It all felt terribly preordained. A Senate trial with next to no jeopardy – apart from a sudden jolt of it on the final day, when Democrats toyed with calling witnesses and the whole process looked like it could take weeks to conclude. In the end, it finished as we knew it would – with
Month: February 2021
Boris Johnson is to urge world leaders to unite and work together to defeat the “common foe” of the COVID-19 pandemic. His comments come as he hosts his first meeting of the G7, a virtual one, with the UK occupying the organisation’s rotating presidency this year ahead of a major summit scheduled to be held
Former US president Donald Trump has been found not guilty in his impeachment trial. A total of 43 senators voted ‘not guilty’ which passed the two thirds majority required for his acquittal. Seven members of Mr Trump’s own party voted ‘guilty’. In a statement after the trial, Mr Trump said it was “a sad commentary
France’s top health authority has recommended that people who’ve had coronavirus only get one vaccine dose. Those who have recovered from the virus have built an immune response similar to that brought on by a vaccine, said the High Authority of Health (HAS). It said a single shot would “play the role of reminding” the
The theory that COVID-19 originated from a laboratory in Wuhan has not been dismissed by investigators, the head of the World Health Organisation has suggested. Earlier this week, a WHO-led mission in China said it was not looking further into the question of whether the virus escaped from a lab, which it considered highly unlikely.
The head of the Tokyo Olympics has announced his resignation over sexist comments. Yoshiro Mori had said women talk too much during an online meeting of the committee’s board of trustees earlier this month, where he also said women are driven by a “strong sense of rivalry”. The former Japanese prime minister, 83, had previously
In 2012, the Eurozone was facing an existential crisis, with the future of the euro itself in doubt. Investors were seeking an ever-greater premium to lend to countries like Spain and Italy and there was real concern in European capitals that at least one country might have to be ejected from the single currency zone.
A team of Mossad officers spent months learning the minute-by-minute routine of a top Iranian nuclear scientist – before killing him with a remote-controlled machine gun. Some of the 20-strong Israeli team smuggled the gun – which weighed a tonne – piece by piece into the country, while others watched every move Mohsen Fakhrizadeh made.
Prominent Saudi women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul has been released from prison after spending more than 1,000 days behind bars. Her sister Lina posted the news on Twitter with a screenshot of a smiling Loujian speaking to her via video call but warned that while she was out of jail she was still not fully
Scientists advising the World Health Organisation have recommended the use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in adults of all ages. The WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunisation has issued interim recommendations on the vaccine, saying that the jab could be given to people aged 18 and above “without an upper age limit”. “That
A 100-year-old man in Germany has been charged with 3,518 counts of being an accessory to murder over claims he was a member of the SS at a Nazi concentration camp during the Second World War. It is claimed the man, who cannot be named due to German laws, worked at the Sachsenhausen camp between
There is a continuous sound of heavy machinery at the mouth of the main tunnel of the Tapovan power station in India’s Uttarakhand state. Rescuers are desperately trying to reach about 35 workers trapped inside a tunnel after a glacier collapse. It has now been more than 60 hours since a Himalayan glacier broke off
The novel coronavirus could have been circulating in regions outside Wuhan before the first reported cases of the outbreak, according to a joint mission investigating the origins of the pandemic. Unpublished data suggests samples of SARS-CoV-2 were found several weeks before the first reported cases in Wuhan, the head of China’s National Health Commission’s expert
The impoverished country of Haiti – already an economic disaster zone with organised crime and kidnapping for ransom out of control – now finds itself in the midst of a constitutional crisis with violent confrontations between anti-government protesters and the police a daily occurrence. The country’s leading opposition parties, the judiciary and activist groups say
Police have fired a water cannon in Myanmar’s capital as tens of thousands of people across the country protest over last week’s military coup. Demonstrations are growing in the southeast Asian state in a bid to get elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her government reinstated. The peaceful protests swelled over the weekend and
South Africa is suspending its rollout of the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine after finding it offers limited protection against mild disease caused by the COVID-19 variant discovered there. It follows disappointing results in a trial conducted by the University of the Witwatersrand, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said. The government had been intending to give the AstraZeneca