Other News

67 million children missed out on vaccines because of Covid: UNICEF

United Nations, United States (AFP) by Amélie BOTTOLLIER-DEPOIS Some 67 million children partially or fully missed routine vaccines globally between 2019 and 2021 because of lockdowns and health care disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the United Nations said Wednesday. “More than a decade of hard-earned gains in routine childhood immunization have been eroded,” read a new report from the UN’s children’s agency, UNICEF, adding that getting back on track “will be challenging.” Of the […]

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Cloudy skies, rain showers expected in parts of the country: PAGASA

(Eagle News) — Cloudy skies and rain showers are expected in parts of the country. The Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration said Metro Manila, in particular, will have partly cloudy to cloudy skies with isolated rain showers or thunderstorms. The rest of the country will experience the same conditions. PAGASA said these were due to the easterlies affecting the eastern sections of Visayas and Mindanao. Meanwhile, the entire country will have light to […]

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Family planning in India: A woman’s burden

Bhoodbaral, India (AFP) by Aishwarya KUMAR Occasional screams sounded from the operating theatre in a rural Indian clinic as a heavily sedated woman named Kajal waited to have her tubes tied, long the country’s preferred family planning method. “The anaesthesia must not have kicked in,” one healthcare worker said outside the facility in the northern village of Bhoodbaral, where a line of women in colourful headscarves waited to undergo the 50-minute procedure, which in India’s […]

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AI-generated song imitating Drake yanked from streaming services

Montreal, Canada (AFP) — A new song created using AI software to imitate Canadian singers Drake and The Weeknd has been removed from streaming services after quickly racking up millions of listens and sparking debate over the new technology. Released last Friday, “Heart On My Sleeve” was briefly available on platforms including Spotify and Apple Music before Universal Music Group (UMG) — which publishes both artists through its Republic Records subsidiary — said it violates […]

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Two Texas cheerleaders shot after one tried to enter wrong car

Washington, United States | AFP | Two cheerleaders were shot in a Texas parking lot after one mistakenly tried to enter the wrong car, part of a spate of similar incidents this week in the United States. The gunman fired multiple shots at the young women, seriously wounding one, police reported. The shooting early Tuesday came days after a Black teenager was shot in Missouri after ringing the wrong doorbell, and a young woman was […]

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Analysis: Foreign players lurk as Sudan generals battle it out

Khartoum, Sudan | AFP | Graphic Content Sudan has degenerated into a battleground for two rival generals, but they are backed by complex webs of international alliances with conflicting interests that could imperil the country’s future, analysts say. Missiles, air strikes and gunfire have been ceaseless in Khartoum since Saturday as army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan wages war with his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who leads the powerful Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group. […]

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Thousands flee ‘bodies on the streets’ in battle-scarred Khartoum

Khartoum, Sudan | AFP | Thousands of residents on Wednesday fled Sudan’s capital, where witnesses said bodies lay in the street from fighting between the army and paramilitaries after a 24-hour truce failed to take hold. Five days of fighting in Khartoum and elsewhere in the northeast African country have killed more than 270 civilians, foreign embassies said Wednesday. Foreign diplomats have been attacked, and United Nations emergency relief coordinator Martin Griffiths said the UN […]

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Russian spy ships planning North Sea sabotage: media report

Stockholm, Sweden | AFP | Wednesday 4/19/2023 A documentary aired by Nordic public broadcasters Wednesday claimed Russia is suspected of having a spy programme in the North Sea planning the sabotage of energy infrastructures in Northern Europe. The Kremlin on Wednesday dismissed the media claims as a “mistake” and “without basis”, reiterating its appeal for “a transparent and impartial international inquiry” into the sabotage of the Baltic Sea Nord Stream gas pipelines in September 2022. […]

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Water rationed in Catalonia as drought bites deeper

  L’ Espluga de Francolí, Spain | AFP | by Rosa SULLEIRO For months, residents of L’Espluga de Francoli have been saving water in bottles and foregoing showers to cope with long hours of daily water rationing as northeastern Spain suffers one of its worst droughts in decades. While this small Catalan town has suffered supply problems for years due to the depleted state of its water table, the current drought has made things worse. […]

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Soaring food prices in S.Africa push inflation up

Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | Wednesday 4/19/2023 Inflation in South Africa edged higher in March with food prices recording the highest year-on-year jump in more than a decade, official figures showed Wednesday. Inflation for food and non-alcoholic beverages continued to accelerate and was up 14 percent on March last year,  national statistics agency StatsSA said in a statement. “This represents the largest annual increase since the 14.7% rise in March 2009,” the agency said. […]

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Russia warns South Korea against arming Ukraine

Moscou, Russia | AFP | Russia on Wednesday warned South Korea against sending weapons to Ukraine after Seoul opened the door to possible military aid to Kyiv in the event of a large-scale civilian attack. An ally of Washington, Seoul has provided non-lethal and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, but has so far ruled out military aid. But South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol told Reuters on Wednesday that “if there is a situation the international […]

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‘Hotter and hotter’: Swathes of Asia sweat in heatwave

Bangkok, Thailand | AFP | Wednesday 4/19/2023 Sweltering under a blistering sun, people across South and Southeast Asia have been taking cover beneath any shelter they can find as they pray for cooling rains with record temperatures hitting the region. Bangladesh saw its highest temperature for almost 60 years in the past week, while in India at least 13 people died from heatstroke along with two in Thailand, according to local media. “It’s hotter and […]

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