World
India to resume regular international flights from Dec 15
After a long Covid-induced hiatus, India will resume regular international flights from the middle of December. This was announced by India's Civil Aviation Ministry on Friday.
"The matter of resumption of scheduled commercial international passenger services, to and from India, has been examined in consultation with the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Health, and it has been decided... may be resumed from December 15," the Ministry said in an order.
Read:EU wants to stop flights from southern Africa over variant
The Indian government put curbs on all domestic and international flights in March last year in the wake of the Covid-induced lockdown. Though it allowed domestic flights from May 2020, restrictions prevailed on international flights till it allowed the entry of all foreigners except tourists in October that year.
However, restrictions on regular international flights to and from 14 countries, including the UK, France, Germany, China, Botswana and South Africa, will continue, government sources told UNB.
Read:South African scientists detect new virus variant amid spike
The Indian Civil Aviation Ministry's decision to resume scheduled international flights comes amid fears over a new variant of the coronavirus -- the B.1.1.529 strain -- that has spread to Botswana, Israel and Hong Kong since its detection in South Africa.
"All passengers coming to India will need to have downloaded a government contact-tracing app, and they will also be subject to thermal screening. Also, flyers will also need to wear masks and gloves while inside airports," the sources said.
As Europe virus cases surge, UK plows on with its new normal
The bars are shut in Vienna, and the Christmas market is empty in Munich, as several European nations tighten up or even lock down to combat a spike in coronavirus infections.
Meanwhile in London, couples sip mulled wine at a seasonal market near the River Thames, full-capacity audiences fill the seats at the nearby National Theatre, and friends huddle over pints in pubs throughout the city.
Read: EU wants to stop flights from southern Africa over variant
Not for the first time in the pandemic, Britain is out of step with many of its neighbors. But this time, it’s happy to be different.
The U.K. has endured three nationwide lockdowns and recorded nearly 145,000 deaths from the coronavirus, the highest toll in Europe after Russia. Now, it is watching as hospitals struggle with surging cases in countries including the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic, bringing lockdowns and restrictions. But while Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned that a “blizzard from the east” could still ruin Britain’s Christmas, many scientists say the wind is now blowing the other way.
“We are not behind Europe in this wave. They are behind us,” said Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia.
The surge that is now hitting mainland Europe, driven by the highly transmissible delta strain of the virus, walloped Britain in the summer, just as the government removed all remaining legal restrictions on the economy and daily life.
Read: France calls for European aid after 27 migrant deaths at sea
Because Britain got delta in the summer, when respiratory viruses are transmitted less readily, “it wasn’t so explosive as we would expect it to be in the winter, and as we’re now seeing in in some European countries,” Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease modelling at the University of Edinburgh, said.
“I think the U.K. got its delta wave at a fortuitous time, whereas Austria, for example, it’s the exact opposite,” he said. Austria, where average daily deaths have almost doubled in the past two weeks, has gone into lockdown, and authorities there plan to mandate vaccinations beginning Feb. 1.
The World Health Organization said this week that Europe is the only region of the world where coronavirus cases are rising, and the continent could see another 700,000 deaths by the spring unless urgent measures are taken soon.
But Britain stands somewhat apart.
Many scientists predicted the country would see a spike in cases after July 19 — dubbed “Freedom Day” by the media — when almost all restrictions were lifted. It didn’t happen.
Infection rates that were then among the highest in Europe, drifted up and down but never soared again as feared, though they remain stubbornly high. Britain is recording more than 40,000 new cases a day, a level last seen during the past winter’s surge. But a relatively high vaccination rate — particularly among the elderly — means hospitalizations and deaths are far lower than in previous waves. Still, 130 people a day died in the past week after testing positive for COVID-19.
Britain’s hospitals have not been overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases, though they are extremely busy as the health system struggles to clear a huge backlog built up during the pandemic. Johnson’s Conservative government has so far not had to trigger its “Plan B,” which would reintroduce mask mandates and work-from-home orders to ease pressure on the health system.
But if life in Britain these days can feel unusually normal — even festive, as many embrace the holiday season with renewed enthusiasm — it is a new, more constrained normal.
Visitors from countries where restrictions are still in place are sometimes taken aback by Britain's voluntary, variable approach to mask use and social distancing. But Ivo Vlaev, a behavioral scientist at the University of Warwick who has studied data from across Europe, says people in the U.K. have largely stuck to protective measures — including limiting their contacts with others — even when they were no longer required by law. Movement data suggests Britons still travel and mix less than before the pandemic.
Read: Migrant boat capsizes in English Channel; at least 31 dead
“It seems to be the case that in U.K. people are more compliant in general across all health-protective behaviors” than in some other European nations, Vaev said.
Partly, he says, the reason is “fear — we actually are quite afraid to go out and do the usual stuff” after Britain's harsh pandemic experience.
While some European countries are turning to compulsion to get more people vaccinated, the U.K. is sticking with persuasion. Britain does not widely require proof of vaccination attend events or workplaces, and the government has ruled out mandating vaccines for everyone, though health and social care workers have been ordered to get shots.
Britain hasn't seen as much resistance to the vaccine as many other countries, and about 88% of people aged 12 and up have had at least one dose. But only about 68% of the whole population is fully vaccinated, a lower figure than in some other European nations, partly because the U.K. was slower than many of its neighbors to offer shots to children aged 12 to 15, and has not yet approved vaccines for younger kids.
The government’s focus is on giving booster doses to those most vulnerable to serious illness, offering a third shot to everyone 40 and up six months after their second.
“Get your booster as soon as you can,” the prime minister said this week. “Because it is by vaccinating our country that we have been able to get your staff back to their place of work, to open our theaters, our restaurants and get back for longer now than any comparator country, to something like normal life.”
Some public health specialists and opposition politicians say the government is relying too much on vaccination to keep the virus at bay. They want the return of mandatory masks, social distancing and other measures.
But some epidemiologists are cautiously optimistic that enough is being done to keep a lid on the virus over the winter. Perhaps ironically, Hunter says Britain’s heavy coronavirus toll puts it in a stronger position than those countries where the virus is now surging.
Read: Italian Coast Guard rescues 550 migrants from stormy seas
“They’ve got populations that are not as well immunized, whether that is from vaccine or infection, as we have,” he said. “We still have a lot more immunity from natural infection than most European countries, and we’re rolling out the booster. That is why we will have less of a troublesome winter than most.”
EU wants to stop flights from southern Africa over variant
The European Union said Friday it is planning to stop air travel from southern Africa to counter the spread of a new COVID-19 variant as the 27-nation bloc is battling a massive spike in cases.
“The last thing we need is to bring in a new variant that will cause even more problems,” said German Health Minister Jens Spahn.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement that she “proposes, in close coordination with the member states, to activate the emergency brake to stop air travel from the southern African region.”
A new coronavirus variant has been detected in South Africa that scientists say is a concern because of its high number of mutations and rapid spread among young people in Gauteng, the country’s most populous province.
Read:South African scientists detect new virus variant amid spike
Germany said von der Leyen's proposal could be enacted as soon as Friday night. Spahn said airlines coming back from South Africa will only be able to transport German citizens home, and travelers will need to go into quarantine for 14 days whether they are vaccinated or not.
Germany has seen new record daily case numbers in recent days and passed the mark of 100,000 deaths from COVID-19 on Thursday.
A fourth spike of the coronavirus is hitting the 27-nation EU especially badly, with governments scrambling to tighten restrictions in an attempt to contain spread. The flight ban proposal came in the wake of similar action from Britain on Thursday.
The U.K. announced that it was banning flights from South Africa and five other southern African countries effective at noon on Friday, and that anyone who had recently arrived from those countries would be asked to take a coronavirus test.
U.K. Health Secretary Sajid Javid said there were concerns the new variant “may be more transmissible” than the dominant delta strain, and “the vaccines that we currently have may be less effective” against it.
The coronavirus evolves as it spreads and many new variants, including those with worrying mutations, often just die out. Scientists monitor for possible changes that could be more transmissible or deadly, but sorting out whether new variants will have a public health impact can take time.
Currently identified as B.1.1.529, the new variant has also been found in Botswana and Hong Kong in travelers from South Africa, he said.
Read:Can new variants of the coronavirus keep emerging?
The World Health Organization’s technical working group is to meet Friday to assess the new variant and may decide whether to give it a name from the Greek alphabet.
The World Health Organization says coronavirus infections jumped 11% in Europe in the past week, the only region in the world where COVID-19 continues to rise. The WHO’s Europe director, Dr. Hans Kluge, warned that without urgent measures, the continent could see another 700,000 deaths by the spring.
The EU's emergency brake mechanism has been set up to deal with such emergencies.
Where the epidemiological situation of a third country or region worsens quickly, in particular if a variant of concern or of interest has been detected, member states should adopt an urgent, temporary restriction on all travel into the EU. This emergency brake should not apply to EU citizens, long-term EU residents and certain categories of essential travelers, who should nevertheless be subject to appropriate testing and quarantine measures, even if fully vaccinated.
Such restrictions should be reviewed at least every two weeks.
Solomon Islands violence recedes but not underlying tension
Violence receded Friday in the capital of the Solomon Islands, but the government showed no signs of addressing the underlying grievances that sparked two days of riots, including concerns about the country's increasing links with China.
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare sought to deflect attention from domestic issues by blaming outside interference for stirring up the protesters, with a thinly veiled reference to Taiwan and the United States.
External pressures were a “very big ... influence. I don’t want to name names. We’ll leave it there,” Sogavare said.
Honiara’s Chinatown and its downtown precinct were focuses of rioters, looters and protesters who demanded the resignation of Sogavare, who has intermittently been prime minister since 2000.
Sogavare has been widely criticized by leaders of the country's most populous island of Malaita for a 2019 decision to drop diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of mainland China. His government, meanwhile, has been upset over millions in U.S. aid promised directly to Malaita, rather than through the central government.
Those issues are just the latest in decades of rivalry between Malaita and Guadalcanal, where the capital, Honiara, is located, said Jonathan Pryke, director of the Sydney-based Lowy Institute think tank's Pacific Islands program.
Read:Australia to welcome vaccinated foreign students, workers
"Most of the drivers of the tension have been in the country for many decades and generations, and a lot of it is born out of the abject poverty of the country, the limited economic development opportunities and the inter-ethnic and inter-island rivalry between the two most populous islands," he said.
“So everyone's pointing fingers, but some fingers also need to be pointed at the political leaders of the Solomon Islands.”
The Solomon Islands, with a population of about 700,000, are located about 1,500 kilometers (1,000 miles) northeast of Australia. Internationally they are probably still best known for the bloody fighting that took place there during World War II between the United States and Japan.
Riots and looting erupted Wednesday out of a peaceful protest in Honiara, primarily of people from Malaita demonstrating over a number of grievances. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the demonstrators, who set fire to the National Parliament, a police station and many other buildings.
Protesters defied a lockdown declared by Sogavare on Wednesday to take to the streets again on Thursday.
Critics also blamed the unrest on complaints of a lack of government services and accountability, corruption and Chinese businesses giving jobs to foreigners instead of locals.
Since the 2019 shift in allegiance from Taiwan to China there has been an expectation of massive infrastructure investment from Beijing — locally rumored to be in the range of $500 million — but with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic shortly after the shift, none of that has yet materialized.
Malaita threatened to hold a referendum on independence over the issue, but that was quashed by Sogavare's government.
Sogavare said Friday that he stood by his government’s decision to embrace Beijing, which he described as the “only issue” in the violence, which was “unfortunately influenced and encouraged by other powers.”
“I’m not going to bow down to anyone. We are intact, the government’s intact and we’re going to defend democracy,” he said.
More than broad geopolitical concerns, however, Pryke said the demonstrations really boiled down to frustration over the lack of opportunities for a largely young population, and the concentration of much of the country's wealth in the capital.
“I guarantee you the vast majority of the people involved in the rioting and looting couldn't point China or Taiwan out on a map,” he said. “They were there as opportunists because they have had very limited economic opportunity. It's a very poor country with high youth unemployment, and this just shows how quickly these things can spiral out of control in a country that's volatile.”
A plane carrying Australian police and diplomats arrived late Thursday in Honiara to help local police restore order.
Up to 50 more Australian police as well 43 defense force personnel with a navy patrol boat were scheduled to arrive on Friday.
Read:Australia wants Facebook to seek parental consent for kids
They were requested by Sogavare under a bilateral treaty with Australia, and the presence of an independent force, though small, seemed to help quell some of the violence.
Australia has a history of assisting the Solomon Islands, stepping in after years of bloody ethnic violence known as “the tensions” in 2003. The Australian-led international police and military force called the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands helped restore the peace and left in 2017.
The Australian personnel are expected to be on hand for “a matter of weeks," according Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne.
Payne told reporters on Friday that she had no indication that other countries had stirred up the unrest.
“We have not indicated that at all,” Payne said.
Australia is not assisting in the protection of the National Parliament and the executive buildings, in a sign that it was not taking political sides.
“We’ve been very clear. Our view is we don’t want to see violence," Payne said. “We would very much hope for a return to stability."
Local journalist Gina Kekea said the foreign policy switch to Beijing with little public consultation was one of a mix of issues that led to the protests. There were also complaints that foreign companies were not providing local jobs.
“Chinese businesses and (other) Asian businesses ... seem to have most of the work, especially when it comes to extracting resources, which people feel strongly about,” Kekea said.
Protesters were replaced by looters and scavengers on Friday in Chinatown, Kekea said.
“It’s been two days, two whole days of looting and protesting and rioting and Honiara is just a small city,” Kekea said. The capital has 85,000 residents.
“So I think that there’s nothing much left for them to loot and spoil now,” she said.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison questioned whether Chinese citizens and businesses were being targeted. He described the unrest as “a bit of a mixed story” and noted Chinatown was the scene of rioting before Australia’s 2003 intervention.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian on Friday condemned the violence and stressed Beijing's support for the Solomon Islands government. He said China was taking measures to safeguard the safety and rights of Chinese people and institutions in the country.
“We believe that under the leadership of Prime Minister Sogavare, the Solomon government can restore order and stabilize the internal situation as soon as possible,” he said.
The establishment of diplomatic ties with Beijing “has won sincere support of the people," and "any attempts to undermine the normal development of China-Solomon relations are futile,” Zhao said.
France calls for European aid after 27 migrant deaths at sea
Helicopters buzzed above the waves and vessels were already scouring the cold waters when French maritime rescue volunteer Charles Devos added his boat to the frantic search for a flimsy migrant craft that foundered in the English Channel, killing at least 27.
What Devos found was gruesome. But not, he later sorrowfully acknowledged, wholly unexpected. With migrants often setting off by the hundreds in flotillas of unseaworthy and overloaded vessels into the busy shipping lane crisscrossed by hulking freighters, and frequently beset by treacherous weather, waves and currents, Devos had long feared that tragedy would ensue.
That came this week, with the deadliest migration accident to date on the dangerous stretch of sea that separates France and Britain.
“We picked up six floating bodies. We passed by an inflatable craft that was deflated. The little bit of air remaining kept it afloat,” Devos told reporters.
“I’d been somewhat expecting it because I’d say, ‘It’s going to end with a drama,’” he said.
Also read: Migrant boat capsizes in English Channel; at least 31 dead
France and Britain appealed Thursday for European assistance, promised stepped-up efforts to combat people-smuggling networks and also traded blame and barbs in the wake of Wednesday’s deadly sinking that shone a light on the scale and complexity of Europe’s migration problems.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson sent French President Emmanuel Macron and the EU leadership a letter Thursday proposing joint sea, air and land patrols starting as soon as next week. France has resisted the idea. Johnson also proposed an agreement allowing Britain to send back migrants to France.
Macron appealed to neighboring European countries to do more to stop illegal migration into France, saying that when migrants reach French shores with hopes of heading on to Britain “it is already too late.”
Macron said France is deploying army drones as part of stepped-up efforts to patrol its northern coastline and help rescue migrants at sea. But he also said that a greater collective effort is needed, referring to France as a “transit country" for Britain-bound migrants.
Also read: Italian Coast Guard rescues 550 migrants from stormy seas
“We need to strengthen cooperation with Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, but also the British and the (European) Commission,” he said on a visit to Croatia. “We need stronger European cooperation.”
Migration is an explosive issue in Europe, where leaders often accuse one another of not doing enough to either prevent migrants from entering their countries or from continuing on to other nations.
Ministers from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Britain and EU officials will meet on Sunday to discuss increasing efforts to crack down on migrant-smuggling networks, Macron's government announced.
They will convene in Calais, one of the French coastal towns where migrants gather, looking for ways to cross to the British coast that is visible from France on clear days. Seaside communities on both sides of the channel were reeling Thursday from the sinking's horrific toll.
“This was unfortunately something that could have been foreseen, a scenario of horror that we’d feared and dreaded,” said Ludovic Hochart, a police union official in Calais.
Across the channel, in the British port of Dover, small business owner Paula Elliot said: “It’s dreadful that people have lost their lives."
“The vessels that they take, are traveling in, are not fit for purpose,” she said. "They probably don’t understand how arduous the journey is going to be, and especially at this time of year, it’s so much colder than in the summer.”
Devos, the rescue volunteer, told reporters in comments broadcast by coastal radio Delta FM that the flimsy craft used by migrants for the crossing are increasingly overloaded, with as many as 50 people aboard.
Macron described the dead in Wednesday's sinking as "victims of the worst system, that of smugglers and human traffickers.”
France has never had so many officers mobilized against illegal migration and its commitment is “total,” he said.
Ever-increasing numbers of people fleeing conflict or poverty in Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq, Eritrea or elsewhere are risking the perilous journey from France, hoping to win asylum or find better opportunities in Britain.
The crossings have tripled this year compared to 2020. Shipwrecks on the scale of that seen Wednesday are not uncommon in the Mediterranean Sea, where just this year about 1,600 people have died or gone missing, according to U.N. estimates.
The French prosecutors’ office tasked with investigating the sinking said the dead included 17 men, seven women and two boys and one girl thought to be teenagers. Magistrates were investigating potential charges of homicide, unintentional wounding, assisting illegal migration and criminal conspiracy, the prosecutors’ office said.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said children and pregnant women were among the dead. Two survivors from the sinking were treated for hypothermia. One is Iraqi, the other Somali, Darmanin said. He said authorities are working to determine the victims’ nationalities.
Destabilized by shock and sadness, aid workers and Calais residents held a silent vigil Thursday night in the port city to honor the dead, huddling beneath a cold rain and lighting candles in their memory.
Macron's government vowed to bring those responsible for the tragedy to justice, piling pressure on investigators. Darmanin announced the arrests of five alleged smugglers who he said are suspected of being linked to the sinking. He gave no details. The prosecutors' office investigating the deaths confirmed five arrests since Wednesday but said they didn't appear to be linked to its probe.
Darmanin said a suspected smuggler arrested overnight was driving a vehicle registered in Germany and had bought inflatable boats there.
He said criminal groups in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Britain are behind people-smuggling networks. He called on those countries to cooperate better against smugglers, saying they don’t always respond fully to French judicial requests for information.
“Britain and France must work together. We must no longer be, in effect, the only ones able to fight the smugglers,” the minister said.
In their immediate response to the sinking, French authorities initially gave differing figures on the number of dead, from at least 27 to 31. The figure that Darmanin used Thursday morning on RTL radio was 27.
The minister also took a swipe at British government migration policies, saying France expels more people living in the country without legal permission than the U.K. Illegal migration from France's northern shores to Britain has long been a source of tension between the two countries, even as their police forces work together to try to stop crossings. The issue is often used by politicians on both sides pushing an anti-migration agenda.
Darmanin also suggested that by hiring people living in the country illegally, British employers are encouraging illegal migration to English shores.
“English employers use this labor to make the things that the English manufacture and consume," he said. “We say ‘reform your labor market.’”
U.K. officials, meanwhile, criticize France for rejecting their offer of British police and border officers to conduct joint patrols along the channel coast with French police.
Macron advocated an immediate funding boost for the European Union’s border agency, Frontex, according to his office.
“France will not allow the Channel to become a cemetery,” Macron said.
Russia: Death toll in Siberian coal mine blast raised to 52
A devastating explosion in a Siberian coal mine Thursday left 52 miners and rescuers dead about 250 meters (820 feet) underground, Russian officials said.
Hours after a methane gas explosion and fire filled the mine with toxic fumes, rescuers found 14 bodies but then were forced to halt the search for 38 others because of a buildup of methane and carbon monoxide gas from the fire. Another 239 people were rescued.
The state Tass and RIA-Novosti news agencies cited emergency officials as saying that there was no chance of finding any more survivors in the Listvyazhnaya mine, in the Kemerovo region of southwestern Siberia.
The Interfax news agency cited a representative of the regional administration who also put the death toll from Thursday's accident at 52, saying they died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Also read: Russia hits new record for coronavirus infections
It was the deadliest mine accident in Russia since 2010, when two methane explosions and a fire killed 91 people at the Raspadskaya mine in the same Kemerovo region.
A total of 285 people were in the Listvyazhnaya mine early Thursday when the blast sent smoke that quickly filled the mine through the ventilation system. Rescuers led to the surface 239 miners, 49 of whom were injured, and found 11 bodies.
Later in the day, six rescuers also died while searching for others trapped in a remote section of the mine, the news reports said.
Regional officials declared three days of mourning.
Russia’s Deputy Prosecutor General Dmitry Demeshin told reporters that the fire most likely resulted from a methane explosion caused by a spark.
The miners who survived described their shock after reaching the surface.
“Impact. Air. Dust. And then, we smelled gas and just started walking out, as many as we could,” one of the rescued miners, Sergey Golubin, said in televised remarks. “We didn’t even realize what happened at first and took some gas in.”
Also read: 1 dead, 6 missing at northern Mexico coal mine collapse
Another miner, Rustam Chebelkov, recalled the dramatic moment when he was rescued along with his comrades as chaos engulfed the mine.
“I was crawling and then I felt them grabbing me,” he said. “I reached my arms out to them, they couldn’t see me, the visibility was bad. They grabbed me and pulled me out, if not for them, we’d be dead.”
Explosions of methane released from coal beds during mining are rare but they cause the most fatalities in the coal mining industry.
The Interfax news agency reported that miners have oxygen supplies normally lasting for six hours that could only be stretched for a few more hours.
Russia's Investigative Committee has launched a criminal probe into the fire over violations of safety regulations that led to deaths. It said the mine director and two senior managers were detained.
President Vladimir Putin extended his condolences to the families of the dead and ordered the government to offer all necessary assistance to those injured.
Thursday’s fire wasn’t the first deadly accident at the Listvyazhnaya mine. In 2004, a methane explosion left 13 miners dead.
In 2007, a methane explosion at the Ulyanovskaya mine in the Kemerovo region killed 110 miners in the deadliest mine accident since Soviet times.
In 2016, 36 miners were killed in a series of methane explosions in a coal mine in Russia's far north. In the wake of the incident, authorities analyzed the safety of the country's 58 coal mines and declared 20 of them, or 34%, potentially unsafe.
The Listvyazhnaya mine wasn't among them at the time, according to media reports.
Russia’s state technology and ecology watchdog, Rostekhnadzor, inspected the mine in April and registered 139 violations, including breaching fire safety regulations.
South African scientists detect new virus variant amid spike
A new coronavirus variant has been detected in South Africa that scientists say is a concern because of its high number of mutations and rapid spread among young people in Gauteng, the country's most populous province, Health Minister Joe Phaahla announced Thursday.
The coronavirus evolves as it spreads and many new variants, including those with worrying mutations, often just die out. Scientists monitor for possible changes that could be more transmissible or deadly, but sorting out whether new variants will have a public health impact can take time.
South Africa has seen a dramatic rise in new infections, Phaahla said at an online press briefing.
“Over the last four or five days, there has been more of an exponential rise,” he said, adding that the new variant appears to be driving the spike in cases. Scientists in South Africa are working to determine what percentage of the new cases have been caused by the new variant.
Currently identified as B.1.1.529, the new variant has also been found in Botswana and Hong Kong in travelers from South Africa, he said.
Also read: Can new variants of the coronavirus keep emerging?
The World Health Organization's technical working group is to meet Friday to assess the new variant and may decide whether or not to give it a name from the Greek alphabet.
The British government announced that it was banning flights from South Africa and five other southern African countries effective at noon (1200GMT) on Friday, and that anyone who had recently arrived from those countries would be asked to take a coronavirus test.
U.K. Health Secretary Sajid Javid said there were concerns the new variant “may be more transmissible” than the dominant delta strain, and “the vaccines that we currently have may be less effective" against it.
The new variant has a “constellation” of new mutations, said Tulio de Oliveira, from the Network for Genomic Surveillance in South Africa, who has tracked the spread of the delta variant in the country.
The "very high number of mutations is a concern for predicted immune evasion and transmissibility,” said de Oliveira.
“This new variant has many, many more mutations," including more than 30 to the spike protein that affects transmissibility, he said. "We can see that the variant is potentially spreading very fast. We do expect to start seeing pressure in the healthcare system in the next few days and weeks.”
De Oliveira said that a team of scientists from seven South African universities is studying the variant. They have 100 whole genomes of it and expect to have many more in the next few days, he said.
“We are concerned by the jump in evolution in this variant," he said. The one piece of good news is that it can be detected by a PCR test, he said.
After a period of relatively low transmission in which South Africa recorded just over 200 new confirmed cases per day, in the past week the daily new cases rapidly increased to more than 1,200 on Wednesday. On Thursday they jumped to 2,465.
Also read: Global Covid cases approaching 207 mln as concerns mount over Delta variant
The first surge was in Pretoria and the surrounding Tshwane metropolitan area and appeared to be cluster outbreaks from student gatherings at universities in the area, said health minister Phaahla. Amid the rise in cases, scientists studied the genomic sequencing and discovered the new variant.
“This is clearly a variant that we must be very serious about,” said Ravindra Gupta, professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge. “It has a high number of spike mutations that could affect transmissibility and immune response.”
Gupta said scientists in South Africa need time to determine if the surge in new cases is attributable to the new variant. “There is a high probability that this is the case," he said. “South African scientists have done an incredible job of identifying this quickly and bringing it to the world's attention.”
South African officials had warned that a new resurgence was expected from mid-December to early January and had hoped to prepare for that by getting many more people vaccinated, said Phaahla.
About 41% of South Africa's adults have been vaccinated and the number of shots being given per day is relatively low, at less than 130,000, significantly below the government's target of 300,000 per day.
South Africa currently has about 16.5 million doses of vaccines, by Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, in the country and is expecting delivery of about 2.5 million more in the next week, according to Nicholas Crisp, acting director-general of the national health department.
“We are getting in vaccines faster than we are using them at the moment,” said Crisp. “So for some time now, we have been deferring deliveries, not decreasing orders, but just deferring our deliveries so that we don’t accumulate and stockpile vaccines.”
South Africa, with a population of 60 million, has recorded more than 2.9 million COVID-19 cases including more than 89,000 deaths.
To date, the delta variant remains by far the most infectious and has crowded out other once-worrying variants including alpha, beta and mu. According to sequences submitted by countries worldwide to the world’s biggest public database, more than 99% are delta.
Modi lays foundation stone for Asia's largest airport near Delhi
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday laid the foundation stone for what has been heralded as Asia's largest airport -- Noida International Airport, barely 80kms from the national capital.
Technically located in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh's Gautam Bugh Nagar district bordering Delhi, the greenfield airport will be the second international airport to come up in the National Capital Region, after Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport in Delhi. To be developed in four phases, the airport is slated to begin flight operations in three years.
"Noida International Airport will be a great model from the point of view of connectivity. Passengers will be able to use taxis, metro, rail to access Yamuna Expressway, Noida, Greater Noida, UP, Delhi and Haryana," Modi said, addressing a massive gathering at the airport site in the Jewar area of Gautam Bugh Nagar.
"The airport will also have direct connectivity to the Delhi freight corridor. It will be a logistics gateway for northern India and an image of the National Gati Shakti Master Master Plan. This airport will change people's lives in the region," the Prime Minister added.
Zurich AG, the company that operates Switzerland's Zurich International Airport, has been awarded the concessionaire contract to develop and operate Noida International Airport. Once operational in the first phase by 2024 with one runway, the airport would cater to 1.2 crore passengers a year. By 2040, it would be able to handle 7 crore passengers.
"25th November is a major day for India's and Uttar Pradesh's strides in infra creation. This project will significantly boost commerce, connectivity and tourism," Modi tweeted before the foundation stone laying ceremony, his first public event since he announced the scrapping of the three contentious farm laws.
The airport, however, has been mired in a land acquisition controversy. Some farmers have been camping in makeshift tents, barely 800kms from the airport site, claiming that they are yet to get adequate compensation from the Uttar Pradesh government for their agricultural and residential land acquired for the ambitious project.
However, according to experts, the gala foundation stone laying ceremony is nothing but an attempt to showcase the development agenda of Modi's nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party government in Uttar Pradesh before the assembly polls.
"It is said that the road to Delhi passes through Uttar Pradesh. And the party that wins the majority of seats in assembly polls in the northern state stands a fair chance to form the federal government. The general elections are due in 2024," said Prof RK Sinha, a retired Delhi University professor.
US jobless claims hit 52-year low after seasonal adjustments
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits plummeted last week to the lowest level in more than half a century, another sign that the U.S. job market is rebounding rapidly from last year's coronavirus recession.
Jobless claims dropped by 71,000 to 199,000, the lowest since mid-November 1969. But seasonal adjustments around the Thanksgiving holiday contributed significantly to the bigger-than-expected drop. Unadjusted, claims actually ticked up by more than 18,000 to nearly 259,000.
The four-week average of claims, which smooths out weekly ups and downs, also dropped — by 21,000 to just over 252,000, the lowest since mid-March 2020 when the pandemic slammed the economy.
Read:Americans are spending but inflation casts pall over economy
Since topping 900,000 in early January, the applications have fallen steadily toward and now fallen below their prepandemic level of around 220,000 a week. Claims for jobless aid are a proxy for layoffs.
Overall, 2 million Americans were collecting traditional unemployment checks the week that ended Nov. 13, down slightly from the week before.
“Overall, expect continued volatility in the headline figures, but the trend remains very slowly lower," Contingent Macro Advisors wrote in a research note.
Until Sept. 6, the federal government had supplemented state unemployment insurance programs by paying an extra payment of $300 a week and extending benefits to gig workers and to those who were out of work for six months or more. Including the federal programs, the number of Americans receiving some form of jobless aid peaked at more than 33 million in June 2020.
Read:US reopens to international travel, allows happy reunions
The job market has staged a remarkable comeback since the spring of 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic forced businesses to close or cut hours and kept many Americans at home as a health precaution. In March and April last year, employers slashed more than 22 million jobs.
But government relief checks, super-low interest rates and the rollout of vaccines combined to give consumers the confidence and financial wherewithal to start spending again. Employers, scrambling to meet an unexpected surge in demand, have made 18 million new hires since April 2020 and are expected to add another 575,000 this month. Still, the United States remains 4 million short of the jobs it had in February 2020.
Companies now complain that they can't find workers to fill job openings, a near-record 10.4 million in September. Workers, finding themselves with bargaining clout for the first time in decades, are becoming choosier about jobs; a record 4.4 million quit in September, a sign they have confidence in their ability to find something better.
Ethiopian leader called war 'epitome of hell.' Now he's back
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is already a veteran at surprising the world in just three years in power. He's done it again this week by announcing that, after a year of waging war, he will lead it from the battlefront.
Abiy’s rule has been short in the vast sweep of Ethiopian history, but he has spent almost all his life preparing for it. Told as a child by his mother that she believed he would lead Ethiopia, he now speaks of martyrdom, if needed, to hold the nation together.
Abiy rocketed to office out of seemingly nowhere in 2018 with vows of dramatic reforms to a long-repressive national government. He also announced he would make peace with neighboring Eritrea after years of bitter conflict. For that, the youthful prime minister was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Then, less than a year later, Abiy announced his military was at war with the leaders of Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, who had dominated the previous national government but quickly found friction with the prime minister. Political differences turned to gunfire in November 2020.
Read: People fleeing Ethiopia allege attacks, forced conscription
Tens of thousands of people have been killed since then, and close to half a million people inside Tigray now face the world’s worst famine crisis in a decade, one that the United States has called “entirely man-made.”
The 45-year-old Abiy has now plunged into the fight, arriving at the battlefront on Tuesday, a government spokesman said.
The prime minister is no stranger to war. As a teenager, he joined fighters who eventually overthrew the country’s Marxist Derg regime, then signed up for the new government's military. He took part in Ethiopia’s war against Eritrea as a radio operator, serving at the border in Tigray, and later became a lieutenant colonel.
Now roles are dramatically reversed. The Tigray fighters Abiy once called friends are now the enemy, and the Eritrean soldiers he once fought have been allowed to join the war as Ethiopia's allies.
Years after his career turned from the military to politics, Abiy faces a battlefield challenge he has never faced before: Commanding an army.
But the prime minister is known as a man with a sense of destiny.
He “clearly has a personal sense of his right to be ruler of Ethiopia and take on the responsibility it entails,” said Christopher Clapham, a retired professor associated with the University of Cambridge.
Overseeing the fracture of Ethiopia, a nation with a 3,000-year history, would be a “massive blow” to Abiy, Clapham said, and by heading to the battlefront he is following the tradition of emperors.
Read:Urgent efforts to calm Ethiopia as war reaches one-year mark
But emperors can fall, and governments, too. The rival Tigray forces, whose advance on Ethiopia’s capital in recent weeks prompted a national state of emergency, want to see Abiy gone, by force if needed.
The deeply religious prime minister came to office preaching national unity, and representing it as well. The son of a Christian and Muslim and of mixed ethnic heritage, he shocked Africa's second-most populous country by apologizing for the past government's abuses. Tigrayans have recalled cheering him on, at first.
“War is the epitome of hell for all involved,” Abiy said in his Nobel address in those earlier days.
Now the hardened positions by the warring sides, each believing they can be victorious, have tested the efforts of mediators from the United States and African Union. Abiy believes the Tigray forces will be pushed back into their region, U.S. envoy Jeffrey Feltman said this week. But he added, “I question that confidence.”
The war front, Feltman said, is edging closer to Ethiopia’s capital, with the Tigray fighters newly on the move toward Debre Sina, less than a day’s drive from Addis Ababa. The fighters are also trying to cut off a crucial supply line from neighboring Djibouti, a further threat to Africa’s diplomatic capital.
Accordingly, a growing number of countries have told their citizens to leave immediately. And the U.S. has told Americans again and again that no Afghanistan-style evacuation is coming for them.
The war, Abiy said in announcing his move to the battlefront, “is a struggle that determines whether we exist or not. But we will definitely win. It is unthinkable for Ethiopia to be defeated. We are in a time when it requires to lead the country by paying the sacrifice.”
He called on fellow Ethiopians to meet him there.