Life

Israeli firm in Gaza extracts drinking water from air

by Guillaume Lavallee Agence France-Presse GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories (AFP) — The densely populated Gaza Strip has long lacked sufficient drinking water, but a new project helps ease the shortage with a solar-powered process to extract potable water straight from the air. Unusually, the project operating in the Islamist-run Palestinian enclave, which has been blockaded by Israel since 2007, is the brainchild of a Russian-Israeli billionaire, Michael Mirilashvili. The company he heads, Watergen, has developed […]

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Mexican fisherman dies after clash with conservationists

TIJUANA, Mexico (AFP) — A Mexican fisherman has died after his vessel collided with a boat of the US conservation group Sea Shepherd in a sanctuary for the endangered vaquita porpoise, an official said Monday. The fisherman was hospitalized on December 31 in the northwestern city of Mexicali with serious injuries including hip and pelvic fractures, regional health chief Alonso Perez told AFP. A second fisherman is in a stable condition, he said. According to […]

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Race to save Bangladesh hound from extinction

by Shafiqul ALAM Agence France-Presse SARAIL, Bangladesh (AFP) — In a rickety hut on the border with Bangladesh and India, two brothers are among the last local breeders of the Sarail hound, a dog on the brink of extinction. Tall and lean with a powerful chest, pointed ears and bi-coloured fur, the rare hound — named after the border town of Sarail — has been treasured in the South Asian nation for centuries. Their sharp eyesight […]

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US extends Iraq sanctions waiver for further 3 months

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AFP) — The US has granted Iraq a three-month extension to a sanctions waiver allowing it to import Iranian gas, an Iraqi official told AFP Monday. The move represents a welcome reprieve for a country that relies heavily on its neighbour for energy supplies. Iraq buys gas and electricity from Iran to supply about a third of its power sector, worn down by years of conflict and poor maintenance and unable to meet […]

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WHO validates Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for emergency use against COVID-19

WHO criteria for safety and efficacy met   (Eagle News) — The World Health Organization (WHO) has given emergency validation to the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccine, the first vaccine against COVID-19 to receive such a validation from WHO since the pandemic. This was after WHO listed the Comirnaty COVID-19 mRNA vaccine for emergency use. The Comirnaty vaccine requires storage using an ultra-cold chain and needs to be stored at -60°C to -90°C degrees, makes the deployment […]

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AstraZeneca/Oxford Covid vaccine approved for use in UK

  by James PHEBY Agence France Presse LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — Britain on Wednesday became the first country in the world to approve AstraZeneca and Oxford University’s low-cost Covid vaccine, raising hopes it will help tackle rising cases and ease pressure on creaking health services. The independent Medicines and Healthcare products and Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said the vaccine “met its strict standards of safety, quality and effectiveness”, and a roll-out was set for January […]

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China’s Sinopharm says vaccine ‘79% effective’ against Covid-19

  BEIJING, China (AFP) — Phase 3 trials of a Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine found it was 79 percent effective, the Chinese pharma giant said Wednesday, lower than rival jabs developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna but a potential breakthrough in the battle to stem the pandemic in Asia. China has been racing against the West to develop its own Covid-19 vaccines, with five already in large-scale Phase 3 clinical trials. But Wednesday’s announced was the first […]

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From the lab to the jab: how BioNTech-Pfizer won the vaccine race

by Hui Min NEO with Yannick PASQUET in Hamburg and Michelle FITZPATRICK and Yann SCHREIBER in Mainz Agence France Presse BERLIN, Germany (AFP) — It was over breakfast on the wintry morning of January 24 that Ozlem Tureci and her husband Ugur Sahin decided, “we need to fire the starting gun on this”. Sahin “had concluded from a publication describing coronavirus cases in Wuhan… that there was a high probability that a pandemic could be […]

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Virus strain to cause more deaths in Britain; mutated COVID strain 56% more contagious -study

  PARIS, France (AFP) — A mutated coronavirus strain spreading in Britain is on average 56 percent more contagious than the original version, scientists have warned in a study, urging a fast vaccine rollout to help prevent more deaths. The new variant, which emerged in southeast England in November and is spreading fast, is likely to boost hospitalisations and deaths from Covid next year, according to the study published Wednesday by the Centre for Mathematical […]

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Telegram messaging app to launch pay-for services in 2021

  MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — Encrypted messaging app Telegram will launch pay-for services in 2021, its Russian-born founder Pavel Durov said Wednesday, as the growing company needed “at least a few hundred million dollars per year”. “Telegram will begin to generate revenue, starting next year,” Durov said in a statement. “We will be able to launch countless new features and welcome billions of new users.” Durov, 36, said he did not plan to sell the […]

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Virus hunters delve into Gabon forest in search for next threat

by Adrien MAROTTE ZADIE CAVE, Gabon (AFP) — The scene looks like something out of a science fiction movie, or maybe some dystopian TV series. Six men in yellow biohazard suits clamber in suffocating heat towards a cave in the heart of the Gabonese jungle. Their quest: to unlock new knowledge on how pathogens like coronavirus leap the species barrier to humans. In the cave is their goal — a colony of bats. “Our job […]

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Jupiter and Saturn cheek-to-cheek in rare celestial dance

by Juliette COLLEN PARIS, France (AFP) — The solar system’s two biggest planets, Jupiter and Saturn, came within planetary kissing range in Monday’s evening sky, an intimacy that will not occur again until 2080. This “great conjunction”, as it is known to astronomers, occurred fortuitously on the winter solstice for those in the Northern Hemisphere and the beginning of summer in the global south. The two planets were, in fact, more than 730 million kilometers […]

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