WHO on Thursday urged China to share raw data from the earliest Covid-19 cases to revive the pandemic origins probe — and release information to address the controversial lab leak theory. The World Health Organization stressed it was “vitally important” to uncover the origins of the worst pandemic in a century, which has killed at least 4.3 million people and battered the global economy since the virus […]
LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Police in England said there had been “a number of fatalities” in a “serious firearms incident” Thursday in the southwestern city of Plymouth. Devon and Cornwall Police said it had declared a “critical incident” in the Keyham area of Plymouth early Thursday evening but that officers believed it was now “contained”. Local lawmaker Johnny Mercer said the shootings were not terror related. Police had responded alongside other emergency services, including […]
ROME, Italy (AFP) — Italian firefighters said Thursday they had battled more than 500 blazes overnight as another death was reported, taking the total toll linked to wildfires to four over the past week. An anticyclone dubbed Lucifer is sweeping across Italy, sending temperatures soaring and causing what is believed to be a new European record of 48.8 degrees Celsius (119.8 Fahrenheit) in Sicily on Wednesday. Southern Europe has experienced intense heatwaves and wildfires this […]
JERUSALEM, Undefined (AFP) — Israel is to require Covid tests from next week for children as young as three to enter schools, swimming pools, hotels or gyms as infections surge despite extensive adult vaccinations. Israel already required children aged 12 and over to show a Green Pass re-introduced late last month showing a person’s vaccination and testing status and whether they had recovered from Covid. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said from next Wednesday the state […]
HELSINKI, Finland (AFP) — Limits on public gatherings will be tightened in the Finnish capital as the country’s infection rates hit a new daily high, health chiefs said on Thursday. Despite enjoying some of Europe’s lowest incidence rates during much of the pandemic, cases in Finland have been surging in recent weeks, with a record 1,024 new infections on Wednesday, public health agency THL said. The Nordic nation of 5.5 million has so far recorded […]
by Yannick Pasquet ATHENS, Greece (AFP) — Rain overnight in wildfire-ravaged areas of Greece have helped “improve the situation” on Thursday, a local mayor said, but hundreds of firefighters were still battling to contain new flare-ups. Fires fanned by Greece’s most severe heatwave in decades — which authorities have blamed on climate change — have burnt through nearly 100,000 hectares over the last fortnight, leaving three dead, hundreds homeless, thousands forced to evacuate, and economic […]
