ROME (AFP) - Italy will require all workers to show a coronavirus health pass from Friday, one of the world‘s toughest anti-Covid regimes that has already sparked riots and which many fear will cause “chaos”. 　More than 85 percent of Italians over the age of 12 have received at least one shot of a Covid-19 vaccine, making them eligible for the so-called Green Pass certificate. 　But according to various estimates, about 2.5 million of the country’s 23 million workers

WASHINGTON (AFP) - After debt loads surged last year amid the pandemic, governments now must take care to “calibrate” spending, the IMF said Wednesday. 　Global debt in 2020, including public and private borrowing, “jumped by 14 percent to a record high $226 trillion,” according to the International Monetary Fund‘s Fiscal Monitor report. 　Public debt amounts to $88 trillion, close to 100 percent of GDP, and is expected to decline only gradually, said Vitor Gaspar

  The world has marked the first rise in child labor in two decades and the coronavirus crisis threatens to push millions more youngsters toward the same fate, the United Nations said. In a joint report, the International Labor Organization and the UN children’s agency UNICEF said the number in child labor stood at 160 million at the start of 2020 - an increase of 8.4 million in four years. The hike began before the pandemic hit and marks a dramatic reversal of a downward trend that h

NEW DELHI -- Strong political leadership and earnest implementation of policies by a committed bureaucracy have been two key factors in India’s relative success in containing the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, a senior health official said. The two key factors, along with the strategy of regular testing for COVID-19 and vaccination, are the weapons that India and other countries can use to stave off a possible third wave, said Pratyaya Amrit, additional chief secretary at the Health Dep

　South Korea has clinched the top spot in Asia in a United Nations agency’s global innovation rankings, coming in fifth globally. 　In the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Global Innovation Index 2021, Korea was ahead of Singapore, Japan and China. It was behind Switzerland, Sweden, the United States and the United Kingdom. 　Korea, Asia’s fourth-biggest economy, was in 10th place last year. (Yonhap)

The 2021 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia. The Norwegian Nobel Committee cited their fight for freedom of expression, stressing that it is vital in promoting peace. “Free, independent and fact-based journalism serves to protect against abuse of power, lies and war propaganda,” said Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the committee. “Without freedom of expression and freedom of the press, it will be d

STOCKHOLM (AP) — UK-based Tanzanian writer Abdulrazak Gurnah, whose work explores the profound impact of migration on uprooted people and the places they make their new homes, won the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday. The Swedish Academy said the award was in recognition of Gurnah’s “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.” Gurnah, who recently retired as a

　South Korea was the world‘s second-largest spender on chip equipment in the second quarter of the year, a report showed, amid a global semiconductor shortage. 　South Korea, home to major memory chip producers Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, invested $6.62 billion in chipmaking equipment in the April-June period, up 48 percent from a year ago, according to quarterly billings data from SEMI, a global industry association representing companies in the electronics design and manufactu

STOCKHOLM (AFP) -- US-Japanese scientist Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann of Germany and Giorgio Parisi of Italy on Tuesday won the Nobel Physics Prize for climate models and the understanding of physical systems, the jury said. The announcement came a month ahead of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, where global warming will top the world agenda. Manabe, 90, and Hasselmann, 89, share one half of the 10-million-kronor ($1.1-million, one-million-euro) prize for their research on climate mode

　Manchester United forward Cristiano Ronaldo has reclaimed the top spot in the list of the world’s highest-paid soccer players from Lionel Messi, according to Forbes. 　Forbes said Ronaldo, among the world’s most popular athletes with over 500 million followers across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, is set to make $125 million before taxes in the 2021-22 season, with $70 million coming from salary and bonuses at United. 　The rest will come from endorsements and partnerships wit

　The United Nations warned that weather-related disasters have skyrocketed over the past half-century, causing far more damage even as better warning systems have meant fewer deaths. 　A report from the UN‘s World Meteorological Organization examined mortality and economic losses from weather, climate and water extremes between 1970 and 2019. 　It found that such disasters have increased fivefold during that period, driven largely by a warming planet, and warned the upward trend would