World

Journalists watch, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman addressing the attendees of the summit, on a screen in the media centre ahead of the 41st Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit in the city of al-Ula in northwestern Saudi Arabia on January 5, 2021. – Saudi Arabia will reopen its borders and airspace to Qatar, US and Kuwaiti officials said, a major step towards ending a diplomatic rift that has seen Riyadh lead an alliance isolating Doha. The bombshell announcement came on the eve of GCC annual summit in the northwestern Saudi Arabian city of Al-Ula, where the dispute was already…

Thousands of people lined up in Beijing Monday to receive a Covid-19 vaccine as China races to innoculate millions before the Chinese New Year mass travel season in February. More than 73,000 people in the Chinese capital have received the first dose of the vaccine over the last couple of days, state media reported Sunday, including community workers and bus drivers. Health authorities on New Year’s Eve granted “conditional” approval to a vaccine candidate made by Chinese pharma giant Sinopharm, which the company said had a 79 percent efficacy rate. An AFP journalist saw people being bussed into a temporary…

Four Bulgarians vaccinated against the Coronavirus (COVID-19) with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine developed mild to moderate side effects, Bulgarian Drug Agency executive director Bogdan Kirilov said on Monday. Bulgaria’s vaccination campaign began on Dec. 27 among the priority group including medical workers.By Monday, nearly 5,000 people had been inoculated. “Side effects ranged from mild to moderate.The persons who experienced them have already recovered,” Kirilov said, as quoted by the Bulgarian National Radio. According to the official, the side effects included two cases of pain, one case of dizziness, and one case of insignificant temperature rise. Earlier in the day, Bulgaria received…

Niger’s government has announced plans to ramp up military presence in a region in which more than 100 civilians were killed in an attack by gunmen over the weekend. Niger aims to permanently set up a company in the affected province, said the commander in charge, Mamane Sani. Sani spoke after visiting the site of Saturday’s attack on two villages near the border with Mali together with Prime Minister Brigi Rafini. He said more than 100 people were killed in the attack on two villages – Tchombangou and Zaroumdareye – with around 30 others injured. According to Sani, no group…

Burnt areas of the Amazon rainforest, near Boca do Acre, Brazil, in 2019 — the number of wildfires in Brazil increased 12.7 percent in 2020 Lula SAMPAIO AFP/FileThe number of wildfires in Brazil increased 12.7 percent last year to a decade-high, according to official figures likely to add to pressure on President Jair Bolsonaro’s government over the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. There were a total of 222,798 wildfires across Brazil in 2020, the highest number since 2010, according to the Brazilian space agency, INPE. That included more than 103,000 fires in the Brazilian Amazon, an annual increase of nearly…