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Hundreds of firefighters fought fires that have devoured record numbers of woodlands in Greece on Saturday and left hundreds of families homeless, but heavy rains brought respite to hard-hit Turkey. More than 1,450 Greek firefighters backed by at least 15 aircraft were battling the blazes, with reinforcements arriving from abroad, the fire service said. In Pefkofyto, in the north of Athens, pensioner Tasos Tsilivakos struggled to contain his tears. “This is a horrible disaster,” he […]
LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — US authorities said Saturday they were searching for five people missing as a huge wildfire raged in northern California, leaving two towns in little more than cinders. The Dixie Fire, the largest active wildfire in the United States, recently became the third-largest in California history. As of Saturday it had blackened 446,723 acres (180,782 hectares) in four counties, up from the previous day’s 434,813 and surpassing the vast […]
by Josh EDELSON Agence France Presse Greenville, United States (AFP) — A huge wildfire tearing through northern California became the third-largest in the state’s history Friday, and looked set to continue growing. A long-term drought that scientists say is driven by climate change has left the western United States parched — and vulnerable to explosive and highly destructive fires. The Dixie Fire, which this week razed the Gold Rush town of Greenville, has torched […]
by Kadir DEMIR IKIZCE, Turkey (AFP) — They grabbed their rakes, shovels and axes, donned high-vis helmets and went off into the mountains, helping exhausted firefighters battling Turkey’s deadly blazes pick their way through unfamiliar terrain. Residents of the rolling hills and pine forests hugging the Mediterranean and Aegean coasts have turned into the unsung heroes of Turkey’s battle against its deadliest and most destructive wildfires in generations. “You see that little fire over there? […]
BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) — Thai police fired tear gas and rubber bullets Saturday at hundreds of protesters in Bangkok demanding political reform and calling for a change to the country’s coronavirus vaccination program. Demonstrators defied restrictions on public gatherings introduced as Thailand battles its worst outbreak of the virus to call for Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha to quit. The Thai government has come under fire for the sluggish rollout of its covid vaccination programme, and […]
NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — India gave emergency approval to Johnson and Johnson’s single-shot coronavirus vaccine Saturday to ramp up its flailing immunization campaign as fears grow of a new wave of infections. Health minister Mansukh Mandaviya said the approval will boost the fight against the pandemic in India, where at least 200,000 people died in a brutal two-month wave up to mid-June. “India expands its vaccine basket! Johnson and Johnson’s single-dose COVID-19 vaccine is […]
by Juliette MICHEL NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, slaughterhouses to airlines, more American firms are demanding their employees get Covid-19 vaccines to return to the workplace, and are willing to fire them if they violate the rule. CNN news network terminated three employees who flouted the policy and went to work without being immunized against the coronavirus. “Let me be clear — we have a zero-tolerance policy on […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Half of the US population is now fully vaccinated against Covid-19, the White House said Friday, as inoculations rise in response to the surging Delta variant of the coronavirus. “50% of Americans (all ages) are now fully vaccinated. Keep going!” Cyrus Shahpar, the White House’s Covid-19 data director, tweeted. That means more than 165 million people have received either the two-dose Moderna or Pfizer vaccine, or the one-and-done Johnson & […]
by Gerard Martinez MIAMI, United States (AFP) — Greater numbers of American children are being swept up in a wave of coronavirus infections driven by the Delta variant, causing renewed anxiety for parents and a bitter political fight as schools prepare to reopen within weeks. Much of the surge is concentrated in the southeastern state of Florida, where some school districts are defying an order by the Republican governor forbidding mask mandates, in the latest […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australia’s state of New South Wales reported another record day of Covid-19 cases Saturday, as authorities in the country’s second city of Melbourne rushed to trace the source of its outbreaks. Australia’s three largest cities were in lockdown on Saturday, as New South Wales recorded 319 community cases of the virus and five more deaths — a third straight day of record case numbers. With the virus continuing to spread through […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — More than a thousand homes were damaged and about 5,000 people evacuated in North Korea after flooding caused by heavy rains, the country’s state broadcaster reported, with swathes of farmland also inundated by the deluge. The TV report comes as the impoverished North in June admitted it was tackling a food crisis, sounding the alarm in a country with a moribund agricultural sector that has long struggled to feed itself. […]
OTTAWA, Canada (AFP) — Canada’s economy created 94,000 jobs in July and the unemployment rate fell to 7.5 percent as Covid-19 restrictions were eased, Statistics Canada reported Friday. This 0.3 percentage point drop followed a decline of 0.4 points in June, and increases in April and May. The jobless rate peaked at 9.4 percent in January of this year, the agency said. Long-term unemployment remained higher than in February 2020 before the pandemic and accounted […]
