Health & Science

• Wednesday, March 10th 2021 - 09:30 UTC

  UK/EU controversy over “vaccine nationalism” and exports bans

  

  European Council President Charles Michel on Tuesday rejected charges of “vaccine nationalism” leveled against the EU, saying that while Britain and the United States have outright bans on exports of COVID-19 shots, the EU had not stopped exporting.

• Wednesday, March 10th 2021 - 08:34 UTC

  Countries and airlines discuss “health passports” hoping to re launch travel

  

  From digital certificates to “health passports”, countries and airlines across the globe are hoping to re-launch travel by letting people prove their Covid-free status. But with patchy vaccine access around the world and mounting concerns over data privacy, questions are swirling about how the measures will work in practice.

• Wednesday, March 10th 2021 - 08:05 UTC

  Finland turned down Chinese Polar Institute offer to lease an Arctic airport

  

  The city of Kemijärvi in Finnish Lapland turned down an offer made in January 2018 by China’s state-funded Polar Research Institute to buy or lease the city’s airport, after it informed the Finnish Armed Forces. But the matter is only now being made public.

• Tuesday, March 9th 2021 - 09:31 UTC

  Fourth day of protests in Paraguay because of government's handling of the pandemic

  

  Groups of Paraguayans protested around the Congress on Monday, marking the fourth day of protests amid calls to impeach President Mario Abdo over the government's handling of the Covid-19 health crisis.

• Tuesday, March 9th 2021 - 09:25 UTC

  A third of world travel destinations remain closed to international tourism, UNWTO report

  

  Around a third of 217 world travel destinations’ borders surveyed remain completely closed to international tourists, as concerns grow over the impact of new coronavirus variants, and some governments reverse efforts to ease restrictions, a new report released on Monday by the UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) revealed.

• Tuesday, March 9th 2021 - 09:00 UTC

  Greek 37 day old baby dies from Covid-19

  

  Greece on Monday mourned a 37-day-old baby, the youngest among the country's nearly 6,800 COVID-19 victims. “Sadly today we had the pandemic's youngest victim in our country, an infant that spent 17 of its 37 days fighting the coronavirus,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis tweeted.

• Monday, March 8th 2021 - 08:55 UTC

  Brazilian state of Mato Grosso admits its hospital network has collapsed

  

  Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, the largest grain producer in the country, announced on Sunday that its hospital network has begun to collapse, as there is a lack of intensive care beds due to the increasing number of patients suffering from COVID-19.

• Monday, March 8th 2021 - 08:25 UTC

  EU medicines' regulator calls for refrain in approving Russia's Sputnik V vaccine

  

  A senior European Medicines Agency (EMA) official urged European Union members on Sunday to refrain from granting national approvals for Russian Covid-19 vaccine Sputnik V while the agency reviews its safety and effectiveness.

• Saturday, March 6th 2021 - 09:59 UTC

  Bolsonaro tells Brazilians stop whining about the pandemic and Sao Paulo governor calls him “crazy guy”

  

  President Jair Bolsonaro has told Brazilians to “stop whining” about Covid-19, as he criticized measures to curb the virus despite a surge in cases and deaths. His comments came a day after Brazil saw a record rise in deaths over a 24-hour period.

• Saturday, March 6th 2021 - 07:10 UTC

  Rossby Waves, and Wave-7

  

  Bt Gwynne Dyer – It used to blast straight east all the way around the planet, but even then it occasionally developed long S-shaped kinks called Rossby waves: Big loops extending far north and south of its usual track.