World

LONDON,  (Reuters) – Britain yesterday sanctioned the son of Equatorial Guinea’s president for misappropriating millions of dollars which London said was spent on luxury mansions, private jets and a $275,000 glove that Michael Jackson wore during the “Bad” tour.

BEIJING, (Reuters) – China today rejected a World Health Organization (WHO) plan for a second phase of an investigation into the origin of the coronavirus, which includes the hypothesis it could have escaped from a Chinese laboratory, a top health official said.

(Reuters) – A group of state attorneys general unveiled yesterday a landmark $26 billion settlement with large drug companies for allegedly fueling the deadly nationwide opioid epidemic, but the deal still requires support from thousands of local governments.

LONDON,  (Reuters) – Britain demanded yesterday that the European Union agree to rewrite a deal overseeing problematic post-Brexit trade involving Northern Ireland just a year after it was agreed with the bloc, a call immediately rejected by Brussels.

NEW YORK,  (Reuters) – As part of a nationwide response to the threat posed by the more contagious Delta coronavirus variant, New York City will require COVID-19 vaccinations or weekly tests for workers at city-run hospitals and clinics.

LIMA,  (Reuters) – Peruvian police said yesterday they had dismantled an alleged criminal ring that had charged as much $21,000 per bed for seriously ill COVID-19 patients in a state-run hospital, aggravating care in a country hit by one of the world’s deadliest outbreaks of the virus.

NAIROBI, (Reuters) – Tanzania’s main opposition party said today its leader had been arrested with ten other party figures, in what it called proof that President Samia Suluhu Hassan was persisting with the authoritarianism of her late predecessor John Magufuli.

LONDON, (Reuters) – The English city of Liverpool was removed from UNESCO’s list of world heritage sites today because new buildings undermined the attractiveness of its Victorian docks, making it only the third site to be removed from the prestigious list.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, (Reuters) – Haiti’s government yesterday formally appointed Ariel Henry as prime minister, nearly two weeks after President Jovenel Moise was gunned down in a murder plot that likely extends far beyond the Caribbean country’s borders.

VAN HORN, Texas,  (Reuters) – Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person, soared some 66.5 miles (107 km) above the Texas desert aboard his company Blue Origin’s New Shepard launch vehicle yesterday and returned safely to Earth, a historic suborbital flight that helps usher in a new era of space tourism.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – The United States has blocked former Honduran President Porfirio Lobo Sosa and his immediate family from any U.S.

BEIJING,  (Reuters) – Large swathes of China’s central Henan province were under water yesterday, with its capital Zhengzhou hardest-hit after being drenched by what weather forecasters said was the heaviest rain in 1,000 years.

 (Reuters) – Two-thirds of India’s population have antibodies against the coronavirus, according to data released on Tuesday from a survey of 29,000 people across the nation conducted in June and July.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – The United States and its allies accused China yesterday of a global cyberespionage campaign, mustering an unusually broad coalition of countries to publicly call out Beijing for hacking.

PORT-AU-PRINCE,  (Reuters) – Claude Joseph, who has nominally led Haiti as acting prime minister since the July 7 assassination of President Jovenel Moise, will hand power to a challenger backed by the international community possibly as soon as today, a Haitian official said.

LONDON,  (Reuters) – The British government sought to quash a bid by the Nicolas Maduro-backed Venezuelan central bank on Monday to repatriate nearly $1 billion of its gold stored in London, with an unequivocal statement that it backed opposition figure Juan Guaido instead.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland formalized a new policy yesterday that broadly prohibits prosecutors from subpoenaing reporters’ phone and email records, an abrupt shift after the Trump administration secretly seized records from several major news outlets in an effort to root out leaks.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy stood by federal guidance that those fully vaccinated against COVID-19 no longer needed to wear masks, while blaming social media companies for fueling vaccine misinformation.

PARIS,  (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron said today France and South Pacific nations would launch a South Pacific coastguard network to counter “predatory” behaviour, which an adviser said was aimed at illegal fishing, as China expands its maritime reach.

MOSCOW/DUBAI/LONDON,  (Reuters) – OPEC+ ministers agreed yesterday to boost oil supply from August to cool prices which have climbed to 2-1/2 year highs as the global economy recovers from the coronavirus pandemic.