Daily Archives: January 11, 2021

Thousands of Child Marriages in Canada Spark Concern Over Global Leadership

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Thousands of girls in Canada have been married before turning 18, researchers said Monday, warning that a rise in unofficial child marriages could make the practice harder to prevent and call into question the country’s global leadership.More than 3,600 marriage certificates were issued to girls younger than 18 in Canada between 2000 and 2018, found a study from McGill University in Montreal.Yet that number is just the tip of the iceberg, as more and more child marriages in recent years have been common-law unions, informal arrangements that provide fewer rights, …

In Japan, Worshippers Take Frosty Plunge Against COVID-19

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In Japan, an annual Shinto ritual of soul purification this year included prayers for an end to the COVID-19 pandemic. Social distancing guidelines forced a much smaller gathering than in previous years, but as VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports, believers still turned out – and stripped down – for the annual observance.Produced by: Arash Arabasadi    …

Pfizer-BioNTech to Boost Supply of Vaccine Doses by 50%

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U.S. Pharmaceutical company Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech announced Monday plans to boost production of its COVID-19 vaccine by 50% percent — 2 million doses — this year to meet the global demand.     BioNTech announced the increased supply as part of a presentation at a health care conference. The company said a new production site in Marburg, Germany, expected to become operational by the end of next month, will be able to make as many as 750 million doses per year. That means a total of six …

India Aims to Inoculate 300 Million by July

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India will roll out an ambitious nationwide vaccination drive against COVID-19 on Saturday, aiming to inoculate 300 million people, or nearly one quarter of the population, by July.   Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Monday that with the upcoming immunization drive, which would be the world’s largest such program, the country is entering into a “decisive phase” in the fight against the pandemic.   In the first phase, 30 million health care and frontline workers such as police personnel will be vaccinated. The vaccines will then be administered to about …

Facebook Shuts Down Ugandan Government-Linked Accounts Ahead of General Election 

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Facebook has taken down several accounts linked to the government of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, saying they were being used to manipulate public opinion ahead of this week’s presidential election.   The U.S.-based social media giant said Monday it linked the network of accounts to the Uganda’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology.      Facebook said the ministry “used fake and duplicate accounts to manage pages, comment on other people’s content, impersonate users, re-share posts in groups to make them appear more popular than they were.”   The Associated …

Harris Team Says It Was Blindsided by VP-Elect’s Vogue Cover

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Vice President-elect Kamala Harris has landed on the cover of the February issue of Vogue magazine, but her team says there’s a problem: the shot of the country’s soon-to-be No. 2 leader isn’t what both sides had agreed upon.     Instead of the powder blue power suit Harris wore for her cover shoot, the first African American woman elected vice president is instead seen in more casual attire and wearing Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers, which she sometimes wore on the campaign trail.  Vice President-elect @KamalaHarris is our February cover …

Parler Social Network Service Loses Web Hosting

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Parler, a social network service popular with conservatives, went offline Monday after its web hosting service Amazon suspended it for allowing posts that encourage violence.   Before the site went down, Parler CEO John Matze accused Amazon and other tech giants of a “war on free speech.”   Google banned Parler’s smartphone app from its app store on Friday, also citing Parler’s allowance of posts that seek to incite violence in the United States.   Apple instituted its own Parler ban on Saturday.   The two-year-old Parler saw an increase …

 WHO Team to Investigate Coronavirus Origins in China

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The World Health Organization is sending a team of international experts to China this week to investigate the origins of the coronavirus.It was not immediately clear, however, if the experts, scheduled to arrive Thursday, will be allowed to travel to the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus originally emerged in late 2019.“It’s very important that as the WHO is in the lead in fighting the pandemic, that it also has a leading role in trying to look back at the roots of this pandemic so we can be …