Source: AFP
Security & Justice
Southern Lebanon Endures Massive Damage: 40,000 Homes Leveled Across 37 Towns
Israeli forces have systematically destroyed entire neighborhoods in southern Lebanon, leveling more than 37 towns and wiping out over 40,000 residential units, according to Lebanon's National News Agency.
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
Gaps in Coastal Radar Enabled Israeli Raid in Batroun, Army Commander Says
Lebanon’s army chief, General Joseph Aoun, detailed to Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati how Israeli forces likely exploited gaps in the country's coastal radar system during the recent raid carried out in Batroun. The briefing comes as Lebanese officials seek answers on how Israel’s elite Shayetet 13 unit carried out the landing undetected.
Monday, November 4, 2024
Opinion
The Emptying of Baalbek Is a Moment to Take Stock
“Large numbers of people continue to flee their homes every day, as Israel’s military operations in Lebanon have been going on unabated.” These disturbing words could be from almost any news report about Israel’s invasion of its northern neighbour over the past month. However, they can be found in a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre issued on July 27, 2006.
Saturday, November 2, 2024
A Future Without Hezbollah
At the end of September, when Israel’s campaign to destroy Hezbollah was reaching its height, I met one of the group’s supporters in a seaside café in western Beirut. He was a middle-aged man with a thin white beard and the spent look of someone who had not slept for days. He was an academic of sorts, not a fighter, but his ties to Hezbollah were deep and long-standing.
Thursday, October 31, 2024
Sports
Tottenham Forward Son Heung-min Crowned Asia’s International Player of the Year
Tottenham forward Son Heung-min was crowned as Asia’s International Player of the Year for the fourth time by the Asian Football Confederation at its annual awards ceremony Tuesday.
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
Real Madrid Launch Investigation into Racist Insults After El Clasico Defeat
Real Madrid has launched an investigation into racist insults directed at players during Saturday’s 4-0 home loss to Barcelona in LaLiga, it said on Sunday.
Monday, October 28, 2024
Tuesday 5 July 2022 14:55:43
WHO: Monkeypox Cases Top 5,000
The World Health Organization said on Tuesday that 5,322 laboratory-confirmed cases of monkeypox had been reported to it in the current outbreak, 85 percent of which are in Europe.
Though case numbers are rapidly increasing, the United Nations health agency has not set a date for its emergency committee on monkeypox to convene for a second meeting.
“From January 1 to June 30 this year, we have 5,322 laboratory-confirmed cases and one death,” WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told reporters in Geneva.
The number has increased by 56 percent in eight days. The previous figure given by the WHO, for the period up to June 22, was 3,413 cases.
A surge in monkeypox cases has been reported since early May outside the West and Central African countries where the disease has long been endemic.
Chaib said infections had now been reported in 53 countries.
“Eighty-five percent of cases are in Europe, followed by the African region, the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Pacific,” she said.
“The WHO continues to ask countries to pay particular attention to monkeypox cases to try to stop further infections.”
Most monkeypox infections so far have been observed in men who have sex with men, of young age and chiefly in urban areas, according to the WHO.
The normal initial symptoms of monkeypox include a high fever, swollen lymph nodes and a blistery chickenpox-like rash.
On June 23, the UN health agency convened an emergency committee of experts to decide if monkeypox constitutes a so-called Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) - the highest alarm that the WHO can sound.
But a majority found the situation had not yet crossed that threshold.
However, they acknowledged the emergency nature of the outbreak and said controlling its further spread required intense response efforts.
The committee can reconvene at any time, depending on the changing situation.
The WHO’s 16-member emergency committee on monkeypox is chaired by Jean-Marie Okwo-Bele from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who is a former director of the WHO’s Vaccines and Immunization Department.