Jakarta, Jan 1: At least 23 people have been killed and 17 are missing after a passenger boat caught fire today near Jakarta, according to officials.
The passenger boat was ferrying some 200 people off the coast of Jakarta to Tidung island, a tourist destination 50 kilometres from the capital, when the fire started, said national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho.
Aboard Air Force One, Jan 6: US President Donald Trump threatened sanctions against Baghdad on Sunday after Iraq's parliament called on US troops to leave the country, and the president said if troops did leave, Baghdad would have to pay Washington for the cost of the air base there.
"We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that's there. It cost billions of dollars to build, long before my time. We're not leaving unless they pay us back for it," Trump told reporters on Air Force One.
Trump said that if Iraq asked US forces to leave and it was not done on a friendly basis, "we will charge them sanctions like they've never seen before ever. It'll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame."
Six months since the new coronavirus outbreak, the pandemic is still far from over, the World Health Organization said Monday, warning that "the worst is yet to come".
Reaching the half-year milestone just as the death toll surpassed 500,000 and the number of confirmed infections topped 10 million, the WHO said it was a moment to recommit to the fight to save lives.
"Six months ago, none of us could have imagined how our world -- and our lives -- would be thrown into turmoil by this new virus," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual briefing.
"We all want this to be over. We all want to get on with our lives. But the hard reality is this is not even close to being over.
"Although many countries have made some progress, globally the pandemic is actually speeding up.
"We're all in this together, and we're all in this for the long haul.
"We will need even greater stores of resilience, patience, humility and generosity in the months ahead.
"We have already lost so much -- but we cannot lose hope."
Tedros also said that the pandemic had brought out the best and worst humanity, citing acts of kindness and solidarity, but also misinformation and the politicisation of the virus.
In an atmosphere of global political division and fractures on a national level, "the worst is yet to come. I'm sorry to say that," he said.
"With this kind of environment and condition, we fear the worst."
Moscow, Aug 7: Russia will register its first vaccine against the coronavirus on August 12, Deputy Health Minister Oleg Gridnev said on Friday.
The vaccine has been developed jointly by the Gamaleya Research Institute and the Russian Defence Ministry.
"The vaccine developed by the Gamaleya centre will be registered on August 12. At the moment, the last, third, stage is underway. The trials are extremely important. We have to understand that the vaccine must be safe. Medical professionals and senior citizens will be the first to get vaccinated," Gridnev told reporters at the opening of a cancer centre building in the city of Ufa.
According to the minister, the effectiveness of the vaccine will be judged when the population immunity has formed.
Clinical trials of the vaccine began on June 18 and included 38 volunteers. All of the participants developed immunity.
The first group was discharged on July 15 and the second group on July 20.
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