Mystery illness suffered by US diplomats in Cuba was most likely caused by directed microwave radiation, a US government report has found. The report by the National Academies of Sciences does not attribute blame for the directed energy waves. But it said research into the effects of pulsed radio frequency energy was carried out by the Soviet Union more than 50 years ago.
Tensions between the United States and Iran remain high, and the future of the relationship between the two countries is unclear amid the presidential transition, but things are looking calm at sea for the moment, The Associated Press reports. Vice Adm. Sam Paparo, the top U.S. Navy official in the Middle East who oversees the 5th fleet in Bahrain, said Sunday that the U.S. has "achieved an uneasy deterrence" with Iran in the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, and the Arabian Sea, where both navies operate. "That uneasy deterrence is exacerbated by world events and by events along the way," he said at the annual Manama Dialogue hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Former Hong Kong lawmaker Ted Hui said on Sunday his local bank accounts appeared to have been frozen after fled to Britain with his family to continue his pro-democracy activities. Hui told Reuters via social media WhatsApp that bank accounts belonging to him, his wife and his parents at Bank of China Hong Kong, HSBC and Hang Seng Bank were frozen. Democracy activists say conditions have worsened in the former British colony after China imposed security legislation on the financial hub in June, making anything Beijing regards as subversion, secession, terrorism or colluding with foreign forces punishable by up to life in prison.
Mexico's President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has tossed another hot potato to U.S. President-elect Joe Biden with a proposal that would restrict U.S. agents in Mexico and remove their diplomatic immunity. The proposal submitted quietly this week by López Obrador would require Drug Enforcement Administration agents to hand over all information they collect to the Mexican government, and require any Mexican officials they contact to submit a full report to Mexico's Foreign Relations Department. The proposal is that foreign agents will not have any immunity,” according to a summary of the president's proposal to the Mexican Senate published Friday.
A capsule containing the first significant quantities of rock from an asteroid is in "perfect" shape, according to scientists. The container with material from a space rock called Ryugu parachuted down near Woomera in South Australia on Saturday evening (GMT). A recovery team in Australia found the spacecraft lying on the sandy ground, with its parachute draped over a tree.
As the president's attorney, Mr Giuliani has spearheaded Mr Trump's legal battle to overturn the result of the presidential election, appearing in federal court for the first time in 28 years last month to advance his case. Announcing the diagnosis, the US president paid tribute to Mr Giuliani who has hurtled around the country advancing Mr Trump's allegation that the election was rigged. "By far the greatest mayor in the history of NYC, and who has been working tirelessly exposing the most corrupt election (by far!
President Trump fruitlessly pressured Georgia's governor on Saturday to call a special legislative session aimed at overturning the presidential election results in that state.
Shipment of COVID-19 vaccines in Canada could start within 24 hours after Canadian health authorities approve the shots, a top official of pharmaceutical company BioNTech told CBC on Sunday, comparing it with the timeline achieved in Britain. A vaccine jointly developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech is expected to be the first to secure approval in Canada, though the country has signed supply deals with seven manufacturers. Since Britain approved Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine last week, taking pole position in the global race to begin the most crucial mass inoculation programme in history, the focus has shifted to how quickly other countries could move and when the shots would be available to the public.
A Chinese court has ordered a Dutch art collector to hand over a Buddha statue in the latest twist in a 3-year-old legal battle with villagers who say it was stolen from a temple. Residents of Yangchun, a village in the southeastern province of Fujian, say the statue is a 1,000-year-old relic that holds the mummified remains of a monk and disappeared in 1995. The collector says he bought the object in Hong Kong in 1996 but denied it was the stolen statue.
The Airbus A330-800neo entered service with Kuwait Airways in November after being delivered in October as Airbus' newest passenger jet. It's the smaller variant of the A330neo family but still boasts an impressive range of 8,150 nautical miles and greater efficiency thanks to new Rolls-Royce engines. With only three airlines publicly placing orders for the aircraft, however, it's likely to be a flop.
President Donald Trump has ordered the removal of most US military and security personnel from Somalia, where they have been conducting operations against the Al Shabaab militant group, the Pentagon said Friday. After ordering major troop reductions in Iraq and Afghanistan recently, Trump's new move reflects his drive to disengage US forces from what he calls "endless wars" abroad, making good on a campaign pledge in the final weeks of his presidency. Trump "has ordered the Department of Defense and the United States Africa Command to reposition the majority of personnel and assets out of Somalia by early 2021," the Pentagon said in a statement.
Japan's government is considering the resumption of inbound tourism on a limited basis from the spring as Tokyo prepares to host a delayed summer Olympics, the Asahi newspaper reported on Sunday. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's administration is leaning toward allowing small tour groups from Asian countries where coronavirus infections are well under control, such as China and Taiwan, the Asahi reported without citing sources. Japanese government officials did not return calls from Reuters seeking comment.
Kuwaitis elected a new parliament in an election that saw two-thirds of lawmakers and the country's only female legislator lose their seats, election results released Sunday showed. The direction that the new 50-seat National Assembly will take remains unclear as 21 of them will become first-time legislators when they are sworn in Dec. 15. Saturday's election for Kuwait's parliament, the freest and most-rambunctious assembly in the Gulf Arab countries, saw an over-60% turnout of the country's more than 560,000 registered voters.
Some climate scientists are coming to believe it's humanity's only hope for slowing or stopping disastrous changes in the climate. As runaway carbon dioxide emissions contribute to melting ice caps, widespread flooding, prolonged heat waves and droughts, apocalyptic wildfires, and devastating hurricanes, researchers are exploring planetary-scale interventions in Earth's natural systems as a way of counteracting climate change. Geoengineering has been debated since the 1960s, when U.S. scientists suggested floating billions of white, golf ball–like objects in the oceans to reflect sunlight.
A surfer has managed to escape a shark attack on the coast of South Australia. The 29-year-old man is understood to have been bitten by a great white shark in Kangaroo Island waters on Sunday afternoon (local time). "The man managed to paddle back to shore and sought help from a member of the public who drove him toward Kingscote," South Australia Police said.
Apple and Google co-created “exposure notification" technology to alert phone users if they spent time near someone who tests positive for the coronavirus, so they know to get tested, too. The technology relies on Bluetooth short-range radio signals to detect when two phones are in close proximity for long enough for someone to likely transmit the virus. When one person tests positive for the virus, and state health workers verify the diagnosis, others who recently spent time near the infected person get an automatic alert.
"War makes for bitter men. Heartless and savage men," Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said when he received the Nobel Peace Prize less than a year ago - only for him to now wage a military operation in his own country. Over about a three-week period, his troops fought their way through Tigray, right up in the north of Ethiopia, to oust the region's ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), accusing it of attacking a federal military base.
Bart Spencer, the senior pastor at the Lighthouse Baptist Church in Michigan, encouraged churchgoers in a November sermon to contract the virus and "get it over with." More than 10,300 people have died from the coronavirus in Michigan, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University. Since his November sermon, Spencer has continued to encourage people to show up to his in-person sermons without a mask, despite receiving backlash for his November comments and despite recommendations from health officials to practice safety measures.
Thousands of demonstrators marched in the Belarus capital Minsk and elsewhere on Sunday as weekly protests demanding the resignation of veteran President Alexander Lukashenko continued, prompting police to detain more than 300 people. Belarus, a country of 9.5 million that Russia sees as a security buffer against NATO, has been rocked by mass protests since an Aug. 9 presidential election which Lukashenko said he won. His opponents claim the vote was rigged and want him to quit.
SpaceX launched a newer, bigger version of its Dragon supply ship to the International Space Station on Sunday, marking the first time the company has two capsules in orbit at the same time. The Dragon — packed with Christmas treats and presents — should reach the space station on Monday, joining the Dragon that delivered four astronauts last month. “Dragons everywhere you look,” said Kenny Todd, NASA's deputy space station program manager.
South Korea will impose heightened social distancing rules for the capital and surrounding areas, health officials said on Sunday (December 6) amid the country's largest wave of coronavirus infections in nine months. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency reported 631 new cases as of midnight on Saturday (December 5), the largest daily tally since a peak in February and March. Despite seeing initial success through steps including aggressive contact, nearly a month of triple-digit daily infections has brought South Korea's total to more than 37,500 with 545 deaths.
An influential Saudi prince launched a bitter attack on Israel at a regional conference, drawing retorts from the Jewish state's foreign minister who addressed the gathering virtually. The row erupted months after the UAE and Bahrain broke decades of Arab consensus by normalising ties with Israel, a move condemned as a "stab in the back" by Palestinians. Prince Turki al-Faisal, a Saudi former intelligence chief who is said to be close to the country's top leadership, reiterated strong support for the Palestinian cause in a fiery presentation to the Manama Dialogue security forum.
President Donald Trump will reportedly fall far shorter than the “several hundred million” doses of Covid-19 vaccines he suggested would be made available to the American public before the New Year from the White House. In a seemingly premature celebratory event in the Rose Garden in May, the administration touted its Operation Warp Speed, created in response to the pandemic as part of an effort to ramp up vaccine production and build a pathway to immediate nationwide distribution. In that event, the leader of the initiative, pharmaceutical executive Moncef Slaoui, spoke alongside the president and said he had “very recently seen early data from a clinical trial with a coronavirus vaccine, and these data made me feel even more confident that we will be able to deliver a few hundred million doses of vaccine by the end of 2020.”
Thousands of supporters of incoming Moldovan president Maia Sandu rallied in Chisinau on Sunday to demand a snap parliamentary election, accusing parliament of trying to sabotage her ability to fight corruption. Sandu, a former World Bank economist who favours closer ties with the European Union, defeated the pro-Moscow incumbent Igor Dodon in a run-off vote last month but will share power with a parliament and government run by lawmakers aligned with Dodon. The eastern European country of 3.5 million, where the West and Russia vie for influence, has been rocked in recent years by instability and corruption scandals, including the disappearance of $1 billion from the banking system.
Pope Francis says the Christmas season provides reason for hope amid the difficulties of the coronavirus pandemic. During his Sunday blessing, Francis noted that the Vatican's Christmas tree had gone up last week in St. Peter's Square, and that work is underway to build the life-size Nativity scene next to it. Pointing to the tree from his studio window over the square, Francis said such symbols of Christmas “are signs of hope, especially in this difficult period."
“This metastasizing debt crisis has had tremendous social costs. An entire generation has been set back.”
“It is not the government’s job to step in and rescue those who took on more debt than their future incomes would support.”
“Many student-borrowers need relief, but well-off borrowers who are thriving — thanks to their college degrees — do not.”
“It will stimulate the lagging economy. And though not everyone will directly benefit, the country as a whole will improve.”
“Canceling student debt would cost billions of dollars each year and would exacerbate, not lessen, economic inequalities.”