As Indonesia deals with a surge in COVID-19 cases, the Biden administration is sending three million doses of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine to the country on July 9, a senior administration official tells VOA. The shipment is one of the largest batches the U.S. has donated, the official said. In total, the U.S. has allocated four million doses for Indonesia, with the remaining one million…
read moreVietnam enacted on Friday a two-week lockdown on movement in Ho Chi Minh City to battle a growing outbreak of the coronavirus.Hanoi also announced plans to vaccinate 50% of the population age 18 and older by the end of the year and set a goal of 70% of its population vaccinated by next March.”Vaccination against…
read moreCoronavirus infections are rising in Australia, despite a two-week-old lockdown intended to stop their spread. Officials are now focusing on how to enforce compliance with COVID-19 lockdown rules, particularly where such restrictions appear to be mostly ignored.Authorities have said that strict stay-at-home orders in some of Australia’s most ethnically diverse areas in Sydney have been…
read moreKarmic fortune has arrived to the digital art market, with a kaleidoscopic splash of colors and the face of a revered Thai monk offering portable Buddhist good luck charms to tech-savvy buyers.Sales of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) — virtual images of anything from popular internet memes to original artwork — have swept the art world in…
read moreSome won’t ever remember the parents they lost because they were too young when COVID-19 struck. Others are trying to keep the memory alive by doing the things they used to do together: making pancakes or playing guitar. Others still are clutching onto what remains, a pillow or a photo, as they adapt to lives…
read morePfizer is about to seek U.S. authorization for a third dose of its COVID-19 vaccine, saying Thursday that another shot within 12 months could dramatically boost immunity and maybe help ward off the latest worrisome coronavirus mutant.Research from multiple countries shows the Pfizer shot and other widely used COVID-19 vaccines offer strong protection against the…
read moreU.S. civil rights leaders emerged Thursday from a White House meeting with President Joe Biden vowing a “summer of activism” to battle new voting restrictions enacted in Republican-led states in recent months.Vice President Kamala Harris also said Thursday that the Democratic Party would invest $25 million in voter registration and education efforts.Harris, whom the president…
read moreThe U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Thursday new cases of COVID-19 were up in the United States by nearly 11 percent in the past week, driven by the prevalence of the delta variant in areas with the nation’s lowest vaccination rates. During the regular weekly White House COVID Response Team briefing,…
read moreIt seems Richard Branson, and not Jeff Bezos, will be the first billionaire in space. Plus, a new robot could make work safer on the International Space Station, while the UAE names its first female astronaut. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has the Week in Space.Camera: AP/NASA/EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY (ESA)/REUTERS/VIRGIN GALACTIC/SPACE X/GSMA/ESA Produced by : Arash Arabasadi …
read moreAs the world surpassed four million coronavirus-related deaths, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that millions more remain at risk “if the virus is allowed to spread like wildfire.” The head of the world body said in a written statement that most of the world is “still in the shadows” due to the inequitable distribution of…
read moreUNICEF said Thursday it has signed a deal to provide up to 220 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine to African Union member states by the end of 2022. The child humanitarian group announced in a statement the agreement was reached with Belgium-based and J&J-owned Janssen Pharmaceutica NV. An additional…
read moreChinese state-owned media has claimed that Australian consultants in Papua New Guinea have been hindering the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines flown in from China. It was alleged that they had engaged “in political manipulation and bullying” there.Australia has strongly denied claims it has tried to sabotage China’s efforts to boost vaccinations in Papua New Guinea.Papua…
read moreJapanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has formally declared a new state of emergency for Tokyo due to the rise of new COVID-19 cases in the capital city. The new decree will take effect next Monday, July 12 and last until August 22 — a period that will cover the duration of the Tokyo Olympics, which…
read moreSouth Korea’s capital is on the verge of perhaps its most intense lockdown yet, after the country reported its largest daily surge of coronavirus cases.Officials on Thursday recorded 1,275 new infections, the vast majority of which were in the Seoul area, where over half of South Koreans live.That is South Korea’s largest number of confirmed…
read moreEthnic minorities, the self-employed and low-income families in Britain suffered greater deprivation levels during the coronavirus pandemic despite “surprisingly positive” living standards figures, a report published Thursday found.The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank’s annual report on living standards, poverty and inequality identified these groups as the hardest hit, even as unprecedented state support…
read moreAfrica’s Sahel region is seeing the worst effects of climate warming anywhere on the planet, according to the United Nations.Farmers bear the brunt of the changes because 80% of the Sahel’s economy is agrarian. Art Melody, a musician in Burkina Faso who raps in the local Djula and Moore languages, knows from experience the…
read moreThe deadly heat wave that roasted the Pacific Northwest and western Canada was virtually impossible without human-caused climate change that added a few extra degrees to the record-smashing temperatures, a quick new scientific analysis found.An international team of 27 scientists calculated that climate change increased chances of the extreme heat occurring by at least 150…
read moreFormer U.S. President Donald Trump has announced class-action lawsuits against three major tech companies, accusing them of wrongfully censoring him and other conservatives.“We’re asking the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to order an immediate halt to social media companies’ illegal, shameful censorship of the American people,” said Trump on Wednesday.Trump is…
read moreChina’s most popular social media service has deleted accounts on LGBT topics run by university students and nongovernment groups, prompting concern the ruling Communist Party is tightening control over gay and lesbian content.WeChat sent account holders a notice they violated rules but gave no details, according to the founder of an LGBT group, who asked…
read moreUganda saw an increase in deaths among health care workers last month just as COVID-19 cases increased. Sixteen doctors died of the disease, while others are in intensive care. Uganda Medical Association believes more than 100 health workers have died in the country because of the coronavirus pandemic since March of last year.Dr. Mukuzi Muhereza, the…
read moreWorld Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters Wednesday that the world was at a perilous point in the COVID-19 pandemic, as fast-moving variants continued to spread because of an uneven global vaccination effort.From the agency’s headquarters in Geneva, Tedros said that some countries with high vaccination rates were making plans to roll out…
read moreOfficials in Australia’s New South Wales state have ordered a week-long extension of Sydney’s strict coronavirus lockdown as the city of five million residents struggles to contain an growing outbreak of the delta variant of COVID-19.The latest lockdown was imposed on June 26 after a Sydney airport limousine driver who had been transporting international air…
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