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by Deborah COLE BERLIN, Germany (AFP) — Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet approved a huge emergency aid package Wednesday for flood-stricken regions of Germany and said billions would be needed to rebuild homes, businesses and vital infrastructure. A week into the region’s worst flooding disaster in living memory, which has killed at least 174 in Germany and 32 more Belgium, the right-left “grand coalition” government unlocked some 400 million euros ($470 million) in immediate relief. Half […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has denied he was pressured by the International Olympic Committee into holding a Games that remains deeply unpopular as virus cases surge in Tokyo. And with just days until the opening ceremony, the Japanese leader said Tokyo was “in the right place, and we’re ready to go.” In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the 72-year-old insisted he was “absolutely not” pushed into going ahead […]
KAMPALA, Uganda (AFP) — At least 800 people in Uganda were given fake coronavirus vaccines — some injected with water — in a scam that involved “unscrupulous” doctors and health workers, government officials said Wednesday. The counterfeit jabs were administered over May and June during a deadly surge of the coronavirus in the East African nation, when new infections soared to record highs of about 1,700 cases per day. The fraudsters targeted people looking to […]
NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — New York City will require public hospital workers to get vaccinated or take a weekly coronavirus test, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday as the metropolis faces an uptick in cases fueled by the Delta variant. The order will go into effect from August 2 and apply to the some 30,000 employees in the city’s 11 public hospitals. “This is the first step — everyone should do this now […]
MONTREAL, Canada (AFP) — Thousands of residents fled blazes in western Canada on Wednesday with several hundred soldiers scheduled to deploy to fight this year’s virulent and early fires, which are wreaking havoc across portions of western North America. “I have a holiday trailer that is my new home,” said Margo Wagner, head of a district in the western province of British Columbia, who has found herself among the evacuees. The fire marks the second […]
by Robenson GEFFRARD Agence France Presse Port-au-Prince, Haiti (AFP) — Haiti’s new prime minister Ariel Henry took office Tuesday in the aftermath of the president’s assassination two weeks ago, pledging to improve the country’s dire security and to organize long-delayed elections. Henry was installed as head of a new government in an attempt to stabilize a country on the brink of chaos since the murder of president Jovenel Moise at his residence in the […]
GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The highly contagious Delta variant of Covid-19 is expected to become the dominant strain of the virus over the coming months, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. Delta, which was first detected in India, has now been recorded in 124 territories — 13 more than last week — and already accounts for more than three-quarters of sequenced specimens in many major countries, the WHO said. “It is expected that it will […]
by Michelle FITZPATRICK FRANKFURT, Germany (AFP) — Covid-19 vaccine makers BioNTech and Pfizer on Wednesday said they had found a South African partner to produce their jab on the African continent for the first time. The move comes amid growing criticism of vaccine inequality that has seen poor countries fall behind richer ones in the race to protect people from the coronavirus. Under the agreement, Cape Town-based Biovac will complete the last step in the […]
NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — India recorded more than 45,000 cases of the deadly “black fungus” over the last two months, the health ministry said, as a nationwide outbreak sweeps through Covid-19 patients. The country’s junior health minister Bharati Pravin Pawar told parliament on Tuesday that over 4,200 people had died of the fungus — scientific name mucormycosis. The infection was previously considered very rare but cases have ballooned during the pandemic, usually striking patients […]
by Beiyi SEOW / Laurie CHEN BEIJING, China (AFP) — A manicured hand touches the train carriage window as a brown swirl of floodwater squeezes up against the tunnel outside — one of many scenes of desperation from an underground tragedy shared Wednesday across a stunned Chinese social media. At least twelve died and five others were injured in the subway flood, according to city authorities, as water coursed below ground on Tuesday evening in […]
by Beiyi SEOW / Laurie CHEN BEIJING, China (AFP) — At least 16 people have died after torrential rains caused landslides and flooded a city in central China, with shocking images showing passengers struggling against chest-high water inside a train carriage. As river embankments were breached in record downpours across Henan province, President Xi Jinping described the situation as “extremely severe” with flood control measures entering a “critical stage”, state media reported Wednesday. Around 200,000 […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — Nearly 200,000 people have been evacuated from a flood-hit city in central China, local authorities said Wednesday, as dams burst and rivers bulged across Henan province under torrential rains. “As of 7am on July 21, almost 200,000 people were evacuated in an emergency and 36,000 city residents were affected by the disaster,” authorities in Zhengzhou city, Henan province said. © Agence France-Presse
