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President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday ordered France into its third national lockdown and said schools would close for three weeks as he sought to push back a third wave of Covid-19 infections that threatens to overwhelm hospitals.
AP
With the death toll Macron was forced to abandon his goal of keeping the country open to protect the economy. “We will lose control if we do not move now,” the president said in a televised address to the nation.
China Dodges WHO’s Call For Further Probe Into Wuhan Lab Leak Theory
China on Wednesday called for expanding the search for the origins of the coronavirus in other countries, mainly America, as it sought to sidestep the WHO chief’s assertion that further probe is required on allegations that the deadly virus may have leaked from a bio-lab in Wuhan, saying he may have not been accurately quoted.
AFP
Releasing the much-awaited report of an experts team that probed the origin of Covid-19 after visiting the controversial Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, World Health Organisation chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reopened the Trump era allegation, saying that it required further probe.
Jailed Kremlin Critic Alexei Navalny Starts Hunger Strike Over Lack Of Medical Care
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny declared a hunger strike on Wednesday in an attempt to force the prison holding him outside Moscow to provide him with proper medical care for what he said was acute pain in his back and both legs.
AFP
The fate of Navalny, one of President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critics, is in focus after he said last week that being woken up by a guard every hour during the night amounted to torture and that his appeals for treatment for acute back and leg pain had been ignored.
Covid-19 Third Leading Cause Of US Deaths In 2020 After Heart Disease, Cancer
Covid-19 was the primary or contributing cause of 377,883 deaths in the United States last year, with a particularly high toll among the elderly, according to a government report released on Wednesday.
AFP
The Covid-19 mortality rate made it the third leading cause of death in the United States in 2020 after heart disease and cancer, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analysis found.
US Plant Ruins 15 Million Johnson & Johnson Coronavirus Vaccine Doses
About 15 million doses of the single-shot coronavirus vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson were ruined in a factory error in the United States, The New York Times reported — a blow to the company’s efforts to quickly boost production.
REUTERS
When contacted by AFP, the pharmaceutical giant said it had identified a batch of doses at a plant in Baltimore run by Emergent BioSolutions “that did not meet quality standards” but did not confirm the specific number affected.
Guru Granth Sahib Stanza Included In UN Official Video On Gender Equality
On the 4th Anniversary of the United Nations Faith for Rights declaration, the UN Office of the High commissioner on Human Rights has issued a short video on gender equality which contains a stanza from Guru Granth Sahib read by renowned scholar and human rights activist Dr Iqtidar Cheema.
BCCL
The video was launched at a United Nations conference on March 30, 2021. The conference heard from Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and various UN special rapporteurs and civil society organisations.
