Six In The Morning Wednesday 7 April 2021

 

European agency finds AstraZeneca shot can cause rare blood clots but benefits outweigh risk

By Angela Dewan and Sharon Braithwaite, CNN

Updated 1451 GMT (2251 HKT) April 7, 2021

The safety committee of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has found that the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine can cause unusual blood clots with low blood platelets, but stresses the overall benefits of the shot in preventing coronavirus outweigh the risks of side effects.

The committee said there had been 18 deaths reported in its review of 62 cases of CVST (a clotting in the sinuses that drain blood from the brain) and 24 cases of splanchnic vein thrombosis (in the abdomen) that were reported in an EU drug safety database. The cases came mainly from spontaneous reporting systems of the European Economic Area and the UK, where around 25 million people in total had received the vaccine, it noted.

Myanmar coup: ousted MPs accuse military of human rights abuses

Group says junta has carried out hundreds of extrajudicial killings, as well as torture and illegal detentions

Rebecca Ratcliffe South-east Asia correspondent

Wed 7 Apr 2021 16.04 BST

A group representing Myanmar’s ousted elected government has said it has gathered 180,000 pieces of evidence showing human rights abuses by the military, including hundreds of extrajudicial executions, torture and illegal detentions.

The Committee for Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), which was set up in the aftermath of the coup to represent MPs from Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, said its legal representative would meet UN investigators to discuss the abuses on Wednesday.

According to the group, the junta has carried out more than 540 extrajudicial executions, while it has also received reports of at least 10 deaths of prisoners in custody.

Left-wing party which opposes major mining project wins Greenland general election

Snap poll triggered by political split over plan to extract valuable minerals

Bethany Dawson@bethanymrd

Greenland’s left-wing opposition has secured more than one-third of the votes in a snap parliamentary election, making them the biggest party and casting fresh doubt on a controversial mining project in the country.

The democratic-socialist Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) party, which opposes the rare earth mining project, won 37 per cent of votes, unseating the ruling social-democratic Siumut party, which secured 29 per cent of votes, according to official results.

The pro-mining Siumut party has been in power most of the time since 1979 and their loss sends a strong signal to those hoping to exploit Greenland’s vast untapped minerals resources.

COVID worsened global human rights abuses: Amnesty report

From the prosecution of journalists to the repression of activists, Amnesty International has condemned global human rights abuses committed during the pandemic year in a new report. DW takes a look at eight countries.

Many governments "weaponized" the coronavirus pandemic during the last year to further repress citizens' rights, global rights group Amnesty International said in its annual report, released Wednesday. The report also says the virus disproportionately hit ethnic minorities, refugees and women.

"At the global level, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed and exacerbated inequalities," Philip Luther, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Research and Advocacy Director, told DW.

France opens its archives on Rwandan genocide to the public

France’s role before and during the 1994 Rwandan genocide was a “monumental failure” that the country must acknowledge, the lead author of a report commissioned by President Emmanuel Macron said, as the country opens its archives from this period to the public on Wednesday.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame on Wednesday welcomed the report as “an important step toward a common understanding of what took place”.

Speaking at an anniversary ceremony marking the start of the genocide, Kagame, in his first public response to the report, said, “it shows the desire, even for leaders in France, to move forward with a good understanding of what happened".

Outrage after Pakistan’s Imran Khan links rape to how women dress

Khan faces backlash for saying the increase in rapes indicated ‘consequences in any society where vulgarity is on the rise’.

Pakistani women activists and rights campaigners have accused Prime Minister Imran Khan of “baffling ignorance” after the cricketer-turned-politician blamed how women dress for a rise in rape cases.

In a weekend interview on live television, Oxford-educated Khan said an increase in rapes indicated the “consequences in any society where vulgarity is on the rise”.