Polio Found in London Sewage, But Risk of Infection Considered Low
Risk of infection from the disease, which causes paralysis in children in under 1% of cases, was low because of high vaccination rates …
Risk of infection from the disease, which causes paralysis in children in under 1% of cases, was low because of high vaccination rates …
The European Union’s executive arm unveiled groundbreaking environmental proposals Wednesday — a draft law that would halve the EU’s pesticide use by 2030 — and work to restore its land, seas and rivers. The draft legislation aims to restore 20% of Europe’s degraded land and waterways within the next eight years — a measure the European Commission’s Vice President Frans Timmermans says is vital for the region’s future. “We’re proposing a law that would require all member states to restore nature,” he said. “We need to repair 80% of our nature that’s in bad shape and bring back to our …
U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a “massive act of aggression,” was a major topic during the Global Chiefs of Mission Conference in Washington on Tuesday. Speaking at the State Department to VOA’s Russian service, Sullivan said, “I think it’s important to understand the scale of the problem and what the Russian government has done through its actions. Almost 15 million people are either refugees, have left Ukraine or they’re internally displaced persons. We’ve heard the casualty statistics — thousands upon thousands of innocent people, men women and children killed, but millions of refugees.” “So …
Elite swimmer Mykhailo Romanchuk doesn’t know if his father was able to see him winning a medal for Ukraine at the swimming world championships. Romanchuk’s father is fighting in the east of Ukraine, where pockets of resistance are still denying Russia full military control of the region almost four months after it unleashed its invasion. “He’s in a hot spot and it’s a hard time,” Romanchuk said after taking bronze in the men’s 800-meter freestyle race on Tuesday. Romanchuk doesn’t dare talk to his dad out of fear his father’s location could be tracked through the call. “It’s not possible …
Ukraine reported heavy strikes Tuesday in the Sievierodonetsk region as Russian forces push to gain full control of the eastern city. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address that the military situation in the eastern region of Luhansk “is really the toughest area right now. The occupiers are also putting serious pressure on the Donetsk direction.” He said Russia has stepped up efforts to evict Ukrainian troops from key areas. A spokesman for the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said at a daily briefing that fighting in Sievierodonetsk was fierce, with Russia conducting airstrikes …
Pavlo Vyshebaba joined the military on the first day of the Russian invasion, having no combat experience at all. Then the well-known Ukrainian eco-activist headed straight to his native Donbas region. During brief calm moments on the front line, he wrote about what he was seeing and feeling. Lesia Bakalets has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. …
President Emmanuel Macron held talks Tuesday with France’s main party leaders in a bid to show he is open to dialogue after his centrist alliance failed to win an absolute majority in parliamentary elections. The meetings at the Elysee presidential palace come after Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne formally offered her resignation Tuesday, in line with the tradition after parliamentary elections. Macron immediately rejected the offer and maintained the current government. Macron’s Together! alliance won 245 seats in Sunday’s parliamentary elections — 44 seats short of a majority in the National Assembly, France’s most powerful house of parliament. The leftist Nupes …
Analysts say the African Union (AU) is unlikely to offer Ukraine much support against Russia despite a passionate address Monday by Ukraine’s president. Many African nations have historical ties to Russia and have refused to condemn its invasion of Ukraine. In his speech to the African Union Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of holding Africa hostage by not allowing Ukrainian grain exports to reach the continent unless Western sanctions are lifted. Zelenskyy, speaking via videolink, also reminded AU leaders about Africa’s history of being colonized and said the continent should never support any attempt by one nation to …
Lawyers for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange are urging the Australian government to do more to gain the release of the Queensland-born activist. Assange is to be extradited from Britain to the United States to face espionage charges, in a move approved by the British government late last week. To his supporters, Julian Assange is a hero who, among other things, exposed U.S. wrongdoing in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. They insist his prosecution is politically motivated. But officials in Washington have for years said the confidential U.S. military records and diplomatic cables Assange’s Wikileaks website released had violated U.S. espionage …
A British subsidiary of mining and trading giant Glencore on Tuesday formally pleaded guilty to seven counts of bribery in connection with oil operations in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and South Sudan. At a Southwark Crown Court hearing in London, Glencore Energy admitted to paying more than $28 million in bribes to secure preferential access to oil and generate illicit profit between 2011 and 2016. The company will be sentenced on Nov. 2 and 3, the U.K. Serious Fraud Office, or SFO, said. Glencore, a Swiss-based multinational, has already said it expects to pay up to $1.5 billion …
Dmitry Muratov, editor of one of Russia’s last independent newspapers, auctioned off his 2021 Nobel Peace Prize medal on Monday, bringing in a record-shattering $103.5 million to benefit children displaced by Russia’s war in Ukraine. Organizer Heritage Auctions did not identify the winning bidder of the auction, which took place on World Refugee Day. The money is going to UNICEF’s humanitarian response for displaced Ukrainian children. Muratov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with journalist Maria Ressa of the Philippines for their work to preserve free speech in their countries. The previous record price paid for a Nobel Prize …
Two Americans detained in Ukraine while fighting on the Ukrainian side of the war were mercenaries who endangered the lives of Russian servicemen and should face responsibility for their actions, the Kremlin said Monday. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, interviewed by the U.S. television network NBC, also said U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner, held in Russia for more than two months, was guilty of drug offenses and not a hostage. Peskov’s comments were the first formal acknowledgment that the two men, identified in U.S. reports as Andy Huynh, 27, of Hartselle, Alabama, and Alexander Drueke, 39, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, were being …
According to United Nations estimates, since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, some 2.5 million Ukrainians have crossed the Polish border and gone back to Ukraine. Iryna Martynenko was among those who returned to her native city of Sumy, in the northeast. Olena Adamenko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera and video editing by Mykhailo Zaika. …
Two months after French President Emmanuel Macron won reelection, his second term is now threatened with gridlock and a possible political crisis after his centrist party lost its ruling majority in the lower house of the National Assembly Sunday. Legislative vote saw a surging far left and far right — and near-record abstention. France’s Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne acknowledged the message from Sunday’s vote that gave the centrist Ensemble or Together coalition the largest number of seats in the lower house — but stripped it of a ruling majority. She called the situation unprecedented and vowed to cobble a working …
The tooth of assassinated Patrice Lumumba, Congo’s first democratically elected leader, is scheduled to be handed over to his family Monday. The Belgium government will hand over the tooth to Lumumba’s family in an official ceremony in Brussels. Lumumba elected as Congo’s first democratically elected prime minister in 1960 and was hugely popular with his countrymen and largely unpopular with European and American powers. The Congo had been a Belgium colony. At his inauguration ceremony in 1960, Lumumba spoke in graphic detail about the atrocities the Congolese people had suffered under their Belgium colonizer, angering Belgian King Baudouin who was …
Britain’s railway network this week faces its biggest strike action in more than three decades in a row over pay as soaring inflation erodes earnings. Rail union the RMT has said that more than 50,000 workers will take part in a three-day national strike, coinciding with major events including the Glastonbury music festival. Schools are warning that thousands of teenagers taking national exams will also be affected. The RMT argues that the strikes are necessary as wages have failed to keep pace with inflation, which has hit a 40-year high. Jobs are also at risk with passenger traffic yet to …
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said “we should expect greater hostile activity from Russia” this week as European Union leaders consider whether to support candidate status for Ukraine in the EU. “And not only against Ukraine, but also against other European countries. We are preparing. We are ready. We are warning partners,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Sunday. The European Commission recommended last week that Ukraine receive candidate status. The 27 member states will discuss the issue and give their votes during a summit Thursday and Friday. If Ukraine does advance to candidate status, the process for joining the EU …
France voted Sunday in the second-round runoff of legislative elections that saw a new left-wing alliance threatening President Emmanuel Macron’s majority in the National Assembly, the lower house of the country’s Parliament. Voters trickled out of Neuilly Plaisance’s city hall, shopping carts in tow. After casting their ballots, their next stops were the bakery and Sunday market to finish their errands. Gregory, an electrician in this eastern Paris suburb, had cast his ballot for France’s new leftist coalition, known as NUPES. He said French President Emmanuel Macron is breaking everything the country has worked for when it comes to social …
Firefighters in Spain and Germany struggled to contain wildfires on Sunday amid an unusual heat wave in Western Europe for this time of year. The worst damage in Spain has been in the northwest province of Zamora where over 25,000 hectares (61,000 acres) have been consumed, regional authorities said, while German officials said that residents of three villages near Berlin were ordered to leave their homes because of an approaching wildfire Sunday. Spanish authorities said that after three days of high temperatures, high winds and low humidity, some respite came with dropping temperatures Sunday morning. That allowed for about 650 …
Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said on Sunday a new British law to change part of a Brexit deal to try to ease trade with Northern Ireland was “unilateralism of the worst kind” and urged the government to resume talks. The European Commission launched two new legal proceedings against Britain this month after London published plans to override some post-Brexit rules in the so-called Northern Ireland protocol which governs trade with the British province. London has proposed scrapping some checks on goods from the rest of the United Kingdom arriving in Northern Ireland and challenged the role of the European …