London, United Kingdom | AFP | Jurgen Klopp believes there is still room for improvement from Liverpool despite their incredible Premier League campaign, which is on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Reds were 25 points clear of second-placed Manchester City and on the verge of their first top-flight title since 1990 when football …
Read More »Pandemic puts Africa’s traditional and Western medicine on collision course
Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | So you’ve tested positive for coronavirus and are desperate for a cure. No problem: just drink your own urine. This quack remedy from Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the myriad therapies being touted today in Africa as poor people hunt for a virus …
Read More »Fight climate change like coronavirus: UN
Geneva, Switzerland | AFP | The world should fight climate change with the same determination it is showing in the battle against the new coronavirus, the United Nations said on Wednesday. The UN’s World Meteorological Organization said it was time to flatten the curve on climate change as well, with its …
Read More »World Bank warns remittance payments to plunge amid pandemic
Washington, United States | AFP | Developing countries are losing a key source of revenue as the coronavirus pandemic causes worldwide shutdowns, sharply reducing payments from workers living abroad, the World Bank said Wednesday. Remittances are expected to plunge by about 20 percent globally this year, the biggest decline in recent …
Read More »Africa’s biggest airline fights for ‘survival’ amid pandemic: CEO
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia | AFP | In early March, Ethiopian Airlines CEO Tewolde Gebremariam told an aviation conference in Addis Ababa the coronavirus pandemic was “a temporary problem” — comparable to a natural disaster or a spike in oil prices. Several weeks later Africa’s largest carrier is locked in what Tewolde …
Read More »POLL: 60% say Uganda on right track on Covid-19
Johannesburg, South Africa | THE INDEPENDENT | AGeoPoll survey on Sub-Saharan Africa shows that there is concern that many nations on the continent are poorly prepared for a pandemic as easily transmissible as COVID-19. Many are frightened about coronavirus spreading in their countries, others about its economic impact, especially …
Read More »For one Ukrainian startup, coronavirus means business is booming
Kiev, Ukraine | AFP | The headquarters of Dmytro Voloshyn’s startup in the historic centre of Kiev is eerily quiet. But online, his business is busier than ever. Despite a crippling global economic crisis brought about by the coronavirus pandemic, Voloshyn believes a worldwide lockdown to slow infections was just what …
Read More »‘Suffering, gasping’: experts warn of oxygen shortages in poorer virus-threatened nations
Paris, France | AFP | As the coronavirus pandemic bears down on vulnerable nations in Africa and South Asia, experts say there are only weeks to help fill chronic shortages of what medics need to help people breathe. Not ventilators, but oxygen itself. Medical oxygen is a core component of the …
Read More »A decade after Deepwater, BP faces new existential challenges
London, United Kingdom | AFP | Ten years after an oil spill that BP’s new boss Bernard Looney admits tested the company “to the core”, the firm is facing two existential challenges: the collapse of prices and climate change. It was a decade ago this week that an explosion on the …
Read More »Coronavirus pandemic ‘amplifies press freedom threats’
Paris, France | AFP | The coronavirus pandemic is exacerbating threats to press freedom around the world, with authoritarian states including China and Iran suppressing details of the outbreak, activists said on Tuesday. Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in its annual press freedom rankings that the pandemic was “highlighting and …
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