LONDON (Euro News) -England reported 94 deaths, including those of 21 children, from scarlet fever and invasive strep A infections so far this season the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said on Thursday. The British government last week said it was enacting protocols to ease shortages of penicillin medicines used to treat strep A infections, allowing pharmacists to prescribe alternatives where stocks are low. There have been 27,486 reported cases of scarlet fever from Sept. 12 to Dec. 18, according to the UKHSA. That compares with 3,287 reported cases at the same point in the year during the last comparably high season in 2017 to 2018, although cases in that season started to rise at a different time, the agency said.

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TUNIS (Reuters) - A second round of elections would cause chaos and should be postponed following record-low turnout in parliamentary voting last week, the powerful UGTT union said on Thursday, saying the resulting parliament would have no legitimacy. Only 11.2% of the country’s eligible voters participated in the election last week, sparking widespread criticism from the opposition, which said that President Kais Saied should step down and pledged mass protests. Although it backed Saied when he seized most powers last year by shutting the elected parliament, it has withdrawn its support after he moved to rule by decree and wrote a new constitution that was passed in a referendum in July.

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ISLAMABAD (AP) — A powerful car bomb detonated in a residential area in Pakistan’s capital on Friday, killing two suspected militants and an officer, police said, raising fears that militants have a presence in one of the country’s safest cities. At least three police officers and seven passersby were wounded in the bombing in Islamabad. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the explosion. Friday’s bombing happened 15 kilometers (about 9 miles) from the garrison city of Rawalpindi, home of the military and government spy agencies.

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PARIS (AFP) - A Greek MEP, Eva Kaili, was ordered Thursday to stay in detention in Belgium over corruption allegations linked to Qatar that have rocked the European Parliament, prosecutors said. Kaili, 44, was one of four suspects arrested earlier this month. She protested her innocence and asked the custody hearing to grant her release under electronic surveillance. But the court ruled against her, ordering that she stay in detention for another month, the Belgium prosecutor’s office said.

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BEIJING (AP) — China has sanctioned two U.S. citizens in retaliation for action taken by Washington over human rights abuses in Tibet, the government said Friday, amid a continuing standoff between the two sides. The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Todd Stein and Miles Yu Maochun, along with their close family members, would be banned from entering China. Any assets they had in China would be frozen and they would be barred from contact with people or organizations within China.