Covid-19 deaths are accelerating, WHO warns, as world records most cases ever in a single week
Updated 1327 GMT (2127 HKT) April 20, 2021
Covid-19 infections have been rising at an alarming rate for eight consecutive weeks, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned, as the virus sweeps unabated through hotspots in several corners of the globe.
Chad’s president Idriss Déby dies ‘on battlefield’, military says
Déby had ruled for 30 years and won a sixth term in elections last week
Idriss Déby, the veteran president of Chad, has died, national radio in the central African state has said.
A statement from the military said the 68-year-old ruler, in power for 30 years, had been killed “on the battlefield” after being injured fighting rebels but gave no further details.
Déby last week won a sixth term in presidential elections. The poll prompted an invasion by a Libya-based rebel group called the Force for Change and Concord in Chad (Fact), which military officials had said was repulsed at the weekend.
Global CO2 emissions set for largest surge in more than a decade, says IEA
CO2 emissions are on course to surge by 1.5bn tonnes in 2021 as demand for dirtiest fossil fuels soars past pre-pandemic levels, says the International Energy Agency
Global CO2 emissions from energy use are set to soar by 1.5 billion tonnes in 2021 – the highest annual increase since the world turned heavily to fossil fuels after the financial crisis in 2010, a major report finds.
Driven by a soaring demand for fossil fuels, this uptick would also be the second-largest annual increase in CO2 emissions seen since the start of the industrial era, says the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The expected surge will reverse most of the temporary dip in emissions seen in 2020 – providing a “dire warning that the economic recovery from the Covid crisis is anything but sustainable”, according to IEA chief Dr Fatih Birol.
EMA issues warning over Johnson & Johnson vaccine, stops short of ruling against use
The EU's medicines regulator said that the benefits of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine outweighed the risks, despite finding possible links to "very rare" cases of blood clots.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said Tuesday the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine has possible links to "very rare" cases of blood clots — but stopped short of ruling against using the one-shot dose.
The EU drug regulator said in a statement: "The EMA concluded that a warning about unusual blood clots with low blood platelets should be added to the product information for COVID-19 Vaccine Janssen [the market name for the J&J vaccine]." The EMA "also concluded that these events should be listed as very rare side effects of the vaccine."
Japan tightens rules on COVID-19 test certificates for travelers
Japan on Monday tightened its rules on coronavirus test certificates needed to be submitted by all passengers upon arrival at Japanese airports, with those failing to meet required conditions to be denied entry into the country in principle.
Since March, Japan had been asking airlines to deny boarding of passengers without negative coronavirus testing results taken within 72 hours of departure.
Until Sunday, the country's quarantine authorities, however, still allowed those who had come to Japan with insufficient certificates to stay at a designated facility and retake a coronavirus test after three days.
Why the Tatmadaw won’t crack in Myanmar
While the world gasps at the Myanmar military's brutal crackdown, there is little hope for a soldier-led mutiny or countercoup
A military coup that overthrows a democratically elected government and sparks three months of nationwide protests and strikes. More than 700 people including children as young as five shot and killed as security forces fire into crowds of anti-military demonstrators.
Thousands of people, among them not only politicians, activists and journalists but also some of the nation’s best-known singers, movie stars and celebrities arrested on various trumped-up charges. An economy on its knees with non-performing banks and foreign investors running for the exits.
Such a litany would normally be enough to bring down any coup-installed government through a counter-coup or some other action by a military’s top brass who could see the self-defeatism of trying to cling to power when nearly the entire population is opposed to your takeover and rule.
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