New age group eligible from Thursday while focus remains on older at-risk people
Israel’s health ministry has said it will offer coronavirus vaccines to anyone over the age of 16, as part of a rapid campaign in which the majority of older and vulnerable people have already received shots.
The ministry has told healthcare providers they can start booking appointments for the new age group starting on Thursday.
Continue reading...Journalist Hopewell Chin’ono’s song denouncing “looting” in Mnangagwa’s regime has inspired a host of follow up versions
Zimbabwean journalist Hopewell Chin’ono has taken his fight against corruption to the ears of thousands around the world via reggae with a new song entitled “Dem Loot”.
The reporter, who has been arrested three times in six months for his work challenging the current government, released a short video on Twitter singing against what he says is an endemic rot in Zimbabwe – and it has sparked a flurry of follow up versions under the hashtag #demlootchallenge.
Continue reading...Analysis: The pandemic, combined with the climate crisis and crippling debt burdens, has led to an ‘unprecedented increase’ in poverty, experts warn
Two decades of progress in the reduction of extreme poverty, the elimination of which is one of the sustainable development goals, have been pushed into a sharp reverse by a combination of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the growing climate emergency and increasing debt.
With the World Bank warning of a “truly unprecedented increase” in levels of poverty this year, and renewing calls for debt forgiveness, experts are warning of a growing crisis in multiple areas from education to employment, likely to be felt for years to come.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Kameel Ahmady smuggled himself out through mountainous border after being sentenced to nine years
A British Iranian dual national sentenced to nine years and three months in jail in Iran for co-operating with “a hostile state power” has smuggled himself out of Iran, escaping over the country’s treacherous mountainous border, and is now living in London.
In an interview with the Guardian, Kameel Ahmady explained he felt had no option but to flee after spending nearly 100 days in Evin prison, including a brutal spell in solitary confinement while he was being interrogated.
Continue reading...Thierry Santa’s multi-party government collapses a few months after narrow referendum vote to remain within French republic
Even as Tropical Cyclone Lucas bears down on New Caledonia, the French Pacific dependency also faces a political storm, with the collapse of the multi-party government led by President Thierry Santa.
Five members of the government, representing the pro-independence groups UC-FLNKS and the Union nationale pour l’indépendance (UNI) resigned on 2 February. Both groups are members of the Front de libération nationale kanak et socialiste (FLNKS), which campaigns for independence from France.
Continue reading...Former chief of both UK and EU medicines regulators says ‘politically driven’ comments bad for public health
Regulators in Belgium are the the latest in Europe to advise against the administration of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine to older people due a lack of data about its efficacy.
Frank Vandenbroucke, Belgium’s health minister, said the country’s superior health council, an advisory body, had suggested the jab should be administered to people younger than 55 for the time being.
Related: Belgian regulators advise against giving AstraZeneca Covid vaccine to over-55s
Switzerland has withheld approval for the Oxford/AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine, its drugs regulator said today (via Reuters).
The vaccine won European Union approval last week but German and Austrian medical experts last week recommended it should not be used on people aged 65 or over andPoland said yesterday it would only use the vaccine for people aged 18 to 60 following a recommendation from the country’s medical council.
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US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has been denounced as a “rogue agency” after new allegations of assaults on asylum seekers emerged, and deportations of African and Caribbean migrants continued in defiance of the Biden administration’s orders.
Joe Biden unveiled his immigration agenda on Tuesday, and his homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was confirmed by the Senate, but the continued deportations suggested the Biden White House still does not have full control of Ice, which faces multiple allegations of human rights abuses and allegations that it has disproportionately targeted black migrants.
Related: New claims of migrant abuse as Ice defies Biden to continue deportations
A hastily executed transfer of nearly 200 people in California’s prison system set off a public health disaster that endangered the lives of thousands of prisoners and staff and led to dozens of deaths, according to a new report from the state’s office of the inspector general (OIG).
The report published on Monday, the third in a series examining the Covid-19 catastrophe in California state prisons, details the circumstances of a May 2020 transfer of 189 people from the California Institute for Men (CIM) in Chino, California, to San Quentin state prison in the Bay Area and Corcoran state prison in the Central Valley.
Related: California prison transfer led to dozens of deaths and endangered thousands – state watchdog
Continue reading...Ice condemned as ‘rogue agency’ after rights groups allege torture by agents and man deported to Haiti who had never been there
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has been denounced as a “rogue agency” after new allegations of assaults on asylum seekers emerged, and deportations of African and Caribbean migrants continued in defiance of the Biden administration’s orders.
Joe Biden unveiled his immigration agenda on Tuesday, and his homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was confirmed by the Senate, but the continued deportations suggested the Biden White House still does not have full control of Ice, which faces multiple allegations of human rights abuses and allegations that it has disproportionately targeted black migrants.
Continue reading...SpaceX’s second full test flight of its futuristic, bullet-shaped Starship ended in another fiery crash landing on Tuesday.
Elon Musk’s company launched its latest Starship prototype from the south-eastern tip of Texas, two months after the previous test ended in an equally explosive belly flop.
Continue reading...President decries Trump administration that ‘literally ripped children from the arms of their families’ as he signs executive orders
Joe Biden plans to create a taskforce to reunify families separated at the US-Mexico border by the Trump administration, as part of a new series of immigration executive actions signed at an Oval Office ceremony on Tuesday.
Biden condemned Donald Trump’s immigration policies as a “stain on the reputation” of the US.
Continue reading...Bezos, who founded the company in 1994, will step down after company recorded $100bn in sales for last three months of 2020
Jeff Bezos, billionaire founder of Amazon, will step down as chief executive, the company announced on Tuesday.
Related: Biden pledges to 'undo moral shame' of Trump era with new orders on immigration – live
Continue reading...National League for Democracy urges military to acknowledge 2020 election result
The party of Aung San Suu Kyi has called for her immediate release and for Myanmar’s 2020 election results to be acknowledged by the military, which took power in a coup on Monday.
The country’s elected leader, who was among dozens of political figures picked up by the army, reportedly remains under house arrest.
Continue reading...Preliminary findings based on analysis of data from more than 20,000 participants
The Sputnik V vaccine, which has been the subject of scepticism since Russia began using it last year before trials had ended, is 91.6% effective against symptomatic Covid according to data published in one of the world’s leading medical journals.
Results in the Lancet from 20,000 trial participants suggest Sputnik’s efficacy is on a par with that of some of the leading vaccines now in use. There was good efficacy in older adults, who are at highest risk for death, but little diversity, since most participants were white males.
Continue reading...Parliament votes to try Inger Støjberg over 2016 order aimed at separating asylum-seeking couples
Denmark’s parliament has overwhelmingly voted to try a former immigration minister at the rarely used court of impeachment over a 2016 order aimed at separating asylum-seeking couples where one partner is under 18.
The 179-member Folketing voted 139-30 to try Inger Støjberg, who served in the previous government from June 2015 to 2019. The court will convene for the first time in 26 years.
Continue reading...Court locks up Putin’s foe despite threat of protests and international condemnation
A Moscow court has sentenced Alexei Navalny to two years and eight months in a prison colony in a landmark decision for Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on the country’s leading opposition figure.
Navalny, who has accused the Russian president and his allies of stealing billions, was jailed for violating parole from a 2014 sentence for embezzlement in a case he has said was politically motivated.
Continue reading...Man’s neighbor notified police of his death in November, but found in January that no one had come to collect his body
For two months, Vienna’s funeral services “forgot” to pick up the body of an elderly man who had died in his apartment, according to a city official.
The 66-year-old man had been living alone and had been ill for a long time, and was found dead in his flat on 11 November by a neighbour who had been helping him.
Continue reading...Reddit-inspired surge in stocks such as struggling video games store and AMC dive as hedge funds close positions
Shares in GameStop plunged by 65% in early trading on Wall Street as the trading mania sparked by small investors, that sent its stock surging and cost hedge funds billions of dollars, lost momentum.
The struggling Texas-based video game store chain has been the focal point of a battle by small traders, using forums such as Reddit, to punish Wall Street hedge funds that have bet on certain stocks falling in value. GameStop shares hit a high of $482 last Thursday but slumped to $80 shortly after the market opened. They recovered to $117 by mid-session, but closed down 60% at $90.
Continue reading...Analysis: death rates in intensive care are falling as doctors identify more ways to help those with the disease
Vaccines may have been described as the great escape route from the Covid pandemic – but treatments, which are bringing down death rates, will be needed as much as ever in the era of jabs because the virus is not expected to go away in the foreseeable future, experts say.
“It’s going to take a long time to vaccinate the world,” said Peter Horby of Oxford University, chief investigator of the Recovery trial into Covid treatments and chair of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag). “I don’t know what the estimates are, but we’ve already seen issues with manufacturing scale-up and difficulties in delivering at scale.
Continue reading...Last year, Covid-19 spread around the world, sending millions of people into lockdown as health services struggled to cope. The surge in new variants of the virus has prompted fresh questions and concerns. The Guardian's health editor, Sarah Boseley, explains what we now know about the Covid-19 variants and what they could mean for the future of the pandemic
Continue reading...Activists are urging a traditional show of solidarity amid wary anger over the military’s coup
In Myanmar, if you want to drive evil from your home, you bang pots and pans. Yangon’s streets were filled with the din of clashing metal in 2007, when monks called for an end to military rule, and before that, in 1988 when the former president Sein Lwin, or the “butcher of Rangoon”, ordered troops to shoot pro-democracy protesters. On Tuesday night, pots and pans were back again.
Evil has returned, they say; Gen Min Aung Hlaing has led a military coup against the democratically elected government and its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, whose immense popularity within the country helped her National League for Democracy (NLD) win a landslide victory in 2020. The military’s electoral proxy secured fewer than 7% of available seats, leading it, and the military, to claim widespread electoral “fraud” without evidence.
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