Covid-19: Third dose of vaccines coming up for second half of September in Brazil

BRASILIA, Aug 27 (NNN-MERCOPRESS) — Brazilian health authorities announced the third dose of a COVID-19 vaccine will begin to be distributed during the second half of September 2021, for people over 70 years of age who have completed their full treatment more than six months ago. The “booster doses” will…

Pres Bolsonaro mandates Brazilian federal gov’t agencies to cut down electricity consumption

BRASILIA, Aug 27 (NNN-MERCOPRESS) — Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro has issued a decree ordering all federal agencies to cut down electricity consumption between 10 and 20% from September to April 2022, in the face of an unprecedented shortage in supply from less expensive sources. The measure is aimed at avoiding…

Covid-19: WHO begins shipping Chinese vaccines despite some misgivings

BRUSSELS, Aug 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The World Health Organization’s pandemic programme plans to ship 100 million doses of the Sinovac and Sinopharm COVID-19 shots by the end of next month, mostly to Africa and Asia, in its first delivery of Chinese vaccines, a WHO document shows. The Chinese shipments will…

Pentagon bracing for more attacks after troops killed at Kabul airport

WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — US forces helping to evacuate Afghans desperate to flee Taliban rule braced for more attacks on Friday after a Daesh suicide bomber killed 103 people, including 13 US soldiers and 28 Taliban members outside the gates of Kabul airport. Two blasts and gunfire rocked the area outside the airport…

Covid-19: Pres Biden eviction moratorium shot down by US Supreme Court

About 3.5 million Americans said they face eviction in the next two months  WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The US Supreme Court has ruled to allow evictions to resume across the country. It blocked the Biden administration’s Covid-related moratorium on evictions, which would have extended protections to millions of Americans.…

Stalin-Era mass grave found in Ukraine

 ODESSA (Ukraine), Aug 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — What may be one of Ukraine’s largest Stalin-era mass graves has been identified by researchers. The remains of between 5,000 and 8,000 people were found in 29 graves in the southern city of Odessa. The site, believed to date back to the late 1930s,…

UN calls Afghanistan meet for Security Council permanent five

  UNITED NATIONS, Aug 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called a meeting of the permanent members of the Security Council to discuss the chaotic situation in Afghanistan, diplomats said.   Guterres sent letters formally inviting the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China to meet on Monday,…

52,000 bodies unidentified in Mexico, activists say

  MEXICO CITY, Aug 27, 2021 (BSS/AFP) — More than 50,000 unidentified bodies lie in mass graves or with forensic services in violence-wracked Mexico, a group representing families of the missing said Thursday.   The Movement for Our Disappeared in Mexico warned that the country was facing “a deep forensic…

Nigerian gunmen free dozens of kidnapped seminary pupils: teacher

KATSINA (Nigeria), Aug 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Nigerian gunmen have freed the remaining pupils from more than 100 kidnapped from an Islamic seminary in northwestern Niger State nearly three months ago, the school’s head teacher said. Heavily armed criminals snatched 136 pupils from the seminary in Tegina on May 30 in…

Gunfire erupts near French embassy, five people killed in Tanzania

DAR ES SALAAM, Aug 27 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Tanzania said five people are dead, including three police officers, after a gun battle with an armed man near the French Embassy in Dar es Salaam.It was not immediately clear whether the Wednesday shootout in the heavily guarded diplomatic area was a terror…