After rumours about health, North Korea state media report Kim Jong-un appearance
Seoul, South Korea Reuters After weeks of intense speculation about the health of Kim Jong-un, state news agency KCNA said on Saturday the North Korean leader attended the completion of a fertilisers plant north of Pyongyang, the first report of his appearance since 11th April. Reuters could not independently verify the KCNA report. North Korean […]
Thousands of Ethiopian migrants quarantined in universities wait to go home
Addis Ababa Thomson Reuters Foundation Thousands of Ethiopian migrants expelled from the Middle East and African countries are being quarantined in universities in a sign of the strain placed on vulnerable nations by mass deportations amid the coronavirus crisis. Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Somalia and other countries have deported more than 5,000 illegal migrants to Ethiopia […]
Poll: The ‘Trump bump’ is over, especially among white Christians in the US
RNS US President Donald Trump’s job approval ratings among some faith groups jumped in March as the number of coronavirus infections began to spread across the country. But that “Trump bump” has all but disappeared. A new poll released Thursday from PRRI shows Trump’s approval has fallen on average by six percentage points and is now more […]
Google travel data show lockdown fatigue in US, Australia; other countries stay home
Oakland, California Reuters More people stayed home in Brazil, Japan and Singapore in April as those countries’ novel coronavirus cases surged, while people in the United States and Australia returned to parks and jobs as infection rates flattened, data from Google show. The latest weekly update of aggregated travel patterns Google collected from its users’ […]
Online church: US black churches use phones and Facebook to bridge digital divide amid COVID-19
ADELLE M BANKS reports for Religion News Service on how black churches in the US are working to help everyone get access to church online…
West African countries on alert for child labour spike due to coronavirus
Washington DC, US Thomson Reuters Foundation Ivory Coast and Ghana should be on alert for a spike in child labour due to the coronavirus, experts said, with schools closed and monitors unable to access villages in cocoa harvest season. The two West African countries together produce about 65 per cent of the world’s cocoa and […]
Democrat Joe Biden denies alleged sexual assault, requests release of Senate records
Washington DC, US Reuters Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Friday asked the Senate to find any documents tied to an allegation he sexually assaulted a former aide in 1993, after personally denying the accusation publicly for the first time. “No, it is not true. I’m saying unequivocally it never, never happened,” Biden told […]
Countries must ease lockdowns slowly, be ready for virus to jump back – WHO
Geneva, Switzerland/London, UK Reuters Countries must lift lockdowns gradually, while still being “on the look-out” for COVID-19 and ready to restore restrictions if the virus jumps back, the World Health Organization said on Friday. Vulnerable people in institutions, including those in long-term care facilities, prisons and migrant dormitories, must be protected, its top emergencies expert […]