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MONTREAL, Canada (AFP) — The premier of Quebec, Francois Legault, on Wednesday ordered the first pandemic curfew in Canada, as part of new lockdown measures to slow the spread of a second wave of Covid-19. The lockdown and 8:00 pm to 5:00 am (0100 to 1000 GMT) curfew will take effect starting Saturday and last four weeks, Legault told a news conference. © Agence France-Presse
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — Nuclear-armed North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un vowed to strengthen its military capabilities at a key ruling party meeting, state media reported Thursday, just weeks before Joe Biden’s inauguration as US president. In his work report to the Workers’ Party congress Kim pledged to place “the state defense capabilities on a much higher level, and put forth goals for realizing it”, the official Korean Central News Agency said. After an […]
by Beiyi Seow and Jing Xuan Teng BEIJING, China (AFP) — An expert mission to China to probe the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic was in disarray Wednesday after Beijing denied entry to the World Health Organization team at the last minute despite months of painstaking negotiations. Ten experts were due to arrive in China this week for the delicate, highly politicized task of establishing how and where the virus jumped from animals to humans. […]
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AFP) — The EU’s drug regulator met for the second time this week on Wednesday to discuss whether to authorize Moderna’s coronavirus jab as criticism mounts of the bloc’s slow vaccine rollout. The approval of a second vaccine after Pfizer-BioNTech’s got the green light in December would be a shot in the arm for Europe, which is lagging behind the United States, Britain and Israel. The Amsterdam-based European Medicines Agency brought forward […]
MADRID, Spain (AFP) — An 89-year-old woman died and another 18 pensioners were hospitalized, some with severe burns, after a fire ripped through an elderly care residence in Spain, rescuers said Wednesday. The blaze began late on Tuesday at the care home in the southern city of Seville, with some 170 police, medics and rescuers involved in the operation in which another 78 residents had to be rehoused, the emergency services said in a statement. […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — Travel has been restricted to a northern Chinese city of 11 million people and schools closed as authorities Wednesday moved to snuff out a cluster of Covid-19 after dozens were infected. Ten major highways leading into the city of Shijiazhuang, around 300 kilometers (200 miles) south of Beijing, have been closed and a bus terminus was closed in an attempt to prevent the virus from spreading beyond the city in Hebei […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Republican former US president George W. Bush will attend the inauguration of Democrats Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in Washington on January 20, his chief of staff said Tuesday. “President and Mrs. Bush look forward to returning to the Capitol for the swearing in of President Biden and Vice President Harris,” Freddy Ford tweeted. “Witnessing the peaceful transfer of power is a hallmark of our democracy that never gets old,” […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US President Donald Trump has confirmed he will address a rally of his supporters Wednesday in Washington, called in protest at the certification by Congress of Joe Biden’s election victory. “I will be speaking at the SAVE AMERICA RALLY tomorrow on the Ellipse at 11AM Eastern (1600 GMT),” tweeted the Republican, who refuses to concede defeat two months after the November vote. “Arrive early,” Trump urged — promising “BIG CROWDS!” […]
by Sunghee Hwang SEOUL, SOuth Korea (AFP) — North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un admitted there had been mistakes in developing the country’s economy as he opened a rare congress of the ruling Workers’ Party, state media reported Wednesday. The gathering is the first of its kind in five years, only the eighth in the nuclear-armed North’s history, and comes weeks before US President-elect Joe Biden takes office. Relations with Washington have been deadlocked since […]
TEHRAN, Iran (AFP) — Iran confirmed Tuesday its first case of a new Covid-19 variant first detected in Britain, as daily deaths dropped below 100 for the first time in over six months. “Sadly, the first instance of the mutated British Covid-19 was detected in one of our compatriots who had arrived from England,” Health Minister Saeed Namaki said in a televised address. The patient was admitted to “a private hospital, and our extensive […]
by AFP correspondents ALA-ULA, Qatar (AFP) — Qatar’s leader arrived in Saudi Arabia Tuesday, greeted by de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with a tight embrace, ahead of a summit that could yield more breakthroughs in a regional crisis. Saudi Arabia led a coalition of countries in the Gulf and beyond that cut ties and transport links with Qatar in June 2017, charging that it was too close to Iran and backed radical […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korea will send a government delegation to Iran “at the earliest possible date” to negotiate the release of a seized oil tanker and its crew, Seoul’s foreign ministry said Tuesday. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Monday it had seized the South Korean-flagged Hankuk Chemi in Gulf waters “due to the repeated infringement of maritime environmental laws”. It said the vessel was carrying 7,200 tonnes of “oil chemical products”. The arrested […]
