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BOGOTA, Colombia (AFP) — Authorities in a Colombian town have run out of patience with people refusing coronavirus vaccines, ordering them on Monday to stay at home or face a fine, or even prison. “We have to take a strong stance as leaders… Everyone has to be vaccinated, if not, they cannot circulate in the municipality of Sucre,” the town’s mayor Elvira Julia Mercado said on Blu Radio. She decreed a stay-at-home order, lasting eight […]
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AFP) — Bangladesh extended its strict lockdown on Tuesday and announced plans to vaccinate at least 10 million people in a week as the country battles a major Covid-19 surge. The vaccination drive from August 7 will be led by tens of thousands of health workers at 14,000 health centres, senior minister A.K.M Mozammel Haque said. “More than 10 million people will be vaccinated in a week. Elderly people, workers and shopkeepers will […]
MADRID, Spain (AFP) — Spain’s cabinet approved Tuesday the extension of measures to protect the most vulnerable from economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic, including a moratorium on home evictions until November. Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s coalition government first approved the package of social measures in March 2020 during the height of the first wave of the pandemic in Spain, one of Europe’s hardest-hit nations. The so-called “social shield” includes a ban on leaving […]
by Jing Xuan TENG and AFP Bureaus BEIJING, China (AFP) — Authorities in China’s Wuhan said Tuesday they would test the city’s entire population for Covid-19, as the virus returned to the place where it first emerged and the highly contagious Delta variant drove tightening lockdowns worldwide. A resurgent virus has returned with a vengeance, buoyed by stalling vaccination rates and deadly new mutations even in places which had long touted their successes in overcoming […]
TRIPOLI, Libya (AFP) — Libya called Monday on people to come forward to be vaccinated after it received two million doses of the Chinese vaccine Sinopharm, with more on the way. “We call on all our fellow citizens to be vaccinated,” Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah told reporters at Mitiga airport near Tripoli after the shipment arrived. Adding to its security and political problems, the North African country of around seven million people has been hard […]
POINTE-A-PITRE, France (AFP) — France’s overseas territory of Guadeloupe is to return to lockdown for at least three weeks because of a “catastrophic” surge in Covid cases, officials announced Monday. The announcement comes days after Martinique, another region of France 190 kilometres (120 miles) to the south, returned to lockdown on Friday for at least three weeks. And the French island of Reunion entered a partial two-week lockdown this weekend, including a 6:00 pm to […]
NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — Outspoken US comedian Kathy Griffin, whose decades-long stand-up career was briefly derailed in 2017 after a grisly stunt with a prop depicting Donald Trump’s severed head, said Monday that she has lung cancer. “I’m about to go into surgery to have half of my left lung removed. Yes, I have lung cancer even though I’ve never smoked!” Griffin, 60, said in a statement posted on Twitter. She said her […]
MIAMI, United States (AFP) — Schools in a county in the southeastern US state of Georgia will pay $1,000 bonuses to staff who are vaccinated against Covid-19 in a bid to protect themselves from the resurgent pandemic, authorities said. With that incentive county officials said they hope to avoid the “numerous disruptions that were encountered in public education over the past two school years due to a global pandemic.” “Last year was a challenge like […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US President Joe Biden on Monday urged the imposition of a new ban on evictions to prevent a wave of homelessness as the more infectious Delta variant of the coronavirus takes hold. But just a day after a nationwide eviction moratorium expired, Biden acknowledged the administration does not have the legal authority to help renters stay in their homes. That leaves the White House with few tools to deal with […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The United States on Monday hit President Joe Biden’s goal of administering 70 percent of adults with at least one dose of a Covid vaccine, almost a month after the July 4 target date. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website showed that 60.6 percent of adults, and 49.7 percent of the total population, have now been fully vaccinated. The Biden administration initially targeted the country’s Independence Day […]
TEHRAN, Iran (AFP) — Iran’s daily Covid caseload crossed 37,000 mark for the first time on Monday, the health ministry said, as the Islamic republic also recorded its highest daily fatalities in three months. In the past 24 hours, Iran registered a record 37,189 positive cases, bringing the total number of infections since the start of the pandemic to 3,940,708. The record caseload is Iran’s fourth in two weeks as positive cases surge in what […]
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AFP) — Malaysian political heavyweights Mahathir Mohamad and Anwar Ibrahim put aside long-running animosity and joined an opposition protest Monday against the shutdown of parliament and demand the country’s embattled premier resign. The final day of a parliament session, due to take place Monday, has been cancelled after the discovery of several coronavirus cases in the legislature. But rivals accused Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin of using Covid-19 as an excuse to dodge […]
