Africa
-
COVID-19: People Roll Up Their Sleeves to Be Injected with Vaccines
2020-05-04 18:33:11 UTC
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hundreds of people are rolling up their sleeves in countries across the world to be injected with experimental vaccines that might stop COVID-19, spurring hope — maybe unrealistic — that an end to the pandemic may arrive sooner than anticipated.
About 100 research groups are pursuing vaccines with nearly a dozen i...
-
Coronavirus: Wild Animals Move Into Cities and Air Cleans Up
2020-04-22 06:47:38 UTC
<p>An unplanned grand experiment is changing Earth.</p><p>As people across the globe stay home to stop the spread of the new coronavirus, the air has cleaned up, albeit temporarily. Smog stopped choking New Delhi, one of the most polluted cities in the world, and India’s getting views of sights not visible in decades. Nitrogen di...
-
Trump's WHO Decision "Selfish, Short-Sighted and Wrong"
2020-04-16 21:23:54 UTC
GENEVA (AP) — Nations and health experts worldwide reacted with alarm Wednesday after President Donald Trump announced a halt to the sizable funding the United States sends to the World Health Organization. They warned that the move could jeopardize global efforts to stop the coronavirus pandemic.
At a briefing in Washington, Trump...
-
Zimbabweans Tell of Hopelessness Ahead of Fight With Coronavirus
2020-03-30 21:01:51 UTC
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — “We are already ruined. What more harm can coronavirus do?” Irene Kampira asked as she sorted secondhand clothes at a bustling market in a poor suburb of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.
People in one of the world’s most devastated nations are choosing daily survival over measures to protect themselves from a vir...
-
Updates: Coronavirus Cases in Africa Near 5,000
2020-03-30 08:08:33 UTC
<p>The Latest on the <a href="https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak">coronavirus</a> pandemic. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death.</p><p>TOP OF THE HOUR:</p><p>— Coronavirus cases in ...
-
IMF: Global Economy Has Entered Recession, Worse Than 2008 Downturn
2020-03-27 23:26:50 UTC
WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the International Monetary Fund said Friday it is clear that the global economy has now entered a recession that could be as bad or worse than the 2009 downturn.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said the 189-nation lending agency was forecasting a recovery in 2021, saying it could be a “sizabl...
-
Coronavirus: Half-Million Infected Worldwide
2020-03-26 16:49:08 UTC
The number of coronavirus infections closed in on a half-million worldwide Thursday, with both Italy and the U.S. on track to surpass China, and a record-shattering 3.3 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits in a single week in a stark demonstration of the damage to the world’s biggest economy.
Health care systems in Eu...
-
Coronavirus Cases Top 220,000 Worldwide - 9,000 Dies
2020-03-18 23:20:08 UTC
BERLIN (AP) — Desperate travelers choked European border crossings on Wednesday after nations implemented strict controls in an attempt to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus, creating traffic jams miles long and slowing the passage of trucks carrying critical supplies.
The number of people infected worldwide crested the 220,000 ...
-
Global Stocks Fall Sharply as Virus Cases Spread Around the World
2020-03-16 20:33:23 UTC
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks fell sharply around the world Monday as the coronavirus forced huge swaths of the economy to the edge of a standstill, from parked airplanes to the nearly empty restaurant around the corner.
The Dow industrials took a 2,999-point nosedive on Monday as fears deepen that the coronavirus outbreak will throw glob...
-
World Health Organization Declares Coronavirus Crisis Is Now a Pandemic
2020-03-11 16:52:06 UTC
<p>ROME (AP) — Expressing increasing alarm about mounting infections, the World Health Organization declared Wednesday that the global coronavirus crisis is now a pandemic.</p><p>Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who heads the U.N. agency, said the WHO is “deeply concerned by the alarming levels of spread and severity” of t...
-
Coronavirus Outbreak Is Spreading Around the World
2020-02-27 21:37:15 UTC
<p>One by one, more and more countries are reporting cases of the new coronavirus. Governments and doctors on the front lines are scrambling for solutions and everyday life around the globe is being disrupted in a manner that’s not been seen in recent times. </p><p>The spread of the virus is having an impact around the world...
-
Ebola Virus: WHO Vaccinates Over 1,300 People in Goma
2019-08-11 16:00:28 UTC
GOMA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization said it has vaccinated over 1,300 people who potentially came into contact with the Ebola virus in the Congolese city of Goma, helping contain what many feared would be a rapid spread in an urban center.
A year-long Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has killed at le...
-
Algeria’s President quits after Six Weeks of Mass Protests
2019-04-02 21:51:36 UTC
ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algeria’s ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika resigned on Tuesday, succumbing to six weeks of largely peaceful mass protests driven by youth and pressure from the powerful army against his 20-year rule.
Hundreds took to the streets of the capital after state media announced the 82-year-old’s departure, capping ...
-
Mozambique's Cyclone Survivors Face Cholera
2019-03-27 17:36:23 UTC
BEIRA, Mozambique (Reuters) - Dozens of fragile patients poured into a clinic in the wrecked Mozambican port city of Beira on Wednesday, as the government said it had confirmed the first five cases of cholera in the wake of deadly Cyclone Idai.
Thousands of people were trapped for more than a week in submerged villages without acces...
-
Catastrophic Effects of Climate Change
2018-11-25 02:46:14 UTC
(Reuters) - Climate change will cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century, hitting everything from health to infrastructure, according to a government report issued on Friday that the White House called inaccurate.
The congressionally mandated report, written with the help of more than a dozen U...
-
UNHCR: 4 million refugee children can't go to school
2018-09-23 22:16:47 UTC
Four million refugee children around the world are excluded from education, according to a United Nations report. A solution should be to allow refugees to attend regular schools, the UNHCR has demanded.
With more and more children forced to leave their homes, the number of refugees out of education has topped four million, accordin...
-
Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan dies aged 80
2018-08-19 06:04:34 UTC
ACCRA/GENEVA (Reuters) - Former U.N. Secretary-General and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Kofi Annan died on Saturday at the age of 80, his foundation said, after decades of championing efforts to try to end protracted conflicts in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
Annan, a Ghanaian national, died in hospital in Bern, Switzerland, in th...
-
Zimbabwe electoral commission declares Emmerson Mnangagwa winner of presidential election
2018-08-02 23:43:12 UTC
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa, a former spy chief installed after Robert Mugabe’s removal in a coup in November, on Friday won a poll marred by the deaths of six people in an army crackdown on opposition protests.
Mnangagwa received 50.8 percent of the vote, while his main opponent, Nelson Chamisa, polled ...
-
Nelson “Madiba” Mandela 100th birthday
2018-07-18 07:37:17 UTC
“It always seems impossible, until it’s done!”
This statement could have been made by Diddy or Cardi B. It could have been a lyric cleverly woven into a Drake song or tattooed across 50 Cent’s chest. But none of those examples are the origins of this statement. When Nelson “Madiba” Mandela uttered those words, he had already walked ...
-
Zimbabwe will hold first post-Mugabe elections on July 30
2018-05-30 17:06:12 UTC
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe will hold presidential and parliamentary elections on July 30, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said on Wednesday, a vote he promises will be free and fair with international monitoring after the ouster of 94-year-old strongman Robert Mugabe.
Mnangagwa, who took power after the November military coup against ...
-
Zimbabwe investigates Grace Mugabe for ivory smuggling
2018-03-26 06:11:15 UTC
The former first lady of Zimbabwe, Grace Mugabe, is suspected by wildlife officials of having smuggled ivory worth millions of dollars. The wife of ex-President Robert Mugabe was once tipped to lead the country.
The wife of former Zimbabwean ruler Robert Mugabe, faced accusations on Sunday that she had raided the country's ivory sto...
-
South Africa ex-President, Jacob Zuma, faces corruption charges
2018-03-16 19:08:19 UTC
PRETORIA (Reuters) - Former South African president Jacob Zuma is to face corruption charges over a $2.5 billion arms deal, prosecutors said, as a years-old scandal returned to haunt him within weeks of his fall from power.
It was a stunning judicial development on a continent where political “Big Men” rarely have to face their ac...
-
Listeriosis outbreak kills 180 people in South Africa
2018-03-05 20:37:17 UTC
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Officials have said the outbreak was linked to contaminated sausage and warned South Africans not to consume "ready to eat" processed meat. The UN said the listeria outbreak is believed to be the largest-ever worldwide.
South Africa's Health Ministry said on Sunday that a listeriosis outbreak has killed ...
-
Ethiopia ruled out military takeover amid state of emergency
2018-02-17 17:08:46 UTC
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Ethiopia’s defense minister on Saturday ruled out a military takeover a day after the East African nation declared a new state of emergency amid the worst anti-government protests in a quarter-century.
The United States said it “strongly disagrees” with the new declaration that effectively bans protests,...
-
South Africa faces a long, hard road back to prosperity and self-respect
2018-02-15 08:20:01 UTC
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africans awoke to a nation without Jacob Zuma as president for the first time in nine years on Thursday, released from the burden of a compromised leader who darkened the dreams and aspirations of the post-apartheid “Rainbow Nation”.
The road back to prosperity and self-respect will be long and hard in...