The World Health Organization has approved a version of a widely used cholera vaccine that could help address a surge in cases that has depleted the global vaccine stockpile and left poorer countries scrambling to contain epidemics. The vaccine was shown to be help preventing the diarrheal disease in late stage research conducted in Nepal. WHO’s approval means donor agencies like the vaccines alliance Gavi and UNICEF can now buy it for poorer countries.
A quarter of a million Afghan children need education, food and homes after being forcibly returned from Pakistan, a nongovernmental organization said Thursday. Pakistan is cracking down on foreigners it alleges are in the country illegally, including 1.7 million Afghans. More than 520,000 Afghans have left Pakistan since last October.
Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa granted clemency to more than 4,000 prisoners, including some who were on death row, in an independence day amnesty on Thursday. Zimbabwe marked 44 years of independence from white minority rule, which ended in 1980 after a bloody bush war. The country’s name was changed from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe.
The parliament of Bosnia´s autonomous Serb Republic adopted a report on Thursday stating that the killing of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica during the Bosnian war did not constitute genocide, contravening the rulings of international courts. The massacre in 1995, which happened in the week after the U.N. safe zone of Srebrenica was attacked by the Bosnian Serb forces, was seen as Europe's worst atrocity since World War Two. The parliamentary step came as Serbia and the Serb Republic campaign against a resolution to commemorate the Srebrenica genocide that is being debated in the United Nations and should be voted on in the General Assembly in early May.
Indian drugmaker Biocon, looking to grab a piece of the exploding weight-loss drug market as early as possible, is developing its own version of Novo Nordisk's wildly popular Wegovy and is prepared to conduct a clinical trial next year if needed, the CEO told Reuters. Wall Street has forecast the market for this new generation of obesity treatments reaching at least $100 billion by the end of the decade, and Biocon is taking steps to be a part of that windfall. "We're going to develop semaglutide for India even if it requires a clinical trial," Chief Executive Officer Siddharth Mittal said in an interview of the active ingredient in Wegovy and Ozempic.
The U.S. is further restricting Iran's access to "low-level technology," in response to Iran's April 13 attack on Israel and its military support for Russia, according to a posting Thursday by the U.S. Department of Commerce. The U.S. is adding to the list of items that require a license for export or re-export to Iran, including items made abroad with U.S. technology, the posting said. The new restrictions build on the Commerce Department's February 2023 action targeting Iran's involvement in supplying drones to support Russia's war on Ukraine.
Prospective homebuyers are facing higher costs to finance a home with the average long-term U.S. mortgage rate moving above 7% this week to its highest level in nearly five months. The average rate on a 30-year mortgage rose to 7.1% from 6.88% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. When mortgage rates rise, they can add hundreds of dollars a month in costs for borrowers, limiting how much they can afford at a time when the U.S. housing market remains constrained by relatively few homes for sale and rising home prices.
Group of Seven members are discussing using nearly $300 billion in frozen Russian assets as collateral to provide loans to Ukraine, European Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said on Thursday. Dombrovskis said different options were under consideration, and the discussions were ongoing. He said he hoped the European Union - where the lion's share of the frozen assets are held - would approve a separate EU measure in coming months to use the profits or interest earned on the assets to help Ukraine.
Myanmar's detained former leader and Aung San Suu Kyi was moved from prison to house arrest possibly to be used by the Southeast Asian nation's ruling junta as a human shield in its conflict with resistance fighters, her son said on Thursday. Suu Kyi has been detained by the Myanmar military since it overthrew her government in a 2021 coup. The 78-year-old Nobel laureate was held under house arrest for a total of 15 years under a previous junta.
Temperatures well above the historical average from the winter through early spring may have offered some comfort to consumers through lower heating bills. However, AccuWeather meteorologists say there are some concerns the warmth will raise the risk of damaging frosts and freezes in the Midwest and Northeast before the end of April. Temperatures since Dec. 1 have averaged 6-8 degrees Fahrenheit above the historical levels in the Midwest while most locations in the Northeast have been 3-6 degree
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Agency for International Development will distribute $1 billion in U.S. commodities to countries with high hunger rates, the agencies said on Thursday. The countries that will receive the aid - including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen, South Sudan, Sudan, and Haiti - are among the most stricken by hunger, according to the United Nations' World Food Programme. Global hunger is getting worse, with 745 million more people moderately to severely hungry worldwide in 2023 than in 2015, leaving the world off-track to meet a sustainable development goal of ending hunger by 2030, according to the United Nations.
President Joe Biden will receive the formal endorsement of more than a dozen members of the extended Kennedy family on Thursday, according to the Biden campaign, aiming to harness the legacy of a storied Democratic family while implicitly underscoring their near-universal rejection of a third-party challenge mounted by one of their own, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The U.N. Security Council is due to vote on Thursday on a Palestinian bid for full U.N. membership, said diplomats, a move that Israel ally the United States is expected to block because it would effectively recognize a Palestinian state. The 15-member council is scheduled to vote on a draft resolution that recommends to the 193-member U.N. General Assembly that "the State of Palestine be admitted to membership of the United Nations," diplomats said. The United States has said that establishing an independent Palestinian state should happen through direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and not at the U.N.
Troops from Russia and Tajikistan on Thursday completed several days of joint exercises in the Central Asian country to rehearse scenarios for cross-border incursions by militants or illegal armed groups. Tajikistan shares a long border with Afghanistan, which is home to a branch of Islamic State. The Russian Defence Ministry released video of the drills, in which attack helicopters, drones, multiple launch rocket systems, howitzers and tanks were deployed in desert and mountain terrain against the mock enemy.
Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small said Thursday he remains committed to his family and to his city as he deals with charges that he and his wife abused their teenage daughter. In his first public comments since prosecutors on Monday charged him and his wife, LaQuetta, the city's superintendent of schools, with physically and verbally abusing their 16-year-old daughter and endangering her welfare, Small said he would not be distracted from his duties. “But I pledge to each and every one of you, it doesn't change my commitment, number one, to my family, and it doesn't change my commitment here to the great city of Atlantic City,” the mayor said.
MALE (Reuters) -A Maldives high court overturned former president Abdulla Yameen's 11-year jail term on Thursday and asked a lower court to restart criminal proceedings against him. Yameen was convicted in December 2022 of corruption and money laundering over kickbacks from a private company relating to the award of islands for tourism development while he was president. The high court overturned the prison sentence due to procedural irregularities and ordered the lower court to restart the trial on charges of bribery and money laundering.
A human rights organization representing ethnic Armenians submitted evidence to the International Criminal Court on Thursday, arguing that Azerbaijan is committing an ongoing genocide against them. The neighboring countries have been at odds for decades over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, and are already facing off in a separate legal case stemming from that conflict. Lawyers for the California-based Center for Truth and Justice, or CFTJ, say there is sufficient evidence to open a formal investigation into Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and other top leaders for genocide.
The European Commission proposed Thursday to start negotiations with the United Kingdom to allow young people to move freely, work and study in both regions after Brexit — the U.K.'s departure from the EU four years ago. According to the EU, the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU following a referendum in 2016 has damaged mobility between the two areas. “This situation has particularly affected the opportunities for young people to experience life on the other side of the Channel and to benefit from youth, cultural, educational, research and training exchanges,” the Commission said.