News in Brief

Date: 21 December 2021 - 21:40

News ID: ۹۸۰۱۶

NEW YORK (AP) — Omicron has raced ahead of other variants and is now the dominant version of the coronavirus in the U.S., accounting for 73% of new infections last week, federal health officials said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention numbers showed nearly a six-fold increase in omicron’s share of infections in only one week. In much of the country, it’s even higher. Omicron is responsible for an estimated 90% or more of new infections in the New York area, the Southeast, the industrial Midwest and the Pacific Northwest. The national rate suggests that more than 650,000 omicron infections occurred in the U.S. last week. Since the end of June, the delta variant had been the main version causing U.S. infections. As recently as the end of November, more than 99.5% of coronaviruses were delta, according to CDC data.

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MOSCOW (Reuters) -- A submerged Russian submarine has successfully launched a Kalibr cruise missile from the Sea of Japan at a target more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) away, located at a Russian training ground onshore, the RIA news agency said on Tuesday. The drill also involved covert movement and support from military ships, aircraft and drones, it quoted Russia’s Pacific Navy as saying. Japan lays claim to the Russian-held southern Kuril islands in the nearby Sea of Okhotsk, which Tokyo refers to as the Northern Territories in a territorial row dating from the end of World War Two, when Soviet troops seized them from Japan. The dispute has prevented the two countries from signing a formal peace treaty.

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KYIV (Reuters) -- Ukrainian authorities placed former president Petro Poroshenko under formal investigation for high treason on Tuesday, accusing him of links to financing separatist forces in the eastern Donbass region. Officials said the accusations against Poroshenko were related to similar charges against pro-Russian lawmaker Viktor Medvedchuk, who has been under house arrest for about six months. Medvedchuk’s and Poroshenko’s political parties denied wrongdoing. European Solidarity party, said in a statement the accusation was fabricated on the instruction of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and it would “turn into a farce just like all the previous ones”. Ukraine’s state investigative bureau said in a statement that Poroshenko was suspected of “facilitating the activities” of terrorist organizations in a preliminary conspiracy with an unnamed group of people including some top officials in Russia.

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LONDON (AFP) -- A 25-year-old man on Tuesday denied murdering British MP David Amess, who was stabbed to death while meeting constituents earlier this year. At a hearing at the Old Bailey court in central London, Ali Harbi Ali pleaded not guilty to murder and preparing acts of terrorism. Ali, from north London, was arrested at the scene of the stabbing at a Methodist church in Leigh-on-Sea in southeast England, on October 15. Amess, a 69-year-old father of five, was a long-serving member of parliament for Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative party. His killing was the second of a British MP in the past five years, and has led to calls for better safety for elected representatives. Ali, wearing a blue sweatshirt and grey jogging bottoms, spoke only to confirm his identity and enter his pleas at the brief hearing. The separate charge of preparing acts of terrorism is alleged to have taken place between May 1, 2019 and September this year. He was remanded in custody. A trial date has been set for March 21 next year.

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OECUSSE, East Timor (AP) — A defrocked American priest accused of sexually abusing orphaned and disadvantaged young girls under his care in East Timor was found guilty Tuesday and sentenced to 12 years in prison, in the first case of its kind in the staunchly Catholic nation. Richard Daschbach, 84, who spent decades as a missionary in the country’s remote enclave of Oecusse, faced charges of child sexual abuse as well as child pornography and domestic violence. The trial began in February but was postponed several times before concluding last month. During the proceedings, victims complained about threats and online attacks. Daschbach maintains strong backing from some, including former President Xanana Gusmao, who went to the court on Tuesday. East Timor is the most Catholic place outside the Vatican.

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PARIS (AFP) -- French soldiers have killed one of the suspects in last year’s murder of six young French aid workers in Niger, the general staff said on Tuesday. Daesh had claimed the killings last August of the six aid workers aged between 25 and 31 and their two local guides while they were visiting a nature reserve in the West African country. The army identified the killed extremist as Soumana Boura, one of the bosses of Daesh in the Greater Sahara (EIGS). General staff spokesman Col. Pascal Ianni told AFP that Boura had filmed the execution of the eight victims in August and overseen the publication of the footage. Boura, who headed a group of dozens of fighters in western Niger, was killed by a French drone strike as he was riding his motorcycle, he said. A French unit was on its way to secure the area and formally identify him, the army said.