WORLD

Brussels, Belgium | XINHUA |  The European Commission granted conditional marketing authorization for the COVID-19 vaccine developed by British company AstraZeneca and Oxford University on Friday, although the bloc seems unlikely to get the amount of doses as agreed for the moment. “Securing safe vaccines for Europeans is our utmost …

  United Nations, USA | THE INDEPENDENT |    United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday called on member states to make vaccine solidarity a top priority. “Our first priority for 2021 is to respond to COVID-19. Vaccines are the first great moral test before us,” the UN chief told the …

Canberra, Australia | THE INDEPENDENT |    Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has called for social media giants to take responsibility for the content on their platforms. Under changes to the Online Safety Act proposed by the Australian government, Inman Grant would have the power to prevent cyber abuse, identify …

Geneva, Switzerland | Xinhua | The CEO of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, said on Tuesday that they hope to deliver 145 to 150 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the first quarter of 2021 and 500 million doses in the second quarter, and then 1.5 billion in the second half of …

New York, USA | THE INDEPENDENT |   Global COVID-19 cases surpassed 100 million on Tuesday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University. The global case count reached 100,032,461, with a total of 2,149,818 deaths worldwide, as of 2:22 p.m. local time (1922 GMT), …

United Nations, USA | THE INDEPENDENT |   United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday urged donor countries and banks to significantly increase the volume and predictability of their finance for climate change adaptation and resilience. “Donor countries and multilateral, regional and national development banks need to significantly increase the volume …

Lisbon, Portugal | THE INDEPENDENT |   Portuguese incumbent President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was re-elected in Sunday’s presidential election, partial results showed. With 98.87 percent of votes counted, Rebelo de Sousa won a landslide victory by garnering 61.3 percent of the votes, while former member of European Parliament (MEP) Ana …

  World Communications Day, established by Pope Paul VI in 1967, will be celebrated in many countries this year on Sunday, May 16 Vatican City, Italy | CNA  |  Pope Francis has issued a new warning about misinformation, weeks after he was the subject of a viral “fake news” story. …

COMMENT | Xinhua writer Lu Jiafei | At a critical juncture when the world is wrestling with a once-in-a-century global health crisis and the accompanying economic fallout, the importance of a stable and sound China-U.S. relationship cannot be overstated. When Joe Biden assumes the U.S. presidency later Wednesday, he will …

Jinan, China | XINHUA | Eleven miners were rescued on Sunday after being trapped underground for two weeks due to a blast in a gold mine in east China’s Shandong Province. Rescuers lifted two workers at around 3:18 p.m., bringing the number of rescued workers to 11. People on the …