Category Archives: headline

headline

Baby sea snakes released after incredible tale of survival

Three baby sea snakes have lived to tell an incredible tale of survival after their mother was found on a New South Wales beach clinging to life after giving birth.

Found washed up on a Pottsville Beach over a week ago, the mother and her five newly birthed offspring were rushed across the border to SeaWorld Hospital on the Gold Coast.

Treating the six reptiles in a specially designed tank at the park's Shark Bay, the centre's rehabilitation team were able to nurse three of the snakes back to good health.

READ MORE: 'Don't touch the ball' plea from South Australian doctor

Found washed up on a Pottsville Beach over a week ago, the mother and her five newly birthed offspring were rushed across the border to SeaWorld Hospital on the Gold Coast. Found washed up on a Pottsville Beach over a week ago, the mother and her five newly birthed offspring were rushed across the border to SeaWorld Hospital on the Gold Coast.

Unfortunately, the baby's mother didn't make it.

The three snake siblings were today released back into the wild at the Gold Coast seaway. The two remaining snakes are still recovering.

headline

Bali plans to reopen to international tourists next month

Indonesia, including the Australian holiday hotspot of Bali, expects to welcome international visitors back from next month.

According to a press release from the nation's Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy, the nation plans to open to tourists in July 2021.

Australians, who head to Bali more than anywhere else, will be unable to go due to an ongoing travel ban which is expected to be extended past its deadline later this month.

READ MORE 'Women without milk for babies': How shutdown is devastating Bali

Bali

The Indonesian Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy announced the reopening plan at industry event, Arabian Travel Market Dubai 2021.

"By participating in ATM Dubai 2021, outbound tourism's leading global event, we are demonstrating that Indonesia is confident of maintaining its position as a world-class destination," Deputy of Minister for Tourism Marketing Nia Niscaya said.

Bali

"Indonesian president Joko Widodo, announced plans to re-open borders in July 2021, with destinations including Bali, Batam and Bintan serving as 'locomotive' regions to kickstart tourism for the whole country – if the pandemic is handled as well as expected," the release said.

"In preparation, the government has carried out a widespread vaccination program for targeted groups, including the tourism workforce," the release said.

"In addition, the government has also initiated the Cleanliness, Health, Safety, and Environmental Sustainability (CHSE) certification program throughout the tourism sector in Indonesia."

READ MORE: Indonesian submarine crew filmed themselves singing farewell video

Bali

A mass vaccination pledge targeting tourism destinations in Bali was launched earlier this year, however, according to World in Data, only six percent of the country overall have had a vaccination dose.

The nation already opened for some domestic travel last year, but places like Bali have been devastated by a lack of tourism.

The release did not mention if travellers would have to be vaccinated to holiday in Indonesia.

headline

Virus Variants to Have Greek Alphabet Names, Ecuador Vaccinates, World Stats

WHO revising COVID-19 variant naming to avoid stigmatizing countries

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced changes to how it will label COVID-19 variants on Monday, saying the variants will be named using letters of the Greek alphabet instead of the place where they were first discovered.

The WHO declared that variants of interest and variants of concern will receive a designated Greek letter listed on its website.

Researchers will continue to use the scientific names for each variant, created by Pango and GISAID, because the names include helpful information on the strains.

Why the change: The naming system was developed after the WHO consulted experts from around the world following concerns that labeling the variants by their location of discovery is “stigmatizing” and “discriminatory.”

The international health organization predicts the new system “will be easier and more practical” for nonscientists to use.

“While they have their advantages, these scientific names can be difficult to say and recall, and are prone to misreporting,” the WHO said in a statement. “As a result, people often resort to calling variants by the places where they are detected, which is stigmatizing and discriminatory.”

“To avoid this and to simplify public communications, WHO encourages national authorities, media outlets and others to adopt these new labels,” the statement continued.

New names: The WHO identifies four “variants of concern,” including B.1.1.7, the variant first discovered in the United Kingdom, which will be called Alpha. The B.1.351 variant first found in South Africa was labeled as Beta, the P.1 variant first discovered in Brazil became Gamma and the B.1.617.2 variant first detected in India is now Delta.
================================================

Ecuador Launches 100 Day Vaccination Plan

Ecuador this week launched a plan to vaccinate 9 million people against the novel coronavirus in 100 days, part of recently installed President Guillermo Lasso’s plan to revive the economy by battling the pandemic.

Lasso recognized that the country needed to acquire further doses from overseas in order to reach that goal, and said the government was in talks with Russia over the purchase of some 18 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine.

“All of our logistical effort will be successful once we have vaccines,” Lasso said while presenting the plan. “It is urgent, and we depend on the provision of vaccines from abroad.”

Ecuador began its inoculation campaign in January, but former President Lenin Moreno’s administration advanced slowly due to logistical issues, allegations of nepotism in the allocation of shots, and frequent changes of top health officials.

Lasso, a conservative ex-banker who took office on May 24, said he had also asked the United Nations to speed up the delivery of vaccines under the COVAX initiative intended to supply shots to poor countries. The World Health Organization, part of the U.N. system, oversees the program.

The Health Ministry has said that Ecuador has received some 3.5 million doses so far of Pfizer Inc (PFE.N), Sinovac (SVA.O) and AstraZeneca Plc (AZN.L) vaccines.

The South American country’s rollout will use more than 300 spaces that had been equipped to serve as election centers in the recent April vote. The government will deploy mobile vaccination brigades to hard-to-reach rural areas, including the communities of the Amazon region.

Ecuador, with a population of 17.5 million, has reported some 427,690 coronavirus cases and more than 20,620 deaths between confirmed and likely cases.

==================================================

WORLD STATS

Coronavirus Cases:

171,944,492

Deaths:

3,576,062

Recovered:

154,455,111
Highlighted in green
= all cases have recovered from the infection
Highlighted in grey
= all cases have had an outcome (there are no active cases)

[back to top ↑]

Latest News

June 2 (GMT)

Updates

The post Virus Variants to Have Greek Alphabet Names, Ecuador Vaccinates, World Stats appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.

headline

Copa America: Brazil’s President Defends Hosting the Event

Brazil’s president has defended its hosting of the Copa America tournament despite the raging Covid pandemic there. Brazil took over the event from Argentina because of coronavirus in that nation.

There has been widespread criticism after the South American Football Association (Conmebol) announced on Monday that Brazil would be hosting the event, due to start next week.

A Supreme Court judge has ordered President Jair Bolsonaro to provide more information on the decision.

Brazil has been hit hard by the pandemic, with nearly 463,000 deaths.

Mr Bolsonaro said the decision was not up for discussion and that the tournament, which involves players across South America, did not pose a health risk.

He said on Tuesday that he had spoken with the health minister and they had agreed to host the event.

‘We have to live’

“As far as it is up to me, and all the ministers, including the health minister, it is all decided,” Mr Bolsonaro told his supporters in Brasilia.

“From the beginning I have said about the pandemic: I regret the deaths, but we have to live,” he added.

But the decision has been criticised by a number of lawmakers in the country. One senator, Otto Alencar appealed to star Brazilian footballer Neymar for assistance.

“Neymar, I want to tell you something: You shouldn’t agree with the holding of this America’s Cup in Brazil! Don’t agree to this. It is not this championship that we need to now compete in. We need to compete in the vaccination championship,” he said.

The Supreme Court has given Mr Bolsonaro five days to submit information on the government’s decision to host the tournament after the opposition Workers’ Party filed a suit objecting to the tournament.

Mr Bolsonaro has announced that four states including Rio de Janeiro will host the matches however fans will not be able to attend. At least six states said they would not be hosting matches due to the pandemic, AFP news agency reports.

The Copa America was originally set to be co-hosted by Argentina and Colombia in 2020 but the tournament was pushed back a year due to the pandemic.

Colombia was removed as hosts last month amid widespread protests against the government, with Argentina later stripped of the role too due to rising Covid-19 cases.

The post Copa America: Brazil’s President Defends Hosting the Event appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.

headline

Biden Ends Trump-Era ‘Remain in Mexico’ Immigration Program

By Olafimihan Oshin and Rafael Bernal –
The Hill- The Biden administration has formally terminated the “Remain in Mexico” program, the latest in a series of moves to dismantle the Trump administration’s restrictive immigration policies.

The program, known formally as the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), was a cornerstone of Trump’s border management policy; it forced potential asylum seekers to stay in Mexico to wait out the result of their case in U.S. immigration court.

In a memo ending the program Tuesday, Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said the MPP did not help with enhancing the border management.

The move was first reported by Reuters.

President Biden paused MPP shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, and has allowed into the country around 11,000 people who were in the program according to Reuters.

The formal end of MPP comes days after the Department of Homeland Security officially banned family separations for prosecutions of illegal border crossings, another Trump administration policy designed to slow the asylum process.

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, and Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán (D-Calif), chairwoman of the Homeland Security subcommittee on Border Security, Facilitation, and Operations, released a joint statement Tuesday applauding the announcement.

“This policy was a stain on our nation’s history and our longstanding tradition of protecting refugees and asylum seekers,” Thompson and Barragán wrote.

“Despite Republican efforts to misrepresent U.S. asylum law and smear those fleeing violence and seeking asylum, we must remember that it is completely legal to come to the U.S. border and seek asylum. While the process has been underway to dismantle MPP and bring asylum seekers in the country, more still needs to be done to help those hurt by the policy and we look forward to working with the Administration on those efforts. We must ensure we have a just and humane asylum processing system,” they added.

Biden has faced criticism over his immigration policies from both the right and left, from one end for discontinuing Trump’s restrictive approach and from the other for not moving quickly enough to dismantle it.

But the administration has sped up the pace of reform, drawing praise for moves like the end of MPP, family separations and providing safe haven to Haitian immigrants in the United States.

“This is a huge victory. The forced return policy was cruel, depraved, and illegal, and we are glad that it has finally been rescinded,” said Judy Rabinovitz, an attorney for the ACLU who led the organization’s legal challenge against MPP.

Still advocates for a return to broad application of asylum law say obstacles remain, including a measure known as Title 42, which allows U.S. border officials to quickly expel anyone crossing the border without authorization — including potential asylum seekers — under the guise of protecting from the spread of COVID-19.

“The administration must follow through on this announcement by ensuring that everyone who has been subjected to this policy can now pursue their asylum cases in the United States, in safety and without additional trauma or delay. And it must swiftly move to dismantle the Trump administration’s other attacks on the asylum system, including the unconscionable ‘Title 42’ order,” said Rabinovitz in a statement.

The post Biden Ends Trump-Era ‘Remain in Mexico’ Immigration Program appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.