Step in the mind: Humanitarianism is in trouble, needs urgent reforms for impact
The Grand Bargain, a sweeping reform deal between donor nations and the main international aid organisations, was intended to allow a more efficient and effective response to emergencies around the globe. But five years on, the plan is due for a rethink, and signatories are preparing to hammer out the...
Cameroon women trounce Burkina Faso on return to international rugby action
The Indomitable Lionesses of Cameroon whitewashed hosts Burkina Faso on June 9, 2021, to mark an emphatic return to international action in a match played at the August 4 Stadium. Visiting Cameroon scored 37 to the good in a match that took place on the side-lines of Rugby Africa Cup...
US President Biden wants full probe into claims Covid-19 was bioengineered
As for finding an intermediate host animal, researchers in China have tested more than 80,000 wild and domesticated animals, but none have been positive for SARS-CoV-2. But this number is a tiny fraction of the animals in the country. To narrow the search down, researchers say, more strategic testing is...
Chicken egg, 1,000 years old, found intact by Israel archaeologists in Yavne city
In the latest instalment in the eternal debate over which came first, an intact chicken egg dating from roughly 1021 CE was discovered in Yavne, a city in central Israel, archaeologists announced on Wednesday (June 9). Found protected in a cesspit, the gem was discovered by Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists...
Covid lab-leak hypothesis: No animal has been identified as transmitter of the virus to humans
Debate over the idea that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus emerged from a laboratory has escalated over the past few weeks, coinciding with the annual World Health Assembly, at which the World Health Organization (WHO) and officials from nearly 200 countries discussed the Covid-19 pandemic. After last year’s assembly, the WHO agreed...
Germ warfare: US funded Wuhan lab coronavirus programme with $826,300
A public interest organisation and a law firm in the United States, Judicial Watch, has announced that it had obtained 280 pages of documents from the Department of Health and Human Services that lays bare the truth about how the United States facilitated Wuhan Institute of Virology to research into...
Sprint to Covid vaccination was equivalent to putting a person on the Moon
Over the past six months, hundreds of millions of people around the world have rushed to follow in the footsteps of a 90-year-old British woman named Margaret Keenan. At 6:30 am on December 8, 2020, Keenan became the first person to receive a Covid-19 vaccine as part of a mass...
Stakeholders fear Pakistan’s proposed media law will stifle Press freedom
Pakistani media stakeholders are calling on the Pakistan government to withdraw a proposed Pakistan Media Regularity Authority (PMDA) ordinance they fear will stop the flow of information in the country and restrict free, independent and responsible media. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and its affiliate, the Pakistan Federal Union...
Sea transport experiencing boom in ships that fly ‘fake’ flags, pollute environment
Ships transport 90 per cent of the world’s traded cargo, so are crucial to the global economy. But when tankers and other large vessels are demolished, they generate huge amounts of marine pollution, particularly if it happens in countries where environmental regulations for ship-breaking yards are lax. Research now shows...
With over four million people living around it, Lake Kivu a potential deadly natural disaster
If Kivu were to experience a limnic eruption, says limnologist Sally MacIntyre, “it would be completely catastrophic.” And the spread of the lava from Mt Nyiragongo that erupted recently is testimony to the fears expressed by MacIntyre, a researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara. This isn’t just a...
