The world economy's fragile recovery from the COVID-induced crisis is now threatened by Russia's war in Ukraine and soaring commodity prices.Here are four questions regarding the risks to global gross domestic product (GDP):Will Growth Stall? "The war happened right at a time when Europe and the United States (US) had a recovery that was going really well. Projections in Europe were among the highest ...

Another new coronavirus variant has been identified, this one containing elements of Delta and OmicronWhat Is Deltacron?As the portmanteau suggests, Deltacron is a COVID variant that contains elements of Delta and Omicron – in other words, it contains genes from both variants, making it what is known as a recombinant virus.“These recombinants arise when more than one variant infects and replicates in the same person, in the same cells,” says Prof Lawrence Young, a virologist at the University

The COVID-19 pandemic took a turn for the worse this week after five weeks of improvement, driven by an upsurge of cases in Asia.Here is the state of play based on AFP's database:Eight Percent Rise The average number of global daily cases increased over the week by eight percent to 1.59 million, according to an AFP tally to Thursday.That is, however, half the number in late January, when cases peaked at 3.37 million per day.The confirmed cases only reflect a fraction of the actu

Here are the latest developments in the coronavirus crisis:China Locks Down Nine Million The north-eastern Chinese city of Changchun and its nine million people are locked down as the country records the worst spike in new cases in two years.Only one person from every household will be allowed out every two days to buy "daily necessities", officials in Changchun said.Shanghai Shuts Schools Economic hub Shanghai shuts its schools, with other cities using targeted lo

More than 18 million people – three times higher than official records suggest – have probably died because of COVID, say researchers.Their report comes two years to the day from when the World Health Organization (WHO) first declared the pandemic.The COVID-19 excess mortality team at the United States (US) Washington University studied 191 countries and territories for what they call the true global death figure.Some deaths were from the virus, while others were linked to the infection.This

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Thursday that Western penalties against Moscow for its military incursion in Ukraine would destabilise the global energy and food markets and vowed the country would emerge stronger from the crisis.Putin's "special military operation" in Ukraine that began on 24 February has triggered unprecedented Western sanctions and sparked an exodus of international corporations from Russia.Putin on Thursday however downplayed the massive sanctions,

Here are the latest developments in the coronavirus crisis:El Dorado For Match Fixers The pandemic has been an "El Dorado" for match fixers, with Sportradar Integrity Services saying it detected 903 suspicious matches in 2021 – the highest number recorded in the company's 17-year history.Slovakia's Trad JabSlovakia rolls out the more traditional Novavax jab, which experts hope will win over its vaccine-sceptical population.

Australian virologists have uncovered a drug-resistant mutation in the COVID-19 virus associated with the drug sotrovimab and say without the monitoring of patients given the treatment the mutated virus could spread in the community.The world-first findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday, are the result of an analysis of the first 100 patients in western Sydney during the Delta outbreak in 2021 to be given sotrovimab.Sotrovimab is a monoclonal antibody that is a

The opposition conservative Yoon Suk-yeol has won South Korea's presidential election, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported early Thursday, propelling a political novice and avowed anti-feminist to the helm of Asia's fourth largest economy.After a bitter, hard-fought election campaign, Yoon, formerly a top government prosecutor who has never held elected office, was declared winner early Thursday after rival Lee Jae-myung from the incumbent Democratic Party conceded defeat.&quot

Here are the latest developments in the coronavirus crisis:Pandemic Not Yet Over: WHO The pandemic is "far from over", the World Health Organization's (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says, two years after he first used the term to wake the world up to the emerging threat of COVID-19.Earlier United Nations (UN) Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the pandemic could be prolonged further due to "scandalously unequal" vaccine distribution.Austria Ends