WHO: Blanket COVID booster programs may prolong pandemic

A health-care professional administers a booster vaccine at a COVID-19 pop-up vaccination center at Wembley Stadium in London, Britain, in this file photo. Blanket vaccine booster programs are likely to prolong the COVID-19 pandemic rather than ending it, as a result of unequal distribution of vaccines between rich and poor countries, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned. Xinhua

Flights scrapped due to Omicron threats

More than 6,000 flights have been canceled worldwide over the long Christmas weekend and thousands more were delayed, a tracking website reported on Sunday, as the highly infectious Omicron variant brings holiday hurt to millions.

According to Flightaware.com, more than 2,800 flights were scrubbed around the globe on Saturday, including more than 990 originating from or headed to U.S. airports.

On Friday, there were around 2,400 cancellations and 11,000 delays, while cancellations on Sunday were at nearly 1,500 with more than 1,400 delays also reported.

Pilots, flight attendants and other employees have been calling in sick or having to quarantine after exposure to COVID, forcing Lufthansa, Delta, United Airlines, JetBlue, Alaska Airlines and many other short-staffed carriers to cancel flights during one of the year’s peak travel periods.

Desmond Tutu passes away

South Africa’s Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, also a Nobel Peace laureate, passed away on Sunday morning in Cape Town, the legislative capital of South Africa, at the age of 90, his Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation announced.

Tutu, born in 1931, became an outspoken prophet for justice of political leaders in prison and exile during the apartheid era as general secretary of the South African Council of Churches and later Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, said the foundation in a statement, praising his resistance against the apartheid regime.

Bodies of 16 migrants repatriated

The bodies of 16 Kurdish migrants who drowned while crossing the English Channel in November have been repatriated to Iraq, according to local reports.

They were among 27 people who died near Calais after the inflatable dinghy they were traveling in deflated and capsized.

The International Organization for Migration said it was the biggest single loss of life in the Channel since it began collecting data in 2014.

France’s interior minister Gerald Darmanin had described the boat as “very frail” and “like a pool you blow up in your garden.”

The bodies arrived at the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of Erbil’s international airport, where mourners were waiting, and were then reportedly transported by ambulance.

23-year-old pleads guilty to manslaughter

A woman who prosecutors said waged a “campaign of abuse” against her boyfriend has pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in his 2019 suicide.

Inyoung You, 23, a former student of Boston College, was accused of encouraging her boyfriend, Alexander Urtula, to kill himself in multiple text messages. He died by suicide in May 2019, on the day of his graduation from Boston College.

She was charged shortly after his death, and pleaded guilty to manslaughter last week.

Putin responds to

NATO’s expansion

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that he doesn’t rule out various options for responding to NATO’s further eastward expansion.

“It depends on the proposals of our military experts,” he told Russia 1 TV channel, adding that the Russian side isn’t to “stop something,” but “in order to achieve a diplomatic negotiation result.”

Putin’s remarks came one day after Russia announced that more than 10,000 troops had finished monthlong drills near Ukraine and were returning to their permanent bases. Western countries have accused Russia of massing upwards of 100,000 troops near Ukraine ahead of a possible winter invasion. Russia says it is free to move its forces on its territory how it sees fit and denies that it is planning a large-scale attack.(SD-Agencies)