Stories for February 2021

Saturday, February 20th 2021 - 08:42 UTC
Bolsonaro sacks Petrobras CEO over diesel prices dispute and truckers strike threat

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Friday sacked a market-friendly economist as CEO of Petrobras and named a retired general to replace him, following on disputes over diesel prices that threatened a major teamsters stoppage.
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Saturday, February 20th 2021 - 08:42 UTC
Impressive pictures from the Perseverance rover successful landing in Mars

Less than a day after NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover successfully landed on the surface of Mars, engineers and scientists at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California were hard at work, awaiting the next transmissions from Perseverance. As data gradually came in, relayed by several spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet, the Perseverance team were relieved to see the rover’s health reports, which showed everything appeared to be working as expected.
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Saturday, February 20th 2021 - 08:40 UTC
Some 45 pilot whales stranded on an Indonesian beach: three survive

Regional officials on the northeastern Indonesian island of Madura said on Friday at least 45 pilot whales that stranded themselves on a beach there have died, while rescuers managed to push three back out to sea.
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Saturday, February 20th 2021 - 08:39 UTC
Coronavirus will be beaten when everyone in the world has been immunized, Angela Merkel

The coronavirus pandemic can only be considered beaten once everyone in the world has been immunized against Covid-19, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel said, after she'd met with the G7 leaders at a virtual summit on Friday.
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Friday, February 19th 2021 - 10:30 UTC
Pfizer is testing its vaccine in 4,000 volunteer healthy pregnant women

Pfizer and BioNtech have started an international study with 4,000 volunteers to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of their COVID-19 vaccine in healthy pregnant women, the companies said on Thursday.
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Friday, February 19th 2021 - 10:19 UTC
Ascension Island vaccinated with AstraZeneca, first BOT to complete inoculation

A remote UK overseas territory in the South Atlantic could become the first whole island vaccinated against coronavirus, after the Royal Air Force flew 4,000 miles to deliver doses from RAF Brize Norton.
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Friday, February 19th 2021 - 10:14 UTC
Investigation into Colombian forces extrajudicial killings of 6,402 civilians; 1,500 military involved

Colombia’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) said on Thursday that there were at least 6,402 extrajudicial killings between 2002 and 2008. The figure is nearly three times the number the group received when it began investigations.
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Friday, February 19th 2021 - 08:58 UTC
Brazilian police investigating “shots of air” instead of Covid-19 vaccines

Rio de Janeiro's police launched an investigation into reports that doses of the coronavirus vaccine may have been diverted after images emerged of healthcare workers sticking needles into elderly people without injecting them.
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Friday, February 19th 2021 - 08:52 UTC
Brazil surpasses 10 million Covid-19 cases, John Hopkins University

Brazil surpassed 10 million confirmed coronavirus cases on Thursday, according to a running tally by US-based Johns Hopkins University. With 10,030,626 confirmed cases to date, the country has the third-highest number of infections after the US and India. Brazil recorded more than 49,000 new cases on Thursday.
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Friday, February 19th 2021 - 08:40 UTC
Former Colombian leaders confess war crimes and crimes against humanity

During the 50-year war with the state, the demobilized Colombian FARC guerrillas committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, former commanders from the group accepted on Thursday in a transitional justice court.
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