Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans to behave responsibly as large parts of the country relaxed more pandemic restrictions Friday at the start of the Pentecost weekend, telling them that caution is needed to avoid further shutdowns.German regions have gradually started easing restrictions as new coronavirus cases decline steadily, accompanied by an accelerating vaccination campaign.Beer gardens, cafes and restaurants in Berlin and elsewhere started serving customers outdoors for the first time in months on Friday — provided they present a negative Covid-19 test or a vaccination certificate.By Friday, most of Germany’s 400 cities and counties had a weekly case number below…
Author: Mike Harrison
Four earthquakes over 5.0-magnitude hit Yangbi from 9 pm to 11 pm (Beijing Time), according to the China Earthquake Networks Center. ANI | | Posted by Harshit Sabarwal, Beijing PUBLISHED ON MAY 21, 2021 11:23 PM IST At least one person was killed and eight other sustained injuries following a series of earthquakes that jolted Yangbi Yi Autonomous County in southwest China’s Yunnan Province on Friday, local authorities said.One person was killed by falling rocks, said Zhang Shiwei, Party chief of Yangbi.Three people were injured by falling tiles, and four were buried in a road collapse, among whom three have…
Canada has extended its suspension of direct flights from India for an additional 30 days, till June 21.This was announced by Canadian minister of transport Omar Alghabra on Friday, a day prior to the original suspension period ending. “Until June 21, we are suspending all commercial and private passenger flights arriving in Canada from India and Pakistan for an additional 30 days,” he said.He tweeted that the “temporary flight restrictions on India and Pakistan have significantly reduced the risk of importing cases and new variants. We are extending these temporary measures to protect the health and safety of Canadians”.The suspension…
US President Joe Biden commended Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for the unconditional ceasefire and stated that he believes there is a “genuine opportunity to make progress” and his administration will work towards it.The American leader also highlighted US role in resolving the conflict, without explicitly claiming credit for it. Biden referred to his six calls with Netanyahu during the 11-day conflict, and “intensive high-level discussions, hour by hour, literally” that US officials had with Egypt and the Palestinian Authority with the goal of “avoiding the sort of prolonged conflict we’ve seen in previous years”.The United States…
Canada has extended its ban on passenger flights from India and Pakistan by 30 days to June 21 as part of a campaign to fight Covid-19, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said on Friday.Alghabra said Canada had seen “a significant reduction” in coronavirus infections among arriving airline passengers since Ottawa first announced the bans on April 22 as the number of cases in India soared. The move does not affect cargo flights.”These ongoing measures will remain in place to help protect Canadians and to manage the elevated risk of imported cases of Covid-19 and variants of concern,” he told a briefing.As…
In the 12 years since Nigeria’s jihadist insurgency erupted in the northeast, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has been reported dead several times, only to reappear.On Wednesday, intelligence sources say, rival Islamic State-allied jihadists launched an attack on Shekau’s faction in their stronghold in the Sambisa forest in Borno state.Shekau was seriously wounded after trying to kill himself to evade capture by the IS jihadists who surrounded him after a series of battles, the sources said.Nigerian media was filled with speculation that the man who made international headlines for kidnapping nearly 300 schoolgirls in 2014 might finally be dead.But 24…
The number of U.K. cases of a worrying coronavirus variant from India more than doubled for a second week as authorities also monitor a new mutation of the virus, adding fresh doubt to U.K. plans to fully unlock the economy.Health officials have now detected 3,424 cases of the B1.617.2 variant, also known as VOC-21APR-02, Public Health England said Thursday in a statement. That’s up from 1,313 last week, and 520 a week earlier. They’re also investigating a mutation called VUI-21MAY-01, with 49 cases logged so far.Scientists at PHE say there is currently no evidence to suggest vaccines will be less…
Achieving herd immunity against the Covid-19 may be unrealistic due to the mutations of the virus that causes it, South African experts have said, as they called for long-term vaccination strategies amid uncertainty about current vaccine efficacy.“Many governments are targeting herd immunity, but it is unachievable in the same way it is unachievable for flu,” said Professor Alex van den Heever, health and social security systems specialist of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) School of Governance.Van den Heever was speaking on an expert panel hosted by leading managed care provider and medical scheme administrator Agility Health.The other panellists were…
Major drugmakers and rich nation leaders faced up on Friday to the startling global imbalance in fighting COVID-19 and made big pledges to up supplies of cut-price vaccines to poorer regions.Lavishly-funded mass inoculation campaigns are helping the West and others slash infections, but few shots have reached poorer nations where the virus is still raging, sometimes uncontrollably, drawing accusations of “vaccine apartheid”.More than 80% of the first billion shots went to wealthy countries, compared to just 0.2% for low-income nations, US philanthropist Bill Gates told a special Group of 20 summit focussing on the global health crisis.”If we do not…
China’s President Xi Jinping on Friday pledged an additional $3 billion in aid over the next three years to help developing countries recover from the coronavirus pandemic, and proposed setting up an international forum on vaccine cooperation.The funds will go toward supporting the COVID-19 response and economic and social recovery, Xi said in a speech at the Group of 20 Global Health Summit.While developed countries are producing vaccines and rapidly inoculating their populations, poorer nations have complained about a lack of access, with the World Health Organization warning of a “catastrophic moral failure.””Today the problem of uneven vaccination has become…