’China aware of pandemic risk 5 years before Covid outbreak,’ virologist says

Greta Thunberg criticized ’vaccine nationalism’, and said that it is unethical that rich countries were prioritizing their younger citizens for vaccination ahead of vulnerable groups in developing countries. She further said that while 1 in 4 people in high-income countries had now been vaccinated against COVID-19, only 1 in more than 500 people in poorer countries had received a shot.

A worker in the Auckland airport in New Zealand has tested positive for COVID-19. The government doubts whether the case could become a reason to pause quarantine-free travel with Australia. A travel bubble was opened between the two countries after borders were closed by both the countries back in March 2020 to non-citizens and permanent residents so as to contain the spread of the pandemic.

A report which was commissioned by Rwanda has claimed that France ’bears significant responsibility’ for the deaths of thousands of people in the 1994 Rwandan genocide since it remained ’unwavering in its support’ of its allies, despite officials knowing that the slaughter was being prepared. The country has long been accused of not having done enough to bring the genocide to a halt.

Three suspected militants allegedly involved in the killing of a Coptic Christian man have been killed by the police according to the Interior Ministry of Egypt. The man had been kidnapped by the militants more than five months ago. An exchange of fire was witnessed between Islamic State group militants and the security forces while the police chased three others militants as well.

The Russian state penitentiary service said on Monday that a decision has been made to transfer Alexei Navalny, who is in the third week of a hunger strike, to a hospital. This comes two days after Navalny’s physician said his health was deteriorating rapidly and he could be on the verge of death. The state prison service said Navalny’s condition is deemed ’satisfactory.’

The White House warned Sunday the Russian government with consequences were jailed Putin critic Alexei Navalny to die in custody. ’We have communicated to the Russian government that what happens to Mr. Navalny in their custody is their responsibility and they will be held accountable by the international community,’ White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said.

A report commissioned by the Rwandan govt. concludes that the French govt. bears ’significant’ responsibility for ’enabling’ the 1994 genocide. The report concludes that France ’did nothing to stop’ the massacres, in April and May 1994, and in the years after the genocide tried to cover up its role and even offered protection to some perpetrators. An estimated 800,000 people were slaughtered.

Residents from Australia were able to travel freely to New Zealand for the first time in more than a year, after the two countries opened a travel bubble which means visitors no longer need to quarantine on arrival. There were emotional scenes at Auckland airport as family and friends were reunited. Thousands of passengers were booked to fly between the two nations on Monday.

India’s capital city, New Delhi, is set to go under a week-long lockdown Monday night as an explosive surge in Covid-19 cases pushed India’s capital’s health system to its limit. The state government announced that the city was facing shortages of oxygen and some medicine. ’I do not say that the system has collapsed, but it has reached its limits,’ the chief minister said.

Miguel Diaz-Canel has been named as the successor of Raul Castro as the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba. Mr Castro was earlier succeeded by Diaz-Canel as the President of Cuba back in 2018 as well. For the first time since the Cuban Revolution in 1959, someone other than a Castro is set to govern the island due to the transition.

A white-fluffy cat was caught Friday trying to sneak narcotics into a Panama prison. Prison authorities said the feline was carrying the contraband in a pouch tied around its neck when it was stopped outside the Nueva Esperanza Prison in the province of Colon on Friday. The method of smuggling drugs is not rare in Panama where prisoners lure animals, loaded with drugs by outsiders, through food.

Germany’s left Green Party has announced Annalena Baerbock as its Chancellor candidate. The Green Party, founded by environmentalists, has emerged from its radical roots to become the second place party in Germany in recent polls, and is the main competitor for the ruling conservative CDU-Party. Germany holds its elections this September.

Hours after 12 major European football clubs announced plans of forming a breakaway Super League, European football’s governing body UEFA is holding a crisis meeting Monday. The meeting was originally scheduled to rubber-stamp UEFA’s plans to reform and expand the Champions League but considering the situation right now, formal action against the planned rival league could be announced.

EU foreign ministers ruled out any imminent sanction against Russia over the amassing of its troops at the border of Ukraine and the weakening health of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also ruled out any action against Russia following the Czech Republic’s accusation that Moscow was involved in a 2014 ammunition depot explosion.

Russia has announced the expulsion of 20 diplomats from the Czech Republic after Prague expelled 18 Russian diplomats from the country accusing them of being spies. Prague alleged that the diplomats are suspected to be involved in an explosion at an arms depot in 2014 which killed 2. Prague named two Russians, involved in the explosion, who are also involved in the Salisbury poisonings in 2018.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday defended the US decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, saying the terror threat had moved elsewhere. ’We have other very important items on our agenda, including the relationship with China, including dealing with everything from climate change to COVID-19,’ Blinken said. He added that the US had ’achieved the objectives that we set out to achieve.’

At least 11 people were killed and 98 injured when a train derailed near the city of Banha, north of Cairo on Sunday. The train was traveling to the city of Mansoura from Cairo when four of its wagons went off the tracks. Ten railway officials, including the train driver and his assistant, have been detained. This is the third major train accident to occur in Egypt in less than a month.

The people of Israel were allowed by their government to move around barefaced, after the order to wear masks outdoors was rescinded in another step towards relative normality thanks to the country’s mass-vaccination against COVID-19. Israel has vaccinated nearly 81 percent of citizens or residents over 16, and as a result, contagions and hospitalizations are down sharply.

Six English football clubs and 3 each from Italy and Spain have agreed to join a new European Super League. The breakaway competition is set to rival UEFA’s Champions League which currently dominates European football. Reacting to the news, the UK Prime Minister Johnson, the FA, and the Premier League as well as football authorities in Spain and Italy have expressed their opposition to the league.

Around four thousand students of the University of Cape Town were evacuated after a wildfire spread to the campus Sunday. The blaze, which began on the slopes of South Africa’s Table Mountain, partially destroyed the university’s historic library and Mostert’s Mill, built in 1796. Some other buildings on the campus have also been affected.

The Tehrik-i-Labaik Pakistan, a hardline Islamist group, has taken 6 security personnel hostage at its headquarters in Lahore, following a week of violent clashes which took place after the arrest of the leader of the group. The TLP had given the Pakistani government an April 20 deadline to expel the French ambassador over the publication of cartoons in France which depicted the Prophet Mohammad.

The British foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said the UK stood in ’full support’ of the Czech Republic after the country said that they were hunting for 2 Russians, suspected of carrying out the 2018 Salisbury poisonings that left former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter hospitalized. The Russians are also being sought for a 2014 explosion at a munitions dump in Vrbětice

Officials in Afghanistan said that eight members of a family were gunned down in an attack on a mosque in the eastern part of the country. The shooting was reported in the city of Jalalabad, and was believed to be over a land dispute. Revenge killings are common in Afghanistan, where families seek justice by carrying out violent acts of vengeance, as per an ancient code of honor.