At least 24 dead in building fire in Japan’s Osaka

Firefighters are seen in front of a building where a fire broke out in Osaka, western Japan December 17, 2021 in this photo taken by Kyodo. (Via Reuters) At least 24 people have lost their lives after a fire swept through a building in a shopping district in the Japanese city of Osaka, with police...

Biden warns of winter of ’severe illness and death’ as Omicron rages on

US President Joe Biden Thursday warned that the Omicron variant of the coronavirus is going to spread more rapidly, urging people to get vaccinated. (Getty Images) US President Joe Biden on Thursday warned that the Omicron variant of the coronavirus is going to spread more rapidly in the country and...

Google must pay millions if Russian YouTube channel not restored

FILE PHOTO: The logo of the Tsargrad TV channel is pictured at a studio in Moscow, Russia, on September 16, 2021. © Reuters / Tatyana Makeyeva Google is faced with having to pay a whopping 1 billion rubles ($13.54 million) in mid-March 2022 if it fails to comply with the Moscow Arbitration Court’s...

UK COVID cases hit record high as hospitals struggle with staff shortages

Medical workers move a patient between ambulances outside of the Royal London Hospital amid the spread of the COVID-19, London, Britain, January 27, 2021. (Photo by Reuters) The UK hits the record for the number of COVID-19 cases, with 88,376 new cases, of which, more than 10,000 have been confirmed...

France toughens travel rules for UK over Omicron fears

An Air France Airbus A350 airplane lands at the Charles-de-Gaulle airport in Roissy, near Paris, France April 2, 2021. France has introduced tougher travel rules for the UK travelers in an attempt to prevent the spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus. According to the government’s new plan,...

US to donate another 1 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Afghanistan

The United States’ special envoy for Afghanistan Thomas West said Wednesday Washington will donate one million additional COVID-19 vaccine doses to Afghanistan. US Special Representative Thomas West stated in a tweet that the assistance will be provided through COVAX, a worldwide initiative aimed...

’A defining tragedy’: US passes 800,000 Covid deaths, highest in the world

El Paso County Medical Examiner’s Office staff roll bodies that are in bags labeled Covid from refrigerated trailers into the morgue office amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in El Paso, Texas, US November 23, 2020. (Reuters photo) The US death toll from Covid-19 has passed 800,000,...

WFP Says Afghans Face ‘Avalanche of Hunger and Destitution’

Reuters - Almost all Afghans do not have enough to eat and a failing economy could tip Afghanistan’s increasingly dire situation under Islamic Emirate rule into catastrophe next year, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday. WFP surveys showed an estimated 98% of Afghans are not eating...

Malta becomes first EU country to legalise cannabis for personal use

Citizens in Malta will be allowed to grow up to four cannabis plants at home. - Copyright AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File Malta has become the first European Union country to legalise cannabis at home and for personal use. MPs approved a legal reform on Tuesday, allowing citizens to grow and possess...

Omicron spreading at unprecedented rate: WHO

Flight crew from Air China arrive in hazmat suits in the international terminal at Los Angeles International Airport on December 3, 2021. (Photo by AFP) The World Health Organization warned Tuesday that the new coronavirus variant Omicron was spreading at an unprecedented rate and was likely already...

Hunger lingers for millions of underemployed, low-income Americans

Terrence Holloway, 41, reviews his choices of dry goods at the Lakeview Pantry, in Chicago, US, on November 10, 2021. (Reuters photo) Sofia Suarez, a receptionist at a dental office in Chicago, was out of work for about three months in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly a year and a half...

France closes 20 more mosques in fresh assault on religious freedom

Paris Mosque (Via AFP) In a fresh assault on religious freedom of Muslims, French government has closed at least 21 more mosques in the country, accusing them of promoting extremism. France’s Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, appearing on the French television LCI on Sunday, said 21 mosques that...

WHO says Omicron coronavirus variant poses ‘very high’ global risk but data on severity limited

Health care workers register people who will receive a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, in Lisbon, Portugal, on December 1, 2021. (Photo by AFP) The Omicron coronavirus variant, reported in more than 60 countries, poses a very high global risk, with some evidence that it evades vaccine protection but clinical...

Two-dose vaccines induce lower antibodies against Omicron, study finds

Health workers prepare doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at an inoculation centre in Naples, Italy, on January 8, 2021. (Photo by Reuters) Two-dose COVID-19 vaccine regimens do not induce enough neutralizing antibodies against the Omicron coronavirus variant, British scientists say, indicating...

Number of jailed journalists reaches global high in 2021, at least 24 killed

The number of journalists worldwide who are behind bars reached a global high in 2021, according to a new report from the nonprofit Committee to Protect Journalists, which says that 293 reporters were imprisoned as of December 1 this year. At least 24 journalists were killed because of their coverage,...

ICG Warns of Mass Starvation in Afghanistan

The International Crisis Group (ICG) in a newly published report said that if the international community does not scale up economic support, more Afghans may die of hunger and starvation in the current crisis than from the fighting in the past 20 years. Hunger and destitution following the Taliban’s...

Italy welcoming Afghan Refugees

Italy’s local media have reported that the country is welcoming Afghan refugees to the country who have been granted refugee status. Along with other European countries, the US, and the UK, Italy is one of these countries where a large number of Afghans are finding ways to, seeking asylum. Among others,...

Austria plans to lift lockdown, curbs to remain for unvaccinated

A sandwich is seen in a closed cafe as the Austrian government imposed a fourth national lockdown, in Vienna, Austria, on November 23, 2021. (Photo by Reuters) Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer has announced that the country’s partial coronavirus lockdown will end next week but unvaccinated people...

UK whistle-blower alleges govt failures have cost many Afghan lives

A whistle-blower who worked in the UK’s foreign ministry during the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August has made damning claims about government failures during the withdrawal from Afghanistan that could have cost many Afghan lives. He alleges junior officials were left to make hundreds of life-and-death...

UNICEF launches historic $2 billion appeal to save the lives of millions of Afghans

UNICEF launched its largest ever single-country appeal on Tuesday to urgently respond to the humanitarian needs of over 24 million people in Afghanistan, half of whom are children. UNICEF said in a statement issued Tuesday that the appeal for US$2 billion will help to avert the imminent collapse of...

UK’s handling of Afghanistan evacuations was ‘dysfunctional’, ‘chaotic’: Whistleblower

People are seen aboard an evacuation flight out of Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 21, 2021. (Photo by AP) The UK government’s handling of evacuations from Afghanistan following the Taliban’s takeover in August was dysfunctional and chaotic, according to a devastating account by a whistleblower. In...

Africa facing challenge to take in late-arriving COVID-19 vaccines: Report

A woman is vaccinated against COVID-19 at the Hillbrow Clinic in Johannesburg, South Africa, on December 6. (Photo by AP) With millions of COVID-19 vaccines expected to finally arrive in Africa in the coming weeks, experts say inoculation campaigns in some African countries face serious challenges...

34,000 Afghans still living on military bases of US

Spokesman of the Pentagon John Kirby said that there are still 34,000 Afghan evacuees who are living in seven US military bases now after three months of evacuation. Initially, there were 53,150 Afghan refugees housed in eight military bases of the US among them Fort Lee stopped operations and now left...

Next pandemic could be more lethal than COVID: Vaccine creator

A woman receives an Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine at a COVID-19 vaccination centre at Cwmbran Stadium in Cwmbran, South Wales, Britain February 17, 2021. (Reuters photo) Future pandemics could be even more lethal than COVID-19 so the lessons learned from the outbreak must...

Protests against new COVID-19 restrictions turn violent in Brussels

Belgian Police forces stand guard as people protest against COVID-19 measures near the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium, on November 21, 2021. (Photo by Reuters) Belgian police have fired teargas and water cannon to disperse protestors opposed to state-imposed compulsory measures against the...

Fauci says US reevaluating travel ban on African countries

White House Chief Medical Adviser Anthony Fauci in Washington, US, November 4, 2021. (Reuters photo) Top US infectious disease official Dr. Anthony Fauci has said the United States will hopefully be able to lift its travel ban on African countries in a quite reasonable period of time, which the United...

US drugstores face squeeze from virus demand, staff shortages

A sign posted outside a CVS pharmacy in Indianapolis. (photo via AP) A surge in the number of people seeking vaccines as well as staff shortages are squeezing drugstores across the United States. Some drugstores have closed temporarily and those open are busy having to deal with a growing number of...

Uzbekistan’s Samarkand city named 2023 World Tourism Capital

Uzbekistan’s historic city of Samarkand was chosen as the 2023 World Tourism Capital at the 24th General Assembly of the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) in Spain, Uzbekistan’s Tourism and Sports Ministry said in a statement on Saturday. Samarkand will host the 25th General Assembly of the...

Twitter admits policy ’errors’ after abuse by hate groups

Members of the Proud Boys march in Manhattan against vaccine mandates in New York City. (Photo by AFP) Twitter’s new picture permission policy was aimed at combating online abuse, but US activists and researchers said Friday that far-right backers have employed it to protect themselves from scrutiny...

Omicron COVID-19 variant found in 10 new US states

A syringe is filled with a dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine at a pop-up community vaccination center at the Gateway World Christian Center in Valley Stream, New York, US, February 23, 2021. (Reuters photo) The new highly transmissible omicron coronavirus variant has been found in at least 10 new...