China's top health body said Wednesday the true scale of coronavirus infections in the country is now "impossible" to track, with officials warning cases are rising rapidly in Beijing after the government abruptly abandoned its zero-Covid policy last week. . With testing no longer required for much of the country, China's National Health Commission on Wednesday admitted its numbers no longer reflected reality.
Iran's protest crackdown has helped push the number of journalists imprisoned worldwide to a record high of 533 in 2022, according to a report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) published Wednesday.. - 'Deliberately targeted' - The number of women journalists in prison is also at an all-time high worldwide, rising from 60 to 78 since 2021, largely due to greater numbers entering the profession.
Jenny Hubbard struggles to believe that 10 years have passed since her six-year-old daughter's murder at Sandy Hook Elementary during the deadliest school shooting in US history.. Difficult days include the first school day of every year and when other mass shootings occur, like at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in May when 19 children and two teachers were killed.
US central bankers open the second day of a key policy meeting Wednesday, with mounting anticipation of a smaller hike to its benchmark lending rate as inflation showed signs of easing.. Analysts widely expect the Fed to adopt a smaller, half-point hike on Wednesday, with Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics calling it a "a done deal" in an analysis.
Phan Thi Nhieu has spent a decade assembling shoes for worldwide brands such as Timberland and K-Swiss, but she is now among tens of thousands of Vietnamese factory workers laid off as Western consumers cut spending.. Taiwanese giant Pouyuen, a Nike shoe producer, has put 20,000 of its workers on paid leave in rotation, while reports said Vietnam's largest foreign investor, Samsung Electronics, has started reducing its smartphone production at factories in the north.
A Malian mother who gave birth to nine babies in Morocco last year returned home on Tuesday with her infants, Health Minister Dieminatou Sangare told AFP. "Joy and satisfaction to see them in good health.. Doctors had worried for the health of the mother-to-be and for the babies' chances of survival, given the high risk of very premature birth.
Indian mobile payments giant Paytm will launch a share buyback, it said Tuesday, offering investors little more than a third of what they paid just over a year ago in the country's then-biggest IPO. Paytm's shares have nosedived 75 percent since its $2.5 billion flotation in November 2021, demonstrating the risks of overpriced share offers in loss-making tech firms.. But the shares nosedived 27 percent on their first day of trading due to concerns about losses, dropping further in subsequent months before settling to trade at a quarter of their IPO value.
US prosecutors slapped disgraced cryptocurrency tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried with multiple criminal charges on Tuesday for massive fraud as he built his FTX crypto empire.. The criminal charges, made by federal prosecutors in New York, pose the greatest legal peril for Bankman-Fried who risks a long jail sentence given the billions of dollars amounts involved.
Wildfires that scorched across Europe this year burned a record land area and stoked carbon emissions, according to an update released on Tuesday by Europe's forest fire and satellite monitors. . Huge fires that raged across Spain and France meant that the countries saw the highest carbon emissions from June to August since the satellite monitor's records began in 2003.
When Viktor Dergai moved into his 27th floor flat more than a year ago, he and his family were excited for the picturesque views of Kyiv their new home promised.. "Walking isn't a problem for me, but there are elderly and disabled people and mothers who carry children in pushchairs living in our building," says Dergai, a 46-year-old civil servant.
