Before floodwater inundated half their living room one night during the storm season this year, the Trans put their most valuable possessions – their TV and refrigerator – in the attic and told their two daughters to take refuge there. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/31/vietnam-storms
Month: December 2020
Venezuela’s Supreme Court has ruled that a move by the opposition-controlled National Assembly to extend its term an additional year was invalid, paving the way for allies of President Nicolas Maduro to take over the body next month. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/31/venezuela-supreme-court-rules-parliaments-term-extension-invalid
The number of Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment benefits has unexpectedly fallen for a second straight week. But the United States’s jobless numbers remain elevated more than nine months into the health and economic crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, signalling a long recovery for the labour market. https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/12/31/us-weekly-jobless-claims-fall-for-second-straight-week
Police in Pakistan have arrested more than a dozen people in overnight raids a day after Shri Paramhans Ji Maharaj Samadhi, a Hindu temple, was set on fire and badly damaged by a mob in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakthunkhwa, officials said on Thursday. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/31/pakistan-arrests-14-people-over-demolishing-of-hindu-temple
China alerted the World Health Organization (WHO) to the first cases of COVID-19 a year ago. As the respiratory illness spread rapidly across the globe, Beijing’s handling of the disease – first detected in the central city of Wuhan – drew intense international scrutiny and opened a new front in the deteriorating ties between China […]
An Iranian prosecutor has said a British security firm and an airbase in Germany had a hand in the assassination of Qassem Soleimani almost one year after the top general was assassinated by the United States in Iraq. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/31/iran-implicates-uk-firm-us-base-in-germany-in-soleimanis-murder
Azerbaijan said Thursday it started gas deliveries to Europe from the Shah Deniz field in the Caspian Sea, part of a project aimed at reducing European dependence on Russian supplies. https://englishbeta.alarabiya.net/en/business/energy/2020/12/31/Azerbaijan-makes-first-direct-gas-deliveries-to-Europe-from-field-in-Caspian-Sea
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Thursday that intelligence from Iraq indicated outgoing US President Donald Trump aiming to fabricate a “pretext for war.” https://englishbeta.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2020/12/31/Iran-s-Zarif-Intelligence-from-Iraq-shows-Trump-aims-to-fabricate-pretext-for-war-
Sudan’s foreign minister said Thursday that the army has restored control over all lands along the border that had been taken over by Ethiopian farmers. https://englishbeta.alarabiya.net/en/News/africa/2020/12/31/Sudan-says-back-in-full-control-of-border-with-Ethiopia
Many developing countries carry crushing debt burdens, but are reluctant to pursue much-needed restructuring, for fear of losing access to capital markets. This fear is overblown, and its persistence is raising the risks for debtors and creditors alike. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/early-debt-restructuring-is-best-for-africa-by-moritz-kraemer-1-2020-12