World

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, (Reuters) – The world’s most famous sled-dog race, celebrated by Alaskans for half a century but condemned by animal-rights activists as inhumane, is losing one of its biggest corporate sponsors.

GENEVA, (Reuters) – In a landmark verdict in one of the mining world’s most high profile legal cases, a Swiss criminal court found Israeli businessman Beny Steinmetz guilty of corruption and forgery yesterday and sentenced him to five years in jail with a sizeable fine.

GENEVA,  (Reuters) – The World Health Organization said today it had reached an agreement with Pfizer for 40 million doses of its vaccine against COVID-19, allowing it to begin vaccinating people in poor and lower-middle income countries under its COVAX programme next month.

WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO, (Reuters) – President Joe Biden is hiring a group of national security veterans with deep cyber expertise, drawing praise from former defense officials and investigators as the U.S.

LONDON,  (Reuters) – British police said today they had broken up a wedding with almost 400 guests in violation of COVID lockdown rules, which only allow six people to attend.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – President Joe Biden unveiled sweeping measures to battle COVID-19 on his first full day in office yesterday, with his chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, praising his new boss’ willingness to “let the science speak” in contrast to the Trump administration.

BAGHDAD,  (Reuters) – Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack in a crowded Baghdad market on Thursday, killing at least 32 people in Iraq’s first big suicide bombing for three years, authorities said, describing it as a possible sign of the reactivation of Islamic State.

OTTAWA,  (Reuters) – Canadian Governor General Julie Payette, the representative of the country’s head of state, Queen Elizabeth, quit yesterday amid allegations of workplace harassment in an embarrassment for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

LIMA, (Reuters) – Tombs containing the remains of two children thought to have belonged to the Incan societal elite have been discovered by a group of experts in northern Peru in the boundaries of a 500-year-old archaeological site, the leader of the team that carried out the excavations said on Thursday.

LONDON/FRANKFURT,  (Reuters) – Pfizer and BioNTech have agreed to supply their COVID-19 vaccine to the World Health Organization co-led COVAX vaccine access scheme, two sources familiar with the deal said, the latest in a series of shots to be included in the project aimed at lower-income countries.

LONDON/FRANKFURT,  (Reuters) – Pfizer and BioNTech have agreed to supply their COVID-19 vaccine to the World Health Organization co-led COVAX vaccine access scheme, two sources familiar with the deal said, the latest in a series of shots to be included in the project aimed at lower-income countries.

NAIROBI,  (Reuters) – Africa’s coronavirus case fatality rate stands at 2.5%, higher than the global level of 2.2%, a trend that is alarming experts, the head of the continent’s disease control body said today.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – President Joe Biden launched initiatives today to rein in the raging COVID-19 pandemic, tackling his top priority on his first full day in the White House as he tries to turn the page on Donald Trump’s tumultuous leadership.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – Joe Biden was sworn in as president of the United States yesterday, offering a message of unity and restoration to a deeply divided country reeling from a battered economy and a raging coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 400,000 Americans.

BEIJING,  (Reuters) – China said yesterday it wanted to cooperate with President Joe Biden’s new U.S.

QUITO,  (Reuters) – Ecuador said the first batch of 18 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines it contracted for with three pharmaceutical companies and the COVAX initiative arrived yesterday for a pilot plan with medical staff from public hospitals and nursing homes.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – President Joe Biden yesterday announced America’s return to the international Paris Agreement to fight climate change, the centerpiece of a raft of day-one executive orders aimed at restoring U.S.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – Democrat Joe Biden was sworn in as president of the United States today, vowing to end the ‘uncivil war’ in a deeply divided country reeling from a battered economy and a raging coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 400,000 Americans.

LONDON, (Reuters) – Some British hospitals look like war zones with doctors struggling to cope with an influx of patients infected with COVID-19, the government’s top scientific adviser said, as the death toll rose by a record daily amount towards 100,000.

HARARE,  (Reuters) – Zimbabwe’s foreign minister, Sibusiso Moyo, has died after contracting COVID-19, presidential spokesman George Charamba said today.