Category Archives: World News

Osinbajo defies expectations as Nigeria’s vice-president

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Analysis: Buhari’s deputy wants to create jobs, feed pupils and cut red tape. Is he too high-profile for his critics?

The role of vice-president is one that John Adams, the first person in the US to hold the position, called “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived”.

Nigeria’s Patience Jonathan captured the situation in her sarcastic response to a journalist who asked about her husband, Goodluck Jonathan, when he was vice-president. She said: “He is in his office reading newspapers.”

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Pike river mine families accept end of mission to find victims ‘with heartbreak’

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Government says it will no longer fund risky mission to retrieve 29 bodies from site of New Zealand’s worst mining disaster

Families of the men who died in one of New Zealand’s worst mining disasters have expressed their heartbreak that the government has ended funding to re-enter the mine, leaving the remains of their loved ones trapped inside.

Twenty-nine men were killed when an explosion ripped through the Pike river mine on the west coast in November 2010. Their bodies have not been recovered, and remain in the mine.

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Canada suspends use of AstraZeneca Covid vaccine for those under 55

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Immunisation panel says there is ‘substantial uncertainty about the benefit’ of the vaccine given risk of rare type of blood clot

Canada on Monday suspended the use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine for people under 55 following concerns it might be linked to rare blood clots.

The pause was recommended by the National Advisory Committee on Immunization for safety reasons. The Canadian provinces, which administer health in the country, announced the suspension on Monday.

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Global treaty needed to protect states from pandemics, say world leaders

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Joint letter signed by Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel and others warns ‘nobody is safe until everyone is safe’

The world needs a global treaty for pandemics to protect states in the wake of Covid-19, akin to the settlement forged after the second world war, Boris Johnson and other world leaders have urged.

In a joint article published in newspapers across the world, leaders including the UK prime minister, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, warn that a future global pandemic is an inevitability and that Covid has served as “a stark and painful reminder that nobody is safe until everyone is safe”.

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New Covid vaccines needed globally within a year, say scientists

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Survey of experts in relevant fields concludes that new variants could arise in countries with low vaccine coverage

The planet could have a year or less before first-generation Covid-19 vaccines are ineffective and modified formulations are needed, according to a survey of epidemiologists, virologists and infectious disease specialists.

Scientists have long stressed that a global vaccination effort is needed to satisfactorily neutralise the threat of Covid-19. This is due to the threat of variations of the virus – some more transmissible, deadly and less susceptible to vaccines – that are emerging and percolating.

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Regulators around the world monitor collapse of US hedge fund

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Liquidation of Bill Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management sparked a fire sale of more than $20bn assets

Financial regulators across the world are monitoring the collapse of the New York-based billionaire Bill Hwang’s personal hedge fund.

The sudden liquidation of Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management sparked a fire sale of more than $20bn assets that has left some of the world’s biggest investment banks nursing billions of dollars of losses.

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Chinese diplomat calls Justin Trudeau ‘running dog of US’ as tensions escalate

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China and Canada have clashed repeatedly in recent months over Beijing’s treatment of its Uighur minority

A Chinese diplomat has dismissed Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau as a “boy” in a social media attack marking a new low in the fractured relationship between the two countries.

China and Canada have clashed repeatedly in recent months, and last week the two countries imposed sanctions on each other in a growing row over Beijing’s treatment of its Uighur minority.

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‘I’m scared’: CDC director urges action after US Covid surge – video

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Rochelle Walensky, head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, urged public officials to spread the word about the seriousness of a fourth Covid-19 surge in the country.

The Biden administration and Walensky said Americans should continue to take precautions to prevent the spread of Covid-19

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The Suez boat saga enthralled the world – but not those with naviphobia

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Stuck container ship triggered people with fear of ships and sea wreckage and megalophobia, the fear of large objects

When Grace Gibson was texted a picture of the giant container ship Ever Given stuck in the Suez canal, she clenched.

The image – of the gargantuan vessel wedged sideways into the canal – and the lone excavator working to free it – struck most as absurd. Against the massive underbelly of the ship, the equipment looked tiny. But for Gibson, a 26-year old Angeleno, it immediately evoked discomfort.

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Mozambique: dozens dead or missing in deadly attack – video

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At least seven people are dead and up to 60 unaccounted for after an ambush by Islamist militants on a convoy in northern Mozambique on Friday. 

On Wednesday, the insurgents had targeted the northern town of Palma, where many foreign contractors work for a multibillion-dollar liquified natural gas project run by the French energy company Total, attacking local people and hotels sheltering foreign workers  

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Trapped in gloves, tangled in masks: Covid PPE killing animals, report finds

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Mask and gloves protect people but harm animals from penguins to dogs when discarded, researchers say

The masks and gloves protecting people from coronavirus are proving a deadly threat to wildlife when thrown away, a report has found.

A fish trapped in the finger of a rubber glove in the Netherlands, a penguin in Brazil with a mask in its stomach and a fox in the UK entangled in a mask were among the victims.

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Isis claims deadly attack in northern Mozambique

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Attack on port town of Palma has forced hundreds of people to flee amid fierce fighting

The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for an attack on a town in northern Mozambique last week that forced hundreds of foreign contractors to flee amid fierce fighting.

Local police and soldiers were reported to have secured control of most of Palma on Monday, after hundreds of Islamist insurgents who overran the small port last week withdrew to surrounding forests and fields leaving a trail of devastation.

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Suez canal ship freed and heading to lake for inspections – video

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A vast container ship that had blocked the Suez canal in Egypt for almost a week has been completely refloated by salvage teams with the help of tides that swelled to their highest point with the full moon. Dredgers and excavators worked throughout the weekend to dislodge thousands of cubic metres of sand caked around the 400-metre-long Ever Given ship. Tugboats managed in the early hours of Monday first to move it, then pull it free. The vessel is being hauled to a lake where it will undergo technical inspections

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EU announces funding for five new refugee camps on Greek islands

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Ylva Johansson’s visit Lesbos and Samos met with demonstrations from locals, as charities warn camps are ‘recipe for catastrophe’

The EU is to give Greece funding to build five new refuge camps on the Aegean islands.

Ylva Johansson, the EU home affairs commissioner, visited Lesbos and Samos on Monday to announce that the EU would provide €250m of funding (£213m) for five new structures on the islands of Lesbos, Samos, Chios, Kos and Leros.

A large crowd of demonstrators gathered outside the town hall on the waterfront in Mytilene, the capital of Lesbos, to protest against her visit. Some wrapped themselves in Greek flags and others held signs calling for European solidarity. One sign read: “No to European Guantánamos. Shame on you, Europe.” Another said: “No structures on the island, Europe take responsibility.”

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Mexico: Tulum police accused of ‘murder’ over death of woman knelt on by officers

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Four officers in Mexican resort city charged with femicide after autopsy concluded that Victoria Salazar’s neck was broken

Four police officers in the Mexican resort city of Tulum have been charged with femicide after a Salvadoran woman died while being restrained.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador flatly described the incident as “murder”, telling reporters on Monday. Mexico’s president said: “She was brutally treated and murdered … It is an event that fills us with pain and shame.”

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Myanmar airstrikes cause thousands to flee across Thailand border

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About 3,000 estimated to have crossed over after junta attacks areas mostly populated by Karen people

A series of airstrikes by Myanmar’s military has driven thousands of people across the country’s border with Thailand, adding a new dimension to an already volatile and deadly crisis.

The strikes in areas populated predominantly by ethnic Karen people began on Saturday. Since then an estimated 3,000 villagers have fled across the Salween River into Thailand and an unknown number have become internally displaced in the jungles on the Myanmar side of the river.

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Mafia fugitive caught after posting YouTube cooking video

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Marc Feren Claude Biart was betrayed by failing to hide his distinctive tattoos in the clip

A mafia fugitive has been caught in the Caribbean after appearing on YouTube cooking videos in which he hid his face but inadvertently showed his distinctive tattoos.

Marc Feren Claude Biart, 53, led a quiet life in Boca Chica, in the Dominican Republic, with the local Italian expat community considering him a “foreigner”, police said in a statement on Monday.

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Karol G: ‘Why should I limit how I express myself because I’m a woman?’

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The vastly popular Colombian singer is challenging outdated views of women in Latin pop – but her naive racial politics have sparked controversy

I catch Colombian singer Karol G in a rare moment of calm, while she is in a car on her way to a hotel. She has just landed in New York to film a music video, but home is Miami, she clarifies, the engine humming in the background. “I love it there because there are so many Latinos!”

Born Carolina Giraldo Navarro in Medellín, Karol G, 30, is one of Latin America’s biggest pop stars, an expressive performer who uses beautiful hooks for lyrics that explore female desire and sexual agency – a rarity in the male-dominated Latin music scene, where, she says, women have historically been treated like “products”.

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Suspected Russian hackers gained access to US homeland security emails

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Intelligence value of SolarWinds hacking of then acting secretary Chad Wolf is not publicly known

Suspected Russian hackers gained access to email accounts belonging to the Trump administration’s head of homeland security (DHS) and members of cybersecurity staff whose jobs included hunting threats from foreign countries, the Associated Press (AP) has learned.

The intelligence value of the hacking of then acting secretary Chad Wolf and his staff is not publicly known but the symbolism is stark. Their accounts were accessed in what is known as the SolarWinds intrusion, throwing into question how the US government can protect individuals, companies and institutions if it can’t protect itself.

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