Новости за 14.01.2023

At least 15 people were killed and more than 50 injured in three bombings Saturday in the central Hirshabelle state of Somalia, according to officials. In Bulobarde town, some 220 kilometers north of Mogadishu, a suicide car bomb has killed at least 11 people, witnesses and medical officials said. A suicide bomber driving an SUV vehicle laden with explosives came under fire from security forces before reaching his goal, but detonated explosives near a police station and the base of the African Union peacekeepers from Djibouti... Читать дальше...

A new report finds nearly a billion people in the world’s poorer countries are treated for often life-threatening conditions in health care facilities that lack a reliable electricity supply.  A joint report by the World Health Organization, the World Bank, and the International Renewable Energy Agency, “Energizing Health: Accelerating Electricity Access in Health-Care Facilities,” has just been issued.  Health officials say electricity access in health care facilities can make the difference between life and death. Читать дальше...

Authorities in Somalia say they have seized a weapons cache allegedly buried by al-Shabab militants at a house in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, during a joint operation.     A statement from the country’s National Intelligence and Security Agency, or NISA, said Saturday that a “joint elite team from Somalia's Intelligence Agency and Mogadishu regional police carried out an operation in the capital, Mogadishu, on Friday that led to the seizure of weapons allegedly buried by al-Shabab militants.”... Читать дальше...

The U.N.'s children’s agency, UNICEF, has handed over lifesaving supplies worth about $300,000 to support Malawi’s fight against a cholera outbreak which has killed more than 700 people - including 104 children - since the outbreak began in March of last year. The supplies include Acute Watery Diarrhea (AWD) kits, high-performance tents, antibiotics and other medicines and medical supplies. The donation follows Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera’s December 5 declaration of a public health emergency... Читать дальше...

Opposition parties and others angry at Tunisia's economic crisis and the president's increasingly authoritarian drift are planning to march through the capital on Saturday to mark 12 years since Tunisian protesters unleashed Arab Spring uprisings around the region. The protest move comes after disastrous parliamentary elections last month in which just 11% of voters cast ballots. The elections are meant to replace and reshape a legislature that President Kais Saied dissolved in 2021. The second round has been set for Jan. Читать дальше...

An upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case that asks whether tech firms can be held liable for damages related to algorithmically generated content recommendations has the ability to “upend the internet,” according to a brief filed by Google this week. The case, Gonzalez v. Google LLC, is a long-awaited opportunity for the high court to weigh in on interpretations of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. A provision of federal law that has come under fire from across the political spectrum... Читать дальше...

The U.S. Department of the Interior will reform its regulations for the development of wind energy facilities on the country's outer continental shelf to help meet crucial climate goals, it said in a statement on Thursday. The proposed rule changes would save developers a projected $1 billion over a 20-year period by streamlining burdensome processes, clarifying ambiguous provisions, and lowering compliance costs, , the statement said. "Updating these regulations will facilitate the safe and... Читать дальше...

Iran has executed a British Iranian national. Ali Reza Akbari was a former Iranian deputy defense minister and had been charged with spying for Britain. Iran’s Mizan news agency announced Akbari’s death Saturday, but it was not immediately clear when the execution took place. He was arrested in 2019. The U.K. and the U.S. had urged Iran not to carry out the death penalty. “The charges against Ali Reza Akbari and his sentencing to execution were politically motivated. His execution would be... Читать дальше...

As China grapples with a massive surge of coronavirus infections, a new study by a Chinese university estimates the virus has infected some 900 million people in the country to date. China has stopped publishing daily COVID statistics following the end of its zero-COVID policy. The government claims the total number of dead since the beginning of the pandemic is around 5,200, but many health experts consider that a vast undercount. The Peking University study says roughly 64% of all people in China are estimated to have been infected... Читать дальше...

The U.S. Justice Department announced on Friday a new rule targeting pistol attachments known as "stabilizing braces," implementing a key move in the Biden administration's efforts to beef up gun control regulations. A stabilizing brace is an attachment to a pistol that functionally turns it into a short-barreled rifle, similar to a sawed-off shotgun. Such weapons are considered particularly deadly as they offer the power of a traditional rifle but are much easier to conceal. For decades, short-barreled... Читать дальше...

The Biden administration is sending its first representative to Africa since promising in December that several high-level officials would visit in 2023. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's three-stop visit is aimed at strengthening economic ties with the continent. VOA's Mariama Diallo reports.

Thousands of opponents of leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stormed the seats of power in Brazil's capital Sunday, fired up by anti-communist rhetoric and misinformation about election fraud. Here's what we know. Rioters arrested In all, the Federal Police detained 1,843 people after the riots. Most of them were taken from an encampment outside the army headquarters in the capital, where they had been protesting for two months, clamoring for the military to prevent Lula's inauguration, which went ahead Jan. Читать дальше...

After the safe return of two Mexican journalists kidnapped in a stronghold of a drug cartel, concerns focus on their colleague who is still missing. An operation involving the military and National Guard led to the release of Jesus Pintor Alegre and Fernando Moreno Villegas this week, the Guerrero state prosecutor's office said. The status of their colleague Alan Garcia Aguilar is unclear. All three disappeared more than two weeks ago in southern Guerrero state, one of Mexico's most violent regions. Читать дальше...

US President Joe Biden commends Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for boosting Japan’s military spending and changing its defense posture, citing threats from China, North Korea and Russia as reasons the allies ramped up their collective security. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara reports.

The Brazilian prosecutor-general's office on Friday asked the Supreme Court to include former President Jair Bolsonaro in its investigation into who incited the January 8 riot in the nation's capital. As the basis for their request, prosecutors in the recently formed group to combat anti-democratic acts cited a video Bolsonaro posted on Facebook two days after the riot, according to a statement. The video claimed President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva wasn't voted into office, but rather was chosen... Читать дальше...

England will ban a range of single-use plastic items such as cutlery, plates and bowls starting in October to limit soaring plastic pollution, Britain's environment department said Saturday.  The decision follows a public consultation by the government in which 95% of respondents were in favor of the bans, the department said in a statement.  "We all know the absolutely devastating impacts that plastic can have on our environment and wildlife," Environment Secretary Therese Coffey said. "These... Читать дальше...

A Swiss company says it has certifiably extracted CO2 from the air and permanently stored it in the ground — for the first time on behalf of paying customers, including Microsoft. Climeworks, a startup created in 2009 by two Swiss engineers, said its facility in Iceland had successfully removed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and injected it into the ground, where it would very gradually be transformed into rock. The potential for scaling up remains to be proved. In its announcement on Thursday... Читать дальше...

At least one administrator at the Virginia school where a 6-year-old boy shot a teacher last week was aware the boy might have had a gun, but no weapon was found when the boy's backpack was searched before the shooting, school officials said Friday.  Superintendent George Parker told parents at Richneck Elementary School during a virtual meeting Thursday that a school administrator learned the boy might have had a gun, according to Michelle Price, a spokesperson for Newport News Public Schools. Читать дальше...

It was an anomaly detected in the storm of a nuclear reactor so puzzling that physicists hoped it would shine a light on dark matter, one of the universe's greatest mysteries.  However, new research has definitively ruled out that this strange measurement signaled the existence of a "sterile neutrino," a hypothetical particle that has long eluded scientists.   Neutrinos are sometimes called "ghost particles" because they barely interact with other matter — around 100 trillion are estimated to pass through our bodies every second. Читать дальше...