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New York, United States (AFP) Twitter said Thursday it has begun actively testing an edit button, after months of publicly discussing such a tweak. The trial of “Edit Tweet” will begin with internal employees, then be expanded out to the platform’s “Twitter Blue” subscription population, the company said. “Edit Tweet is a feature that lets people make changes to their Tweet after it’s been published,” the company said on its blog. “Think of it as […]
The Hague, Netherlands (AFP) by Danny KEMP The EU’s drug regulator on Thursday approved Covid-19 vaccines by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna adapted for the Omicron variant, paving the way for a booster campaign this winter. The so-called “bivalent” jabs target both the original virus that emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in 2019 and the BA.1 subvariant of Omicron, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said. The vaccines are not updated for the newer and more […]
Paris, France (AFP) Rainfall 10 times heavier than usual caused Pakistan’s devastating floods, the European Space Agency said Thursday, as it released satellite images of a vast lake created by the overflowing Indus river. Rains, described by UN chief Antonio Guterres as a “monsoon on steroids” have claimed hundreds of lives since June, unleashing powerful floods that have washed away swathes of vital crops and damaged or destroyed more than a million homes. Data […]
Beijing, China (AFP) Around 21 million people in the Chinese city of Chengdu effectively went into lockdown on Thursday as authorities raced to snuff out a new Covid-19 outbreak. China is the last major economy wedded to a zero-Covid policy, stamping out virus flare-ups with snap shutdowns, mass testing and lengthy quarantines. Chengdu, in the southwest, became the latest city to announce a shutdown, saying in an official notice that residents must “stay home in […]
Moscú, Russia (AFP) Russia on Thursday launched large-scale military exercises involving several Kremlin-friendly countries, including China, with tensions soaring between Moscow and Western capitals. The exercises, called Vostok-2022, are scheduled to take place until September 7 across several training grounds in Russia’s Far East and in the waters off its eastern coast. The drills come as Russia is locked in a stand-off with Western nations over what Moscow calls its military operation in pro-Western Ukraine. […]
New York, United States (AFP) by Rob Woollard Serena Williams roared into the third round of the US Open on Wednesday, overpowering second seed Anett Kontaveit with a battling performance to extend her Grand Slam singles career in dramatic fashion. The 40-year-old tennis icon — who has signalled she plans to retire after the tournament — drew on all her reserves of resilience and sheer fighting spirit to take down Kontaveit with a 7-6 (7/4), […]
Bangkok, Thailand (AFP) Thai police are hunting a YouTube dancer nicknamed “Nutty”, who swindled millions of dollars from her followers using a foreign exchange trading scam, authorities said Wednesday. Natthamon Khongchak, 29, who also uses the aliases Leah and Suchata, has a following of nearly 850,000 on the video-sharing platform. Local media reported there could be up to 6,000 victims who lost up to $55 million after being promised 35 percent investment returns. So far […]
Tokyo, Japan (AFP) Tourists will be able to visit Japan from next week on package tours without a guide, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Wednesday, as the country moves to ease strict Covid-19 controls. From September 7, Japan will also raise its daily cap on the number of people allowed to enter the country to 50,000, Kishida told reporters. Japan has kept strict border restrictions in place longer than many other major economies, and only […]
Manila, Philippines (AFP) A Cambodian psychiatrist treating victims of the Khmer Rouge and a French environmentalist cleaning up Indonesian rivers were among the winners Wednesday of the 2022 Ramon Magsaysay Award — considered Asia’s Nobel Prize. The annual award, established in 1957 and named after a Philippines president who died in a plane crash, honours those who have performed “selfless service to the peoples of Asia”. The foundation that runs the award announced four winners […]
Prague, Czech Republic (AFP) EU foreign ministers on Wednesday agreed to suspend a 2007 visa facilitation deal with Russia but stopped short of a wider visa ban as requested by some member states. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the ministers had agreed that relations with Moscow “cannot be business as usual” and the agreement should be “fully suspended”. Following the informal meeting in Prague, he said this would make it “more difficult” and […]
Tokyo, Japan (AFP) by Kyoko HASEGAWA A female former Japanese soldier on Wednesday submitted a petition to the defence ministry that was signed by more than 100,000 people demanding an independent probe into her alleged sexual assault by colleagues. The case is a rare example of a public allegation of sexual assault in a country where government data shows just four percent of rape victims report the crime to police. Rina Gonoi, 22, alleges that […]
Moscow, Russia (AFP) The Kremlin on Tuesday warned it would respond if the European Union makes it harder for Russians to travel to the bloc as part of measures in support of Ukraine. The idea to ban Russian tourists from Europe has divided EU nations, with some in full support and others fearing it would shut the door on dissident Russians fleeing abroad. EU foreign ministers will discuss the issue during a two-day meeting […]
