The European Union has confirmed its plans to issue ‘digital green certificates’ to vaccinated members of its 450 million population, allowing them to travel freely across the bloc this summer, the UK’s Daily Mail reports. The new ‘passport’ would be issued to those who have been recently tested or who have recovered from the virus as well.
Demonstrators took to the streets in several European cities on Saturday to protest Covid-19 lockdown restrictions, with clashes between demonstrators and police erupting in the German city of Kassel while in London, police arrested dozens of people for breaching pandemic restrictions. Protests also erupted in Austria, Belgium, Britain, Croatia, Finland, Poland, Romania, Sweden and Switzerland as European authorities confront a third coronavirus wave.
Italy and Germany on Monday joined Ireland and Holland as the latest European Union member states to suspend the use of the British-Swedish AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, Reuters reports. The decisions follow Norwegian reports of blood clots and brain hemorrhages among people who had taken the shot; Denmark, Norway, and Bulgaria have also suspended use of the vaccine.
The US State Department announced Wednesday it has designated two Islamic State (ISIS) affiliates in DR Congo and Mozambique as foreign terrorist organizations: it has frozen all US property and assets in their names, and has prohibited Americans from conducting business with them or providing material support to them, UPI reports.
Enraged by her new faith in Christ, the tribal animist relatives of a mother of four in central India have banished her from their village and barred her from harvesting the crop she needs to feed her family, Morning Star News reports.
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry said Sunday they married in secret three days before their highly publicized royal wedding, as they felt “trapped” in the royal family.
The UK will discuss with the EU the bloc’s proposals to create a vaccine passport that could allow people to travel more freely in time for the summer holidays.
Britain, France and Germany on Tuesday said they “deeply regret” Iran’s decision to restrict site inspections by the UN’s nuclear watchdog after a US refusal to lift existing sanctions.
Two Christian congregations in central India were attacked on the same day by around 100 radical Hindu nationalists who stormed each of their worship gatherings on February 7, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports. While there are no reports of the attackers being arrested, the pastor of one of the churches attacked was arrested and detained before being released on bail.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayotallah Ali Khamenei claimed Monday that his country has no interest in a nuclear weapon, but said that if it wanted one, no one — including Israel — could prevent it.
Cooling water levels have fallen in two reactors at the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant since a powerful earthquake hit the area last weekend, indicating possible additional damage, its operator said Friday.
The U.N. nuclear watchdog found uranium particles at two Iranian sites it inspected after months of stonewalling, diplomats say, and it is preparing to rebuke Tehran for failing to explain, possibly complicating U.S. efforts to revive nuclear diplomacy.
A pastor who was abducted by Malaysia state police on February 13, 2017, has not been seen or heard of since, Open Doors UK reports. The fourth anniversary of the abduction of Pastor Raymond Koh has just passed and his family still has no answers as to why he was kidnapped or what has happened to him.
Over 500 British churches have joined a UK-wide initiative to welcome Hong Kong residents escaping China’s increasingly oppressive policies in the city, the Christian Post reports.
A magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck Saturday off the coast of Japan’s Fukushima prefecture, which was home to one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters almost a decade ago.
Top Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated in November by a Mossad team using a one-ton automated weapon that had been smuggled into Iran in pieces, according to a Wednesday report in London’s Jewish Chronicle.
The Nigerian government executed six Christian soldiers on trumped-up charges in Abuja last month, a civil rights lawyer has told the Christian Post. According to Emeka Umeagbalasi, Chair of the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, the soldiers were framed for a crime committed by one of their superiors.
South Africa is suspending its rollout of the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine after findings suggested it offers limited protection against mild disease caused by the COVID-19 variant discovered there.
Amid mounting international pressure over its perceived crackdown on dissent, Russia has expelled three diplomats from Germany, Sweden, and Poland, prompting an angry response from the European Union. Moscow says the diplomats joined unauthorized protests supporting opposition activist Alexei Navalny, who was jailed earlier this week.
The International Criminal Court in The Hague has convicted a former commander in the notorious Ugandan rebel group Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) of dozens of war crimes and crimes against humanity ranging from multiple murders to forced marriages. Dominic Ongwen faces a maximum punishment of life imprisonment.