India's Covid-19 crisis is a problem for the world
Updated 1503 GMT (2303 HKT) April 29, 2021
There is a split scenario unfolding as the world battles the pandemic.
Alexei Navalny looks gaunt as he appears in court after hunger strike
Kremlin critic makes first public appearance since announcing he was gradually ending hunger strike
Alexei Navalny has made his first public appearance since holding a 24-day hunger strike, appearing gaunt but spirited during a courtroom appeal against a defamation conviction that he has called politically motivated.
A photograph released by the court showed Navalny, appearing by video link, with a shaved head and wearing a prison jacket. “I am a creepy skeleton,” said Navalny, who appeared in the courtroom on a video feed. “I weighed this much in 7th grade.”
Navalny, who was fined 850,000 roubles (£8,200) in February for defaming a second world war veteran who backed a “reset” of Putin’s presidential terms, has said the case against him was concocted to further damage his reputation among Russians.
Modi hails ‘festival of democracy’ as India elections go ahead despite record Covid cases and deaths
Voting comes on the same day as India set another global record for infections
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi hailed “the festival of democracy” as people in the state of West Bengal voted in the final phase of elections despite surging coronavirus cases and deaths.
India set another global record for infections with 379,257 new cases and 3,645 new deaths being recorded in the 24 hours ending Thursday morning. Overall, there have now been more than 18 million cases. The total number of deaths in India now stands at 204,832.
Experts believe even these huge figures are an undercount, but it’s unclear by how much. India has set a daily global record for seven of the past eight days, with a seven-day moving average of nearly 350,000 infections.
EU accuses Russia, China of COVID vaccine disinformation
A new EU report found that Beijing and Moscow are seeking to undermine trust in Western coronavirus vaccines — and intensely promoting their own.
China and Russia are engaging in campaigns to erode trust in the European Union's coronavirus strategy as well as gin up skepticism of Western-developed coronavirus vaccines, the EU's foreign service said in a report published Wednesday.
The report also raised concerns that the countries are using these efforts to particularly exert influence on the Western Balkans.
Japan's unused 14 mil doses of COVID-19 vaccines point to logistical hurdles
By Rocky Swift
Japan has only used about a fifth of the COVID-19 vaccine doses it has imported so far, government data shows, underscoring logistical hurdles such as a shortage of medical staff, as it grapples with a sluggish inoculation campaign.
Japan has secured the largest amount of COVID-19 vaccines in Asia, as it gears up for the Olympics in the summer. But it has inoculated only 1.6% of its population so far, the slowest among wealthy countries.
By the end of April, Japan will have imported enough vials of Pfizer Inc's vaccine for almost 17 million doses, according to a schedule from the Cabinet Office. But as of Wednesday just over 3.2 million shots had been given out, mostly to healthcare workers.
Sexual violence pervasive in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions
Every day, Gladys, a 33-year-old vendor in Buea, the capital of Cameroon’s Southwest region, heads to Muea market to sell vegetables, sweets and other food items.
“But only after the sun rises,” she said. “All day I worry it will be the day I am attacked by those boys [or] the military.”
Gladys’s fear and anxiety are shared by many women across Cameroon’s Anglophone Northwest and Southwest regions, where an armed conflict between separatist groups and government forces has been ongoing since 2016.
No comments:
Post a Comment