World

A logo is pictured on the headquarters of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland. Photo: Reuters<br /> The World Health Organization’s international mission to China to investigate the origins of Covid-19 will explore all avenues and is not looking to find “guilty” parties, a team member told AFP. Investigators will head to China in January and to Wuhan, where the first cases were detected 12 months ago in the pandemic that has swept the world, causing giant global health and economic crises. “The meetings we had so far with Chinese colleagues were really productive and very good,” said…

(FILES) In this file photo taken on July 20, 2019 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny addresses demonstrators during a rally to support opposition and independent candidates after authorities refused to register them for September elections to the Moscow City Duma, Moscow. – Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said on December 21, 2020 he had tricked a security agent into admitting the Federal Security Service (FSB) sought to kill him this summer and placed poison in his underwear. (Photo by Maxim ZMEYEV / AFP) The Berlin doctors who treated Alexei Navalny published clinical details Wednesday of his Novichok poisoning, in what…

This picture taken on November 26, 2020 shows a view of a container being carried by a crane above a freight ship at the port of Sousse, about 140 kilometres south of Tunisia’s capital, where containers of household waste from Italy are blocked from arriving to be buried in the North African country. – A shipment of hundreds of tonnes of household waste from Italy to Tunisia has raised suspicions of dirty dealings in a country that already struggles to manage its own refuse. The containers were imported in two shipments by Tunisian firm Soreplast, which claimed to have government…

A Sudanese man wearing a face mask waves his country’s national flag during protests in the capital Khartoum to mark the second anniversary of the start of a revolt that toppled the previous government, on December 19, 2020. – Frustrated by the lack of change in their daily lives, thousands of demonstrators, mostly young, marched in several towns in Sudan. (Photo by ASHRAF SHAZLY / AFP) Thousands of demonstrators marched through Sudanese towns on Saturday calling for change, two years since the start of a protest movement that led to the toppling of dictator Omar al-Bashir. Black plumes of smoke…

In this Saturday, July 20, 2019 file photo Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny gestures while speaking to a crowd during a political protest in Moscow, Russia. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was the victim of an attack and poisoned with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok, the German government said Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2020 citing new test results. Navalny, a politician and corruption investigator who is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics, fell ill on a flight back to Moscow from Siberia on Aug 20 and was taken to a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk after the…

German Health Minister Jens Spahn speaks during a news conference on the current situation concerning the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Berlin, Germany December 15, 2020. Tobias Schwarz/Pool via REUTERS Germany on Tuesday extended a ban on arrivals from Britain, Northern Ireland and South Africa until January 6 after a new more infectious coronavirus strain appeared in the countries. “The transport ban covers passenger traffic by train, bus, ship and flights directly from these countries,” the health ministry said in a statement. “The order covers the period from December 22, 2020, until January 6, 2021.” It added that people who…

(FILES) In this file photo taken on December 2, 2020, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin testifies during a House Financial Services Committee hearing on “Oversight of the Treasury Department’s and Federal Reserve’s Pandemic Response” in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, DC. – A new round of pandemic relief checks for Americans will start going out next week, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on December 21, 2020. Congress is expected to give final approval to a $900 billion stimulus package later Monday that will include payments of $600 to all Americans. (Photo by Greg Nash / POOL /…

US President-elect Joe Biden receives a Covid-19 vaccination from Tabe Mase, Nurse Practitioner and Head of Employee Health Services, at the Christiana Care campus in Newark, Delaware on December 21, 2020. ALEX EDELMAN / AFP US President-elect Joe Biden received a Covid-19 vaccine live on television Monday in a campaign to boost Americans’ confidence in the jabs — and in marked contrast to President Donald Trump’s mixed messaging. The 78-year-old incoming president got the Pfizer vaccine at the Christiana Hospital in Newark, Delaware. His wife Jill received the shot earlier, the presidential transition team said. Biden told Americans “there’s nothing…

The EU finally gave the green light for the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine on Monday, paving the way for the first inoculations to start across 27 countries just days after Christmas. The decision was rushed through under pressure from European governments after Britain and the United States authorised the jab weeks earlier. The European Medicines Agency recommended the vaccine developed by US pharma giant Pfizer and German firm BioNTech for use, and the European Commission formally approved it hours later. The EMA added that the vaccine would “very likely” be effective against a new strain of the disease spreading through Britain.…

Lebanese students burn dumpsters while protesting a decision by top universities to adopt a new dollar exchange rate to price tuition in Beirut’s Hamra district on December 19, 2020 (ANWAR AMRO / AFP Lebanese riot police on Saturday scuffled with students protesting a decision by top universities to adopt a new dollar exchange rate to price tuition — equivalent to a major fee hike. Near the entrance of the American University of Beirut (AUB) in the city’s Hamra district, security forces fired tear gas to disperse protesters who were trying to approach the main gate. Students responded by throwing water…