Category Archives: World News

Ghana is first country to approve Oxford malaria vaccine

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Breakthrough hailed as highly effective R21 vaccine is cleared by west African country but questions remain over funding

Ghana has become the first country to approve a highly effective malaria vaccine developed at Oxford university in the UK.

The R21/Matrix-M vaccine, the first to exceed the World Health Organization’s target of 75% efficacy, has been cleared for use by Ghana’s Food and Drugs Authority in children aged 5-36 months, the group at highest risk of death from malaria.

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South Korea to give $490 allowance to reclusive youths to help them leave the house

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Programme is for people aged between nine and 24 who are experiencing extreme social withdrawal

South Korea is to offer reclusive youths a monthly living allowance of 650,000 won ($490) in order to encourage them out of their homes, as part of a new measure passed by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. The measure also offers education, job and health support.

The condition is known as “hikikomori”, a Japanese term that roughly translated means, “to pull back”. The government wants to try to make it easier for those experiencing it to leave the house to go to school, university or work.

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Calls for better care for asylum seekers after rise in diphtheria cases in Europe

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Researchers say improved health screening of people arriving in small boats is needed to prevent outbreaks

Health experts are calling for better care for asylum seekers as research reveals small boat crossings have been linked to a sharp increase in diphtheria cases in the UK and across Europe.

Reception centres in the UK have hit by a series of scandals in recent months, including outbreaks of disease and reports that offers of assistance from public health leaders have been declined by the Home Office.

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Calls for action on Colombia’s hippo scourge after animal dies in road crash

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Dead creature was one of 150 descendants of four hippos imported by drug baron Pablo Escobar in 1980s

Colombia has logged its first hippopotamus-caused road traffic accident after a car crashed into one of the animals at high speed, leaving the vehicle mangled and the two-tonne mammal lying lifeless and bloodied across a highway.

The hippo was declared dead soon after the crash on Tuesday night in the municipality of Doradal on a highway connecting the cities of Bogotá and Medellín, local environmental authorities said.

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Anne Perry, killer turned crime writer, dies aged 84

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After murdering her friend’s mother as a teenager, as dramatised in film Heavenly Creatures, she turned to writing period thrillers

A British crime writer who helped bludgeon her friend’s mother to death as a teenager and was the inspiration for Peter Jackson’s film Heavenly Creatures has died in Los Angeles, her publisher announced Wednesday. She was 84.

Anne Perry, a prolific author whose period thrillers have sold over 25m copies worldwide, was 15 years old when she and her friend Pauline Parker murdered Pauline’s mother in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1954. Honora Mary Parker died after being hit with a brick about 20 times, in a killing that shocked and captivated the country.

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Macron stands by divisive remark about US allies ‘not being vassals’

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French president reaffirms Sunday’s call for Europe to act more independently from US over China and Taiwan

Emmanuel Macron has stood by his controversial comments on Taiwan, repeating that being a US ally did not mean being a “vassal”.

At the end of a state visit to the Netherlands during which he has also faced protests over pension reforms at home, Macron appeared to reaffirm the remarks he made in an interview on Sunday, in which he called for Europe to act more independently from the US over Taiwan.

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‘Huge honour’: Ireland breaks out the bunting for Joe Biden

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US president given rapturous welcome despite bad weather as he begins celebration of his Irish heritage

Joe Biden has started a three-day personal and political pilgrimage to the Republic of Ireland, receiving a rapturous welcome despite heavy wind and rain.

The US president flew into Dublin on Wednesday afternoon after concluding a politically charged visit to Northern Ireland. The taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, greeted Biden after he descended from Air Force One for an expected three-day celebration of the president’s Irish heritage.

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Emmanuel Macron heckled during state visit to Netherlands

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French president also criticised for saying Europe should act independently from US over Taiwan

Emmanuel Macron was heckled and jeered on a state visit to the Netherlands as he faced pressure over both raising the French pension age and his warning that Europe must not become “vassals” in a US conflict with China over Taiwan.

The French president was due to give a speech on European strategic autonomy when two demonstrators against his pension changes were arrested as they ran towards him on his arrival at the University of Amsterdam.

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UK imposes sanctions on ‘enablers’ accused of helping Russian oligarchs

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‘Financial fixers’ alleged to have helped Roman Abramovich and Alisher Usmanov to hide assets are among those targeted

The UK government has imposed sanctions on the “financial fixers” who have allegedly helped the Russian oligarchs Roman Abramovich and Alisher Usmanov hide their assets.

The sanctions, announced by the Foreign Office on Wednesday, are targeted at what officials describe as “oligarch enablers”, whom they accuse of knowingly assisting the billionaire businessmen to shield their wealth.

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Threefold increase in Mediterranean crossings this year, says EU agency

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Nearly 28,000 people arrived via sea route in first quarter, Frontex says, as UN decries deadliest period since 2017

Three times as many people sought to reach the EU across the Mediterranean in the first three months of 2023 compared with a year before, the bloc’s border agency has said, as the UN’s migration arm decried the deadliest first quarter since 2017.

Overall, the EU agency, Frontex, reported 54,000 irregular crossings into the bloc via all routes in the first quarter of the year, up a fifth from 2022.

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Al Jazeera English announces plans to move from London’s Shard to Qatar

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Move of London’s live broadcast centre to Doha could involve dozens of job losses

Al Jazeera English plans to close its live broadcast centre that operates from London’s Shard skyscraper and move programming to Qatar, with the possible loss of dozens of UK-based jobs.

In an email to staff, the network’s managing director, Giles Trendle, said Al Jazeera was “looking to undertake a restructure involving the move of AJE live programming to Doha. The move would include the news bulletins between 1900GMT and 2300GMT produced from London, and The Stream programme produced from Washington DC.”

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Former J-pop idol alleges sexual abuse by late music mogul Johnny Kitagawa

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Kauan Okamoto says Kitagawa evaded justice because victims knew speaking out would end their careers

Johnny Kitagawa, one of the most powerful figures in Japanese entertainment, sexually abused multiple boys but evaded justice because his victims knew speaking out would end their pop careers, according to a former protege who has decided to go public with his allegations.

Kauan Okamoto, a Japanese-Brazilian singer-songwriter, said Kitagawa had sexually abused him at least 15 times over a four-year period from 2012, when the pop hopeful was aged 15.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: US sanctions over 120 people and entities supporting Russia’s invasion — as it happened

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Latest sanctions target a wide network tied to Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov

Associated Press today has a feature on people in Ukraine who are in need of mental health treatment after months of war.

There are hundreds of thousands of people in this situation, experts say, and the number of people needing psychological help is only expected to rise as the war continues.

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Bola Tinubu to become Nigeria’s president despite court challenges, says minister

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Information minister says ‘no basis’ to form interim government, amid claims of February elections being fixed

The Nigerian president-elect, Bola Tinubu, will take office on schedule on 29 May despite court challenges to the election result, the country’s information minister has said.

On a visit to the UK to counter claims that the 25 February elections in Africa’s most populous country had been fixed, Lai Mohammed said there was “no basis” for an interim government to be formed until the court challenges could be resolved.

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Elon Musk says BBC’s ‘government-funded media’ Twitter tag will be changed

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Billionaire also says pain level from owning site is ‘extremely high’ but the business is ‘breaking even’

Elon Musk, Twitter’s billionaire owner, has said the social media platform will change the BBC’s label of “government-funded media” after the broadcaster objected to the tag.

The Tesla chief executive made the announcement during a wide-ranging interview with the corporation in which he also said his pain level from running the site had been “extremely high” but claimed the business was now “roughly breaking even”.

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Biden team to propose strict vehicle pollution limits to boost EV sales

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Proposal expected to be unveiled on Wednesday would require at least 54% of new vehicles sold in US to be electric by 2030

The Biden administration will propose strict new automobile pollution limits requiring that all-electric vehicles account for as many as two of every three new vehicles sold in the US by 2032 in a plan that would transform the US auto industry.

Under the proposed regulation, expected to be released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday, greenhouse gas emissions for the 2027 through 2032 model years for passenger vehicles would be limited to even stricter levels than the auto industry agreed to in 2021.

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Hyundai urged to stop illegal miners using its machines in Amazon

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Greenpeace report finds heavy machinery made by South Korean firm contributing to destruction of Brazilian rainforest

Hyundai is being urged to prevent its heavy machinery products from being used in illegal mining and environmental destruction in the Brazilian Amazon.

A report published by Greenpeace on Wednesday found the South Korean conglomerate’s excavators and other heavy machinery are precipitating the destruction of the rainforest and putting the survival of Indigenous populations at risk.

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China appears to backtrack over no-fly zone near Taiwan

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Taipei says Beijing has confined flight ban north of island to 27 minutes on Sunday after initial three-day plan

China has appeared to backtrack after reports it was planning to declare a three-day no-fly zone in the airspace north of Taiwan next week, reducing the planned duration to just 27 minutes.

A spokesperson from Taiwan’s defence ministry told a press conference the no-fly zone was about 85 nautical miles north of Taiwan, and they believed it could be related to aerospace activities, perhaps satellite launches.

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Tories hail Greek migration policies as an example. Instead, they should serve as a warning

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Experience in eastern Mediterranean proves deterrence and harsh conditions do little to discourage refugees

Prominent Conservatives openly view Greece’s self-described “strict but fair” migration policies as a model to emulate. The former home secretary Priti Patel told MPs last week that “we would not be in this current situation” had she been allowed to replicate “Greek-style reception centres”.

British interest in the Greek model dates back to May 2021, when the former immigration minister Chris Philp made an “urgent” – as internal documents seen by the Guardian called it – trip to Greece. This was followed by an official visit by Patel in August 2021, who toured a newly constructed Greek camp, went out on patrol with the Greek coastguard and spoke of working “closely with Greek partners” on migration.

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Gun battles erupt in Ethiopia as PM axes Amhara region’s security force

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The country’s second-biggest state has been riven by mass street protests, armed clashes between local police and the federal military as well as the fatal shooting of two aid workers

Gun battles and mass protests have engulfed parts of Amhara, Ethiopia’s second-biggest region, after a move to centralise the regional security forces of the country’s 11 states.

The federal government announced the policy last Thursday, in pursuit of building “a strong centralised army”. People from several towns in Amhara responded with protests, while some units of the region’s security forces refused to disarm and clashed with the federal military.

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