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The US has blacklisted several people it says were part of an Al-Qaeda support network in Brazil. The terrorist group’s operatives were involved in printing fake money, according to Washington. The US Department of the Treasury announced on Wednesday that it had blacklisted three Al-Qaeda-affiliated individuals and two entities based in Brazil.  Read more US Treasury Department authorizes aid transactions with the Taliban “The activities of this Brazil-based network demonstrate that Al-Qaeda remains a pervasive global terrorist threat,” Under Secretary of the Treasury Brian Nelson said, adding that new sanctions were aimed at curbing the terrorist group’s financial support. The Treasury named Haytham Ahmad Shukri Ahmad Al-Maghrabi as one of the original members of the Brazilian Al-Qaeda network. He arrived in the country in 2015 and had numerous business dealings, including “the purchase of foreign currency.” Another person on the sanction list is Mohamed Sherif Mohamed M...

Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has blasted the EU’s decision to start legal action against his country, saying that there must be a limit to Brussels’ powers. The EU has announced on Wednesday that it would launch infringement proceedings against Poland and cited violation of the primacy of EU law as a reason. The decision follows two rulings by Poland’s constitutional court that has given priority to Polish laws over those of the EU and concluded that certain parts of EU treaties conflicted with the country’s constitution. Read more Top EU court says Poland broke rules with judge appointment system “ I think that more and more European Union member states notice that there must be a limit of competences somewhere, of those that can be decided by the European Union, and those by the Polish state ,” Morawiecki said in a televised speech at a conference on Wednesday after the EU’s announcement. In his opinion, the majority of European citizens would not want the EU t...

A Chinese study has revealed that the vaccine made by China’s Sinovac Biotech fails to provide adequate protection against the Omicron variant of Covid-19 even after a booster shot has been administered. On Thursday, researchers from the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong called on people to come forward and get a booster shot of Pfizer’s Comirnaty to protect themselves against the Omicron strain of Covid-19.  Their study, published on Thursday reveals that the CoronaVac shot, made by China’s Sinovac Biotech, failed to protect people against the Omicron variant even after three doses. “A third dose of CoronaVac given to those who received two previous doses of CoronaVac does not provide adequate levels of protective antibody,” the researchers stated. “Those who had received two doses of either Comirnaty or CoronaVac should get a third dose of Comirnaty vaccine around six months after their second dose of vaccine to achieve optimal protection agains...

Authorities removed the University of Hong Kong’s ‘Pillar of Shame’ statue late on Wednesday, dismantling one of the few such sites left in China that commemorate an iconic protest, as Beijing extends its influence in the region. The eight-meter-tall monument at the city-state’s oldest university had depicted a pile of twisted bodies and was the site of multiple vigils in memory of the victims of the infamous crackdown over 30 years ago in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. The university had agreed to remove the statue earlier this year “based on the latest risk assessment and legal advice,” adding that officials are “very concerned about the potential safety issues resulting from the fragile statue.” Read more Why the West cannot leave Hong Kong alone “The PillarOfShame is removed, while memory lives. We must remember what happened on June 4th, 1989. TiananmenMassacre,” Nathan Law, a Hong Kong pro-democracy activist who fled the region last year, wrote on Twitter. The statue’s re...

The World Health Organization has warned countries against “blanket” booster programs, saying that they exacerbate vaccine inequities and might even make the pandemic longer. According to the WHO’s advisory group on immunization (SAGE) report, published on Wednesday, the focus “ must remain on decreasing death and severe disease ” as well as on protecting the healthcare systems. SAGE expressed concern that “ broad-based administration of booster doses risks exacerbating vaccine access ” by diverting supply from under-vaccinated countries to ones with an already high percentage of vaccinated people. WHO’s general director Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking at a press conference later on Wednesday, further clarified that with 20% of all vaccine doses given now as boosters and additional doses, “ blanket booster programs are likely to prolong the pandemic rather than ending it .” Diversion of vaccine supply to the countries with high levels of immunity gives the virus “ more opport...

The government of Japan is going to hold monthly meetings with women to hear their input on how the country should be run as part of a push to empower females in the traditionally male-dominated society. The announcement comes after new Prime Minister Fumio Kishida promised to actively support Japan’s women in a speech earlier this month, saying that he’ll “review the systems that restrict women’s employment,” among other things. The PM also expressed a belief earlier that the government must stay in touch with the public to remain effective. The initiative will be spearheaded by a former justice minister, Masako Mori, who had been recently appointed as Kishida’s special advisor in charge of women’s active participation in society. Read more How woke rules have killed dating Mori will travel around the country to meet with women and listen to their concerns and problems, a process designed to contribute to the cabinet’s new policies. According to local media, the adviser plan...

Japan has urged the US military to get a grip on a cluster of Covid infections inside a Marine Corps base in Okinawa. Tokyo previously complained that American testing rules were inconsistent with the rules in Japan. “We have asked the US side to thoroughly implement the maximum measures to prevent the spread of infections,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Thursday. The statement came after 227 people stationed at Camp Hansen, a US Marine Corps base in the Okinawa Prefecture, tested positive for Covid, according to the Japanese government.  According to Matsuno, the US forces explained that troops were tested on the fifth day after arriving in Japan, because they had already been vaccinated and would not leave the base until after restrictions on their movement were lifted. Japanese regulations, meanwhile, require that all incoming travelers are tested within 72 hours before departure. Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said on Wednesday that he had voiced “st...

A man was reportedly detained in Belgium after he was caught trying to get his ninth Covid-19 vaccine dose with false identification on behalf of others who did not want to get vaccinated themselves. The unnamed man from Charleroi was detained at a vaccination center on Sunday after staff recognized his face, L’Avenir newspaper reports . He had previously been to the center to get vaccinated a whopping eight times, using different identity cards for clients who allegedly wanted a ‘fully-vaccinated’ status without attending themselves. According to the newspaper, a legal complaint will soon be filed against the man and anyone who used his service to avoid vaccination. Read more Man investigated for having 10 Covid jabs in one day Though vaccination in Belgium is currently not compulsory, fully vaccinated individuals are able to receive a Covid Safe Ticket, which allows the owner to travel and enter certain establishments, including bars, restaurants, fitness centers, and large ...

Nigeria has scrapped hundreds of thousands of expired coronavirus vaccine doses, destroying more than 1 million shots en masse after officials voiced complaints about the short shelf-life of jabs donated by Western states. A massive quantity of out-of-date AstraZeneca vaccines was trashed at a dump site in the city of Abuja on Wednesday, with a bulldozer seen crushing the medicines in footage obtained by Reuters. Officials later announced the move, an apparent bid to quell fears that the expired immunizations were being administered to residents. “We have successfully withdrawn 1,066,214 doses of expired AstraZeneca vaccines. We have kept our promise to be transparent to Nigerians. The destruction today is an opportunity for Nigerians to have faith in our vaccination program,” said Faisal Shuaib, executive director at Nigeria’s the National Primary Health Care Development Agency. Shuaib also told reporters that, despite knowing the doses would expire in just two weeks, Nigeria was...

The world’s first text message from three decades ago has been sold as a “non-fungible token” (NFT) for over €130,000 ($146,852) at an auction in Paris, with the proceeds benefiting the United Nations Refugee Agency. The “ Merry Christmas ” SMS was sent on December 3, 1992 by Vodafone engineer Neil Papworth to company director Richard Jarvis. Jarvis received the text on his Orbitel 901 mobile phone.  “ After countless attempts and iterations of the code, the sending and receiving of text via Vodafone’s mobile network finally worked, ” marking “ a pivotal moment in the history of mobile communication technology ,” Aguttes auction house explained. we just minted the #NFT that represents the 1st #SMS ever sent. Thanks @VodafoneGroup @361drx @Aguttes_ for trusting us. Let's hope it generates a good price that will be donated to @Refugees https://t.co/1E1t2Smdw7 pic.twitter.com/MiOJSfQeHm — Blockchain Trust Solutions AG (@trust_ag) December 18, 2021 The SMS, which was prov...

Madagascar’s secretary of state for police was forced to swim for around 12 hours back to shore after a helicopter surveying a shipwreck off the island’s northeast coast plunged into the ocean. Serge Gelle had been on a helicopter with others as part of an effort to inspect the site of a shipwreck that occurred on Monday when a wooden vessel sank in the Indian Ocean. However, the aircraft plummeted into the ocean 12 hours from shore, forcing the minister to make the treacherous and challenging swim back to dry land in a bid for survival. Gelle, 57, was filmed shortly after returning to Madagascar’s mainland, lying on a deck chair, exhausted and still in his military uniform. He managed to stay alive by turning one of the helicopter’s seats into a flotation device. ♦️Le GDI Serge GELLE, un des passagers de l'hélicoptère accidenté hier a été retrouvé sain et sauf ce matin du côté de Mahambo. ☑️ Les sapeurs sauveteurs de la #4°UPC ont également retrouvé le carcasse de l'héli...

The most common name given to new-born boys in Israel during 2020 was Mohammed and, for girls, Maya, according to government data. Almost 2,400 boys in the Jewish state were named after the founder of Islam, its Prophet Mohammed, last year, the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) announced on Tuesday. Read more Most popular names among British newborns revealed The name was more than likely dominant in the country’s Muslim community. According to the CBS data, some 1.7 million Muslims made up 18% percent of Israel’s population as of late 2020. Mohammed is generally believed to be the most popular male name globally, having been taken by 150 million people across the world, according to some estimations. It became the fifth most common baby’s name in the UK in 2020, while also making it to the top 10 in the US the previous year. Also last year in Israel, the names David, Lavi or Ariel were high on its baby-names list, and it’s also more than likely that these preferences were h...

A perfectly preserved fossil of a baby dinosaur curled up inside its egg has been rediscovered at the back of Chinese museum, having been mislaid for years, shedding new light on the links between Mesozoic-era creatures and birds. In a paper published on Tuesday, scientists hailed the discovery of the Late Cretaceous oviraptorid theropod dinosaur embryo as significant. The 70-million-year-old fossil has been nicknamed Baby Yingliang, after the Yingliang Stone Nature History Museum where it was found. The fossil had been bought in 2000 by the Chinese company that subsidizes the institution, but been forgotten about for two decades, until it was unearthed by museum staff.   Read more Elon Musk unveils ‘biggest threat to modern civilization’ Darla Zelenitsky, an associate geoscience professor at Canada’s University of Calgary, who co-authored the paper, said it was incredibly rare to find baby dinosaur bones, so this particularly find was extraordinary.  “It is an ...

French Health Minister Olivier Veran has announced that the Covid vaccination campaign for children aged 5-11 is now open, proceeding with a plan announced last week to help protect youngsters from the threat of new variants. The country’s National Authority for Health (HAS) backed opening up the country’s Covid vaccination scheme to young children on Monday, stating that it should be done “as soon as the pediatric formulation” of Pfizer’s Covid vaccine is ready. In France, officials were already administering the Covid vaccine to children who are “at risk” of contracting a severe form of the virus but the decision from HAS extends vaccination to all children. Rolling out the vaccine to young children, HAS admitted that the move had been made to reduce the threat posed by the fast-spreading Omicron variant. The agency was concerned there was a risk the strain could cause “an increase in the number of cases of severe forms of the disease in children.” Read more French hackers cr...

Mexican drug kingpins have moved their focus towards synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine and fentanyl, which are easier to mass-produce and smuggle, officials have said. The shift in their operations is evidenced by the nature of recent drug seizures by Mexican law enforcement, which were detailed by the country’s defense secretary. The Department of Defense, which is working closely with the civilian authorities to crack down on cartels, updated the public on its efforts on Monday. “There was a change in consumption [and] a change in drug markets due to the ease of producing synthetic drugs,” said General Luis Cresencio Sandoval, speaking at a news briefing alongside the nation’s president. Read more Leading cause of death among 18-45yo Americans revealed, and it is not Covid-19 Marijuana, cocaine, and heroin, which all require the cultivation and production of herbal raw materials, have fallen out of favor, while synthetic drugs have become more prominent, the official s...

The British Medical Journal and Lead Stories, a fact checker in the employ of Facebook, are engaged in a war of words over a report on a Pfizer whistleblower that was deemed by the social network to have “missing context.” On November 2, the British Medical Journal (BMJ), one of the world’s most prestigious medical periodicals, published a whistleblowing report that called into question the integrity of data and highlighted issues with regulatory oversight of phase-three trials of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine.  The report was based on testimony by the former regional director of the Ventavia Research Group, a contractor that had assisted in the trials. Brook Jackson claimed several trial sites in Texas had experienced major issues, and alleged that Pfizer had falsified data, broken fundamental trial rules, and been “ slow ” to report adverse reactions. The BMJ said the report had been published only after being subjected to both a legal review and an external peer review, and had m...

Germany’s minister of justice has spoken in favor of common European action against Telegram over the spread of extremist content on the instant-messaging service. Speaking to German media, Marco Buschmann argued that a concerted EU-wide effort would “ make a bigger impression ” on Telegram, as opposed to “ each country trying to do that on its own. ” The minister, who was sworn in earlier this month, went on to say that it was in Telegram’s own best interest to have uninterrupted access to the European market now that the service has turned to ads in a bid to monetize the platform’s popularity. Buschmann, however, warned that even if the EU succeeded in bringing Telegram to heel, that alone would not end the problem of hate speech and extremism online, as “ radicals will find new ways and platforms. ” Read more Police uncover anti-vaxxer crossbow murder plot The debate over Telegram intensified in Germany earlier this month after several radical anti-vaxxers had been arrested ...

Belgium’s Ministry of Defense was targeted with a significant cyber attack exploiting a recently discovered vulnerability in a popular logging tool, officials have confirmed, noting they are still attempting to secure the network. The security breach was initially detected last week, but only publicized on Monday by ministry spokesman Commander Olivier Severin, according to a local media report .  “[The Defense Ministry] on Thursday discovered an attack on its computer network with internet access,” Severin said, adding “All weekend our teams have been mobilized to control the problem, continue our activities and warn our partners.” Read more Critical software bug sets ‘internet on fire’ A spokesperson for Defense Minister Ludivine Dedonder also told Politico that the ministry was “working hard” to secure the network, though officials have yet to comment on the origin of the attack. The breach reportedly targeted a security flaw in a widely used utility known as Log4j, ...

A massive dust storm with winds up to 110 kilometers an hour swept through parts of Queensland, Australia, with sections of the red cloud being caught on camera. One video of the storm, filmed by a local man Leaim Shaw, has swept across social media. It had many comparing the scene out of the town of Boulia, which was swallowed whole by the cloud on Sunday, to something from the post-apocalyptic ‘Mad Max’ film franchise. The town of Boulia only has approximately 300 residents.  Residents described the dust storm as the biggest they have seen in years to local media and said the sky turned red and relentless winds shook their homes as they sheltered in place, after a few had grabbed footage of the incoming cloud.  Meteorologists reported the unusually large dust storm was caused by a series of thunderstorms in the area. Parts of Queensland were hit with heavy rainfall and cold weather following the dust cloud rolling through.  “Storms are disorganised things...

Iran has said that explosions above the Bushehr nuclear power plant in the early hours of Monday morning were related to an air defense drill, as the military launches war games across the country. Speaking to Iranian state media on Monday, the deputy governor of Bushehr province, Mohammadtaqi Irani, said the power plant had hosted early morning maneuvers to prepare for possible future aggression.  “This air defense exercise took place at 5am local time, with full preparation and coordination with the armed forces,” Irani stated. Prior to Irani’s statement, there had been reports of anti-aircraft fire in the area around the power station. A video circulating online appears to show air defense drills in progress.  🔴 بامداد امرو، ساعت ۰۴:۳۰ بوقت محلی - فعالیت پدافند هوایی #IRGC در اطراف نیروگاه هسته ای #بوشهر #ایران pic.twitter.com/boUiyoniJA — ائتلاف ۱۰ ꪜ 👀 (@etelaf10) December 20, 2021 State media outlets reported that Iran had launched the 17th iteration of its ...