Covid-19: WHO urges halt to sale of live wild mammals in food markets

GENEVA, April 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The World Health Organization called for a halt to the sale of live wild mammals in food markets to prevent the emergence of new diseases such as Covid-19. The WHO said because traditional markets play a central role in providing food and livelihoods for large…

UN Burundi office to close May 31

Evariste Ndayishimiye, President of Burundi UNITED NATIONS, April 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United Nations special envoy’s office to Burundi will close on May 31, five months after the isolated regime requested it shuttered, the UN secretary-general said.A highly political issue, the UN’s presence has been a source of tension for…

Mexico detains 30 Marines accused of disappearances

MEXICO CITY, April 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Prosecutors in Mexico have arrested 30 Marines in connection with the disappearances of an unspecified number of people in the northern state of Tamaulipas in 2014, the Navy said. “Thirty naval service members were made available to the Attorney General’s Office on April 9…

France activates crisis centre after clergy kidnapped in Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, April 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — France has activated its foreign ministry crisis centre after seven Catholic clergy, five of them Haitian and two French, were abducted in the restive island nation of Haiti, the ministry said after the kidnappers demanded a million dollar ransom. The Quai d’Orsay’s “crisis and support centre ……

Radical leftist inches into lead as Peru counts presidential votes

An election worker checks the temperature of a Quechua indigenous person arriving to vote at a polling station in the remote rural village of Capachica, in Puno, Peru LIMA, April 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A far-left union leader and teacher has taken a surprise, though slim, lead in Peru’s presidential election,…

Brazil judge halts parts of Pres Bolsonaro’s decrees to relax gun laws

The four decrees increase the number of firearms Brazilians can own from four to six BRASILIA, April 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A judge on Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court on Monday suspended parts of four decrees issued by President Jair Bolsonaro relaxing the country’s gun control laws. Bolsonaro issued the decrees on…

Covid-19: UK hits target to offer vaccine to all over-50s by mid-April – govt

LONDON, April 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Britain said it had met its target to offer by April 15 a coronavirus vaccine first dose to all over-50s, the clinically vulnerable and health and social care workers. “We have now passed another hugely significant milestone in our vaccine programme by offering jabs to…

G7 urges Russia to stop ‘provocations,’ de-escalate on Ukraine

PARIS, April 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The G7 foreign ministers called on Russia to stop its “provocations” and “de-escalate tensions” following its troop build-up on the border with Ukraine. The ministers from the Group of Seven leading industrialised countries “are deeply concerned by the large ongoing build-up of Russian military forces…

At least 22 dead as bus overturns in Peru

LIMA, April 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Twenty-two people died and 13 others were injured Monday when a passenger bus overturned in rainy conditions on an Andean road in Peru, police said. The accident happened in the morning near the western city of Huarez, some 600 kilometers north of Lima, a police…

Covid-19: More than one million coronavirus deaths in Europe

PARIS, April 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Health authorities across Europe have recorded more than a million coronavirus deaths as of 1830 GMT on Monday. In the region’s 52 countries and territories, stretching as far east as Azerbaijan and Russia, the death toll stands at least 1,000,288 dead, the highest of any…