Six In The Morning Saturday 26 June 2021

 

The UK should be having a racial reckoning. Instead, Black Lives Matter activists say they fear for their safety

Analysis by Salma Abdelaziz, CNN

Updated 0902 GMT (1702 HKT) June 26, 2021

Aima, 19, is one of Britain's most prominent Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists, but at a protest in London she is nervous. She has her hood up and, while a pandemic-mandated mask covers most of her face, she keeps her head down for fear of being recognized. Her eyes constantly dart to check the location of the police.

She has reason to be scared. Campaigners say that standing up for the rights of Black people in the UK comes at a high price. They say they've seen an angry backlash and have even received death threats.

Attending a march last month against a proposed bill to increase police powers at demonstrations, Aima was flanked by two White allies. Assigned by a trusted volunteer group, they are there to help keep her safe.

The Oxford vaccine: the trials and tribulations of a world-saving jab

Amid bemusement from scientists at the deluge of often undeserved criticism, the Guardian pieces together the story behind the vaccine’s successes and failures

Sarah Boseley Health editor

Sat 26 Jun 2021 07.00 BST

In January 2020, when most of the world slept soundly in ignorance of the pandemic coming its way, a group of scientists at Oxford University got to work on a vaccine to save the planet. They wanted it to be highly effective, cheap, and easy to use in even the poorest countries.

Prof Sarah Gilbert, Prof Andrew Pollard and others pulled it off. With speed crucial, they designed it and launched into trials before bringing in a business partner. The giant Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca would manufacture it, license it around the world – and not make a profit until the pandemic was over.

It was an inspired, idealistic and philanthropic crusade – yet they have spent the last year being attacked from all sides.

The Latest: Russia reports highest virus death toll of 2021

Russia has reported its highest daily COVID-19 death toll of the year as the country grapples with a sharp spike in infections that has brought new restrictions in some regions

Via AP news wire

Russia has reported its highest daily COVID-19 death toll of the year as the country grapples with a sharp spike in infections that has brought new restrictions in some regions.

The national coronavirus task force said Saturday that 619 people died over the past day, the most since Dec. 24. There were were 21,665 new infection cases, nearly 1,300 more than on the previous day and more than double the 9,500 reported on June 1.

More than a third of the new infections were in Moscow The city on Monday is to begin a system under which restaurant service will be limited to people who can show they’ve been vaccinated or had a recent negative coronavirus test.

Afghanistan: Power struggle in the Hindu Kush

NATO forces are withdrawing from Afghanistan. But Kabul's neighbors have conflicting interests. The omens are not good for a country that has often suffered from its strategic location. What lies ahead for Afghanistan?

For over four decades now, Afghanistan has been ravaged by war. In all that time, one thing has been unchanged: Afghanistan remains a "graveyard for empires," a view once again highlighted by the pullout of US forces and their allies. And one factor is a cruel constant in this country's desperately troubled history: its central strategic location.

Afghanistan is a country of many peoples and even more neighbors — both directly and indirectly. And they could not be more different: from Iran in the west, the two hostile nuclear powers Pakistan and India in the east, China in the northeast, the oil- and gas-rich states of central Asia in the north.

Japan's population falls to 126.22 mil in 2020; drops out of top 10 in world

Japan's population including foreign residents fell 0.7 percent from 2015 to 126,226,568 as of Oct. 1, 2020, dropping out of the world's top 10 in size for the first time since 1950, the latest census and U.N. estimates showed Friday.

The data adds pressure on Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's government to try to slow the population decline in the world's third-largest economy. With a rapidly graying society, the number of newborns in 2020 fell to a record low of 840,832, partly due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The preliminary data released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications showed the population dropped by around 868,000 from 2015, when it marked its first decline -- of 0.8 percent -- since the census began in 1920. The population is measured every five years.

‘Health system close to collapse’: Indonesia battling COVID surge

President Joko Widodo said Indonesia facing ‘extraordinary situation’ as cases go past 2 million amid detection of new variants.

 

COVID infections have surged in Indonesia, a nation of 270 million people, in the past week, with more than 2 million cases reported as of Saturday, and hospital occupancy rates soared to more than 75 percent in the capital Jakarta and other hard-hit areas.

The country is also grappling with new virus strains, including the highly infectious Delta variant first identified in India.