News in Brief

Date: 30 August 2021 - 22:35

News ID: ۹۳۷۹۵

WELLINGTON (Reuters) -- New Zealand reported its first recorded death linked to U.S. drugmaker Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, the health ministry said on Monday, after a woman suffered a rare side effect leading to inflammation of her heart muscle. “This is the first case in New Zealand where a death in the days following vaccination has been linked to the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine,” the ministry said in a statement, without giving the woman’s age. The vaccine monitoring panel attributed the death to myocarditis, a rare, but known, side effect of the Pfizer vaccine, the ministry added. Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle that can limit the organ’s ability to pump blood and can cause changes in heartbeat rhythms. New Zealand has provisionally approved use of the Pfizer/BioNTech, Janssen and AstraZeneca vaccines, but only the Pfizer produced vaccine has been approved for rollout to the public.

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -- California’s Caldor fire moved closer to more heavily populated areas in the northern part of the state, leading to more evacuation orders and warnings as well as road closures, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said. The fire has been active for 14 days and has spread across 168,387 acres, the department added, saying it has caused evacuation orders in multiple counties. The department issued updated evacuation warnings for El Dorado County that include the remainder of the South Lake Tahoe Basin. The fire is 13% contained and has damaged 39 residential, commercial and other structures while destroying over 650 such structures so far. The fire has also led to 5 injuries to firefighters and civilians, according to the department’s website. California, which typically has experienced its peak fire season in late summer and fall, is already on pace to see more of its landscape go up in flames this year than last, the worst year on record.

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MOSCOW (Reuters) -- Around 500 Russian motorized infantry troops are carrying out drills in the mountains of Tajikistan against the backdrop of instability in neighboring Afghanistan, Russia’s defense ministry was quoted as saying on Monday. All servicemen involved in the exercise come from the Russian military base in Tajikistan, the Interfax news agency quoted the Central Military District command as saying. The current set of drills is the third one carried out by Russia close to the Afghan border this month. Next month, a Russia-led security bloc will hold another exercise in Kyrgyzstan which hosts a Russian military airbase.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- President Joe Biden will meet with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the White House on Wednesday in a show of solidarity between the two countries, the White House said on Sunday. The meeting is taking place two days later than originally scheduled, as Biden oversees the response to Hurricane Ida and the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan. “This visit will affirm the United States’ unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression,” a White House statement said. Kyiv and Moscow have been at odds since Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and backed separatists in a conflict in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region, which Ukraine says has killed 14,000 people. The meeting comes after the Biden administration announced a deal last month with Germany intended partly to allay Ukrainian concerns about the Nord Stream 2 pipeline being built under the Baltic Sea to carry gas from Russia’s Arctic region to Germany.

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TUNIS (Reuters) -- Algerian authorities arrested Tunisia’s media mogul and former presidential candidate Nabil Karoui, after he entered Algeria secretly and illegally, Tunisian media said. Karoui, the owner of the Nessma television channel and head of the Heart of Tunisia political party, the second largest in parliament, was arrested with his brother Ghazi Karoui, a lawmaker. After he spent more than six months in Tunisian custody on money laundering and tax evasion charges, Karoui was released on June 15. The court is still investigating his case. Karoui previously said he was innocent and that his political opponents were behind his imprisonment. Karoui has not appeared in public since President Kais Saied dismissed his prime minister, froze parliament and assumed executive authority last month, in a sudden intervention that his Islamist opponents have labeled a coup. Tunisia state TV and Radio MosaiqueFM said that Karoui secretly entered the Algerian city of Tebessa and would appear in Algerian court on Monday.

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WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A group of pro-democracy activists in Poland entered the grounds of the country’s constitutional court in an act of civil disobedience Monday, on the eve of an expected court ruling critical to the country’s future relationship with the rest of the European Union. Some stood outside with a huge banner that said “Civic Shutdown of the ex-Constitutional Tribunal.” As smoke bombs sent black plumes into the air, a smaller group made it to the court’s main entrance. They had brought boards and nails hoping to nail the door shut but did not manage to do that. Police dragged them away as others chanted “This is not a court!”