Six In The Morning Friday 1 October 2021

 

They have all the vaccines they need, but these EU nations are still miles behind their neighbors

By Ivana Kottasová, CNN

Updated 1253 GMT (2053 HKT) October 1, 2021

With nearly three quarters of all adults fully vaccinated against Covid-19, the European Union is a world leader in inoculations. But the impressive headline number is obscuring an uncomfortable reality: the rollout has been extremely unequal across the union.

Some countries, including Ireland, Malta, Portugal and Denmark, have achieved near universal vaccination, boasting coverage rates of around 90%, according to the European Center for Disease Control (ECDC). On the other side of the bloc, Romania and Bulgaria have fully vaccinated only 33% and 22% of their adults, respectively.

The problem isn't down to vaccine shortages. All EU countries have access to all of the shots approved by the EU -- Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson. Individual countries are also free to get other shots. Hungary, for example, has acquired Russian Sputnik vaccines for its population.

Aung San Suu Kyi appears in closed court on corruption charges

Allegations are among most serious of those filed against ousted leader by Myanmar’s military junta

Rebecca Ratcliffe South-east Asia correspondent

Fri 1 Oct 2021 16.23 BST

Aung San Suu Kyi has appeared in a closed court to face allegations of corruption, one of the most serious of a number of legal charges filed against the ousted leader by the military junta.

In a hearing at the Naypyidaw Council compound, Aung San Suu Kyi was accused of breaching the anti-corruption law in four cases. This includes accepting packets of US bank notes and gold bars in bribes from Yangon’s former chief minister, Phyo Min Thein; renting government land at a discount; and using funds of the Daw Khin Kyi Foundation, a charity founded by Aung San Suu Kyi in the name of her mother, to build a home.

Separatism in Cameroon: 5 years of violent civil war

A civil war has been raging in Cameroon since 2016. Separatists in Anglophone regions want their own state, called Ambazonia.

The conflict between the French-speaking majority state and the smaller English-speaking parts of the country has been simmering for decades.

Conflict rooted in colonialism

Cameroon was under German colonial rule from 1884 to 1916. After the German Empire was defeated in World War I, the League of Nations handed one portion of Cameroon over to France, the other to Britain.

A safe space for addicts? The battle over Paris's 'shooting galleries'

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has been given the go-ahead to open four new "shooting galleries" – supervised sites where addicts can use drugs with clean equipment – across the French capital. But while the charity that runs the city's only shooting gallery says they have proven effective, plans for more have met fierce opposition from some of the city's residents. 

It is a sunny Saturday in late September, normally a day when the residents of Bonne-Nouvelle, a trendy, vibrant neighbourhood in Paris's 10th arrondissement, would be enjoying a day in the park or a lunch on the terrace of one of the many cafés that line the boulevards. 

Instead, hundreds of locals have turned out on the street, waving placards warning of a "crackastrophy" or that the "north of Paris is going to crack". The gentle wordplay belies the prevailing sense of anger and frustration. 

UN urges Lebanon to implement reforms as extreme poverty grows

Amid economic meltdown, Lebanon’s medical crisis is a ‘death sentence’ and starvation a ‘growing reality’, the UN says.

By Kareem Chehayeb

1 Oct 2021

The United Nations has sounded the alarm on Lebanon’s spiralling economic meltdown, calling on the country’s leadership to urgently implement reforms as extreme poverty deepens and starvation becomes a “growing reality” for thousands of people.

“The situation remains a living nightmare for ordinary people, causing unspeakable suffering and distress for the most vulnerable,” United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon Najat Rochdi said at a news conference on Friday.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs law returning beachfront land stripped from Black family

Garin Flowers

·National Reporter and Producer

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill to return land to the descendants of a Black couple, Willa and Charles Bruce, that was taken from them in the city of Manhattan Beach, Calif., nearly a century ago. Newsom traveled to the area where the Bruces’ resort was once located to sign the new law in front of Bruce family members, the media and others who raised awareness of how Black Californians were pushed off of valuable beachfront property.

“I’m proud, as a son of this state, proud as the governor of this state, of the most diverse state and the world’s most diverse democracy, to be here, Anthony, with you,” Newsom said, referring to Anthony Bruce, the great-great-grandson of Willa and Charles and the heir to the property, at the bill signing.