Last week the World Health Organization hosted its annual summit known as the World Health Assembly to outline new policies and priorities, but a controversy involving Taiwan ended up also drawing renewed attention on how Beijing’s politics continue to influence the WHO.During the summit, which was hosted on the WHO official Facebook page, WHO moderators appeared to censor comments that contained words related to Taiwan or that implied the coronavirus originated in China. Several Taiwanese media reported that the WHO Facebook page blocked any Taiwan-related comments that included “Taiwan” or “Taiwan …

U.S. forecasters says Hurricane Iota has strengthened to a “catastrophic” Category 5 storm — the latest in the year such a storm has formed — and is likely to bring catastrophic winds, life-threatening storm surges and torrential rainfall to Central America, still trying to recover from Hurricane Eta. In its latest report, the National Hurricane Center says Iota is about 160 kilometers east-southeast of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, with maximum sustained winds of 260 kilometers per hour, making it the strongest storm of the 2020 season. It is moving to the west at …

The European Commission, the European Union’s administrative branch, announced  Monday a deal with to purchase 405 billion doses of a potential coronavirus vaccine from German bio-tech company CureVac. The announcement comes just days after EU officials announced a similar deal with German company BioNTech and U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer for an initial 300 million doses of the vaccine candidate they jointly produced, which, they say, has proven 90 percent effective against COVID-19 in late-stage testing. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters the deal with CureVac is, of course, conditional …

Meteorologists at the U.S. National Hurricane Center predicted late Friday Iota will “become a dangerous major hurricane soon.”   The forecasters said Iota is “expected to bring potentially catastrophic winds, life-threatening storm surge and extreme rainfall impacts to Central America.”  Iota is moving with maximum sustained winds of 165 kilometers per hour.  Hurricane warnings are in effect for portions of Colombia, Nicaragua and Honduras, covering much of the same area devastated by Hurricane Eta earlier this month. The NHC said a hurricane warning means that “preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion.”  …

Four astronauts were on their way to the International Space Station Sunday evening after a successful launch of SpaceX rocket Crew Dragon.“The Crew-1 mission has lifted off on a Falcon 9 rocket from @NASAKennedy at 7:27pm ET and is en route to the @Space_Station,” NASA tweeted immediately after liftoff.Resilience rises. 🚀The Crew-1 mission has lifted off on a Falcon 9 rocket from @NASAKennedy at 7:27pm ET and is en route to the @Space_Station. #LaunchAmericapic.twitter.com/5Q3uXSLvqt— NASA (@NASA) November 16, 2020The mission will be the first time NASA is launching a privately-owned …