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New Zealand on Monday reported what authorities said was the country’s first recorded death linked to the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine. The information was released by the health ministry following a review by an independent Covid-19 vaccine safety monitoring board of the death of a woman after receiving the vaccine. The board considered that the woman’s death was due to myocarditis, which is known to be a rare side effect of the Pfizer vaccine.
Hurricane Ida blasted ashore Sunday as one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the U.S., knocking out power to all of New Orleans, blowing roofs off buildings and reversing the flow of the Mississippi River as it rushed from the Louisiana coast into one of the nation’s most important industrial corridors. Ida hit on the same date Hurricane Katrina ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi 16 years earlier,
North Korea appears to have restarted a nuclear reactor that is widely believed to have produced plutonium for nuclear weapons, the UN atomic watchdog has said in an annual report. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has had no access to North Korea since Pyongyang expelled its inspectors in 2009. The country then pressed ahead with its nuclear weapons program and soon resumed nuclear testing. Its last nuclear test was in 2017.
A drone has destroyed a vehicle which was carrying “a substantial amount of explosive material” and heading to Kabul airport, US officials have confirmed. A military official said the strike on Sunday caused “significant secondary explosions”. This is the second airstrike the US has conducted against the militant group, which said it carried out Thursday’s suicide bombing that killed 13 of its service members and scores of Afghans.
Vietnam has added to concerns over global supplies of coffee as the South East Asian country’s biggest city remains in lockdown. The exporting hub of Ho Chi Minh has been kept under tough travel restrictions after a surge in cases of the Delta variant of the coronavirus. Vietnam is a major producer of robusta, the bitter tasting bean used in instant coffee and some espresso blends.
A major review of vaccines suggests the AstraZeneca jab does raise the risk of blood clots and another serious condition that can cause bleeding. But the study found the risk of such problems following a coronavirus infection was still much higher. The University of Oxford-led team also found an increased risk of stroke after the Pfizer jab – but again at a much lower rate than after infection.
Thirteen U.S. service members were killed and more than a dozen others injured in an attack outside the airport in the capital of Afghanistan on Thursday, opening a deadly new chapter in the massive U.S. effort to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies ahead of President Biden’s August 31 deadline to withdraw. The attacks marked one of the single deadliest days for U.S. forces in Afghanistan in the 20 years since the allied invasion.
China is putting companies that overwork their employees on notice. The country’s top court on Thursday issued a lengthy condemnation of what’s commonly known in China as “996,” the practice of working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week that is said to be common among the country’s big technology companies, startups and other private businesses.
Nigerian gunmen have freed the remaining pupils from more than 100 kidnapped from an Islamic seminary in northwestern Niger State nearly three months ago. Heavily armed criminals snatched 136 pupils from the seminary in Tegina on May 30 in one of a series of mass abductions targeting schools and colleges in Nigeria since December. Six of the pupils died in captivity and a further 15 escaped in June, according to school officials.
Two Thai police officers suspected of being involved in torturing to death a man charged with drug offenses gave themselves up for questioning on Thursday after a video of the incident went viral. The video, posted by lawyer Sittra Biabungkerd on his Facebook page, showed what appeared to be a man being suffocated by a plastic bag placed over his head while he was pinned down by four men.