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Israel agrees to pauses in fighting for polio vaccine drive

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Israel has agreed to a series of “humanitarian pauses” in Gaza to allow for the vaccination of children against polio, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.

The campaign will aim to vaccinate around 640,000 children across the Gaza strip and will begin on Sunday, senior WHO official Rik Peeperkorn said.

It will be rolled out in three separate stages, across the central, southern and northern parts of the strip. During each stage, fighting will pause for three consecutive days between 06:00 and 15:00 local time.

The agreement comes days after UN officials said a 10-month-old baby had been partially paralysed after contracting Gaza’s first case of polio for 25 years.

Around 1.26m doses of the novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) are already in Gaza, with 400,000 additional doses set to arrive soon.

The campaign will be administered by “the Palestinian Ministry of Health, in collaboration with WHO, UNICEF, UNRWA”. Over 2,000 health and community outreach workers have been trained to administer the vaccine.

The WHO is aiming to achieve 90% vaccine coverage across the strip, which is needed to stop transmission of the virus within Gaza.

An agreement is in place for an additional fourth day of vaccination and humanitarian pause if needed to achieve that level of vaccination.

Poliovirus is highly infectious and is most often spread through sewage and contaminated water.

It can cause disfigurement and paralysis, and is potentially fatal. It mainly affects children under the age of five.

The WHO says immunisation rates in Gaza and the occupied West Bank were optimal before the conflict. Polio vaccine coverage was estimated at 99% in 2022, although it had declined to 89% last year, according to the latest data.

The Israeli military said in July it had begun vaccinating its soldiers against the disease.

Hamas official Basem Naim told the Reuters news agency: “We are ready to cooperate with international organisations to secure this campaign, serving and protecting more than 650,000 Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the series of three-day pauses were “not a ceasefire”.

James Kariuki, UK deputy permanent representative to the UN, said he “strongly” welcomed the vaccination plan.

“We now need to see this in action and these pauses need to be long enough to deliver the 90% coverage required. When the campaign starts and thousands of vulnerable and unaccompanied children gather at vaccination sites, they must all be protected,” he added.

Prof Hagai Levine, a spokesman for the Hostages Families Forum – a group which is calling for more action to secure the release of Israeli hostages – urged health workers to ensure those still being held are included in the vaccination campaign.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October by Hamas, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

More than 40,530 people have been killed in Gaza since 7 October, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

(BBC News)

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Pope Francis hospitalized at Gemelli for bronchitis

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Pope Francis has been admitted to Rome’s Agostino Gemelli Hospital due to worsening bronchitis and has begun pharmacological treatment.

The Vatican confirmed his condition is stable, with a slight fever.

Several upcoming Jubilee events have been adjusted, with Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça presiding over Sunday’s Mass.

The pope has been suffering from bronchitis for more than a week.

Francis will not take part in a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Sunday, the Vatican said later, adding that a planned public audience on Saturday and a visit on Monday to Rome’s famed Cinecitta film studios were cancelled.

Francis, who has been pontiff since 2013, has had influenza and other health problems several times over the past two years. As a young adult he developed a case of pleurisy and had part of one of his lungs removed, and in recent times he has been prone to lung infections.

Earlier this month, Francis told pilgrims at a weekly audience that he was suffering from a “strong cold,” which the Vatican later described as bronchitis.

The pope held several meetings on Friday before going to hospital. One was with Mark Thompson, CEO of the CNN news channel. The pope was “mentally alert but struggling to speak for extended periods due to breathing difficulties,” CNN later reported.

The pope also held meetings with Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, senior Vatican official Cardinal Luis Tagle and with a Catholic philanthropy group that is based in Puerto Rico.

Video of the pope’s meeting with Fico showed Francis sitting at a desk in his Vatican residence, smiling, and speaking in a soft tone.

Francis has been suffering with respiratory issues since mid-December. He begged off reading statements at several of his public events in January and February, attending the occasions but asking aides to read his prepared remarks.

The pope also had two falls recently at his Vatican residence, bruising his chin in December and injuring his arm in January.

Despite his periodic health issues and reduced mobility, Francis has kept up a busy schedule, including foreign travel. In September he completed a 12-day tour across Southeast Asia and Oceania, the longest of his papacy.

Rome’s Gemelli hospital, the largest in the city, has a special suite for treating popes. Francis spent nine days there in June 2023, when he had surgery to repair an abdominal hernia.

Source: Vatican News

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Google Maps updates Gulf of Mexico name for US users

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Google Maps has changed the Gulf of Mexico’s name to the Gulf of America for people using the app in the US.

Explaining the move, Google said it was making the change as part of “a longstanding practice” of following name changes when updated by official government sources.

It said the Gulf – which is bordered by the US, Cuba and Mexico – would not be changed for people using the app in Mexico, and users elsewhere in the world will see the label: “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)”.

It comes after President Donald Trump ordered the body of water to be renamed in US government documents after he returned to office last month.

Mexico had decried the move, arguing that the US had no legal right to change the Gulf’s name.

The change was made by Google on Monday after the Geographic Names Information System, a US government database run by the Interior Department, listed an update to the Gulf’s name.

The listing reads: “The Gulf of America, formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico, with an average depth 5300 ft is a major body of water bordered and nearly landlocked by North America with the Gulf’s eastern, northern, and northwestern shores in the U.S. and its southwestern and southern shores in Mexico.”

It said the change was made in accordance with Trump’s executive order to “restore names that honor American Greatness”.

Following the signing of the order, President Trump proclaimed 9 February as “Gulf of America Day”.

“I call upon public officials and all the people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities,” a White House statement said.

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum had asked Google to reconsider its decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico.

She argued the US could not legally change the Gulf’s name because the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea dictates that an individual country’s sovereign territory only extends up to 12 nautical miles out from the coastline.

The Associated Press, a global media organisation, said that it would not change the name of the Gulf of Mexico in its style guide – which is used by most US media outlets.

Because of the style guide decision, the White House said it was barring an AP reporter from covering an executive order signing in the Oval Office.

“It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism,” AP’s Executive Editor Julie Pace said in a statement. “Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.”

Trump’s executive order, signed on 20 January, also ordered North America’s tallest mountain – Denali – be called Mount McKinley, which was its name previously.

That change is not yet reflected on Google Maps, though the AP has adopted the mountain’s old name in its style guide.

(BBC News)

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BJP secures landmark victory in Delhi elections after 27 years

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party will form the government in Indian capital Delhi after 27 years as it scripted an impressive election victory.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has won or is leading in 47 seats in the 70-member legislative assembly, while the incumbent Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is ahead in 23 seats, according to data from the Election Commission of India (EC).

A party that wins more than the halfway mark of 35 seats can form the government.

“Development wins, good governance triumphs,” Modi wrote on X, adding that his party would leave “no stone unturned” in developing Delhi .

The election was a battle of prestige for both the BJP and AAP, given Delhi’s symbolic importance as the country’s capital.

The city, a federally-administered territory, was governed by the AAP since 2013, with voters backing its strong record of welfarism. But the party and its leaders have faced several challenges recently, with leaders embroiled in corruption allegations which they have denied.

For the BJP, securing Delhi represents more than just electoral success – it marks a crucial foothold in the nation’s capital after being out of power there since 1998.

The party, which has had recent election successes in other states, such as Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, threw resources at the Delhi campaign, with Modi as well as Home Minister Amit Shah attending events.

Congress, the main opposition party at the national level, was also in the race, but is unlikely to win even one seat.

The party governed Delhi from 1998 to 2013, but was ousted over allegations of corruption that saw voters turn to AAP instead. It has failed to make a mark since.

Experts say that the win in politically crucial Delhi will reinforce Modi’s popularity among Indian voters after his party lost its outright majority in last year’s general election.

The defeat is a big blow to the AAP, a much smaller party which was praised in its early years in power for focusing on improving education and health facilities in the city. It also governs Punjab state, but retaining Delhi would have been a triumph for the beleaguered party which now faces questions about its future.

On Saturday, the biggest upsets for AAP included top leaders Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia losing in the New Delhi and Jangpura constituencies, respectively.

Incumbent Chief Minister Atishi managed only a narrow victory from the Kalkaji constituency.

In a video message on X, Kejriwal said he and his party “humbly accepted” the verdict of the people and congratulated the BJP on its win.

“I hope they live up to the expectations of the people who voted for them,” he said.

More than 60% of eligible voters cast their ballot in the election on Wednesday. Most exit polls had predicted an absolute majority for the BJP, although such predictions have gone wrong in the past.

Much of the BJP campaign targeted Kejriwal, an anti-graft activist, who – along with Sisodia – had been jailed over the past two years in a corruption case relating to a now-scrapped alcohol sales policy. Both leaders, who deny all the charges, separately got bail last year after spending months in jail.

Kejriwal has accused Modi’s party of carrying out a “political vendetta” against him and the AAP, which the BJP denies.

The Supreme Court’s bail conditions banned him from entering the chief minister’s office or signing files. Kejriwal resigned from the role days after his release from prison.

Source: BBC

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