TAIPEI, Oct 2 (Reuters) – Taiwan sharply criticized China on Saturday after Beijing marked the founding of the People’s Republic of China with the largest ever incursion by the Chinese air force into the island’s air defense zone. Taiwanese fighters scrambled against 38 Chinese aircraft in two waves on Friday, the Taiwan Defense Ministry said. It said Taiwan sent combat aircraft to warn away the Chinese aircraft, while missile systems were deployed to monitor them. The previous largest incursion happened in June, involving 28 Chinese air force aircraft. China has stepped up military and political pressure to try and force Taiwan to accept Chinese sovereignty.

Egypt’s Ministry of Health and Population on Thursday reported 741 new coronavirus cases, 37 deaths, and 419 recoveries. A total of 304,524 cases have been disclosed in Egypt, alongside 17,331 deaths and 256,886 recoveries. Moreover, the Health Ministry has stated that official figures likely only represent 10 percent of actual cases. Egypt is set to receive 5.2 million doses of the Moderna and Pfizer coronavirus vaccines in September, Zayed announced. Additionally, presidential health advisor Mohamed Awad Tag al-Din said in September that Egypt will be receiving 25 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot Janssen vaccine over the next four months.

The Chargé d’Affairs of the US Ambassador to Cairo Nicole Shampaine and Egypt’s Assistant Minister of Health Mohamed Hassany, welcomed the arrival of the first shipment of 1.6 million Pfizer coronavirus vaccine of doses to Cairo, the first shipment of several to come. “I am delighted to welcome this vaccine shipment, a direct donation of 1.6 million doses of Pfizer from the people of the United States to the people of Egypt. At the outset of the pandemic, Egypt sent medical supplies to the United States. In August of 2020, the United States sent 250 ventilators to Egypt. Thursday’s shipment follows on the heels of nearly 4.7 million doses of coronavirus vaccine donated by the US and partner countries to Egypt through the COVAX initiative, bringing the total donations so far to more than six million doses.

Israel began administering boosters to risk groups in July and by the end of August expanded its campaign to include anyone above the age of 12, five months or more after a second dose. In data published late on Thursday, the Health Ministry reported nine cases of myocarditis within four age groups that comprised more than 1.5 million people who had received a booster shot. All were male, three were between the ages of 16 and 29 and six were in the 30-59 group. Most myocarditis cases are generally mild, the ministry said. They have urged the government to take more steps to rein in infections, such as limiting large crowds, and not to rely on boosters alone.

“This is anti-feminist.”For all of its modernity, military firepower and high-tech know-how, Israel has for decades been unable to keep images of women from being defaced in some public spaces. There is a difference, one expert cautioned, between the more pragmatic mainstream ultra-Orthodox Judaism and the vandals defacing photos of women. The idea is to sell images of women that are acceptable to an Orthodox audience and better understood by people in general. The municipality said the Parnass photos have been restored and it has increased patrols around City Hall. Parnass’ niece, Keren-Or Peled, who lives in Israel, says Parnass has been told what happened.

The first World Fair held in the United States in 1876 debuted Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone, the typewriter, a mechanical calculator and Heinz Ketchup. To enter the expo site, visitors will need to show a negative PCR test or proof of COVID-19 vaccination. So what is a World Fair in this not-quite-post-pandemic year of 2021? Some World Fair structures remain iconic markers of the human journey and our industrial evolution. The Space Needle in Seattle, Washington, built for the 1962 World Fair, is another structure with continued prominence and allure.

OSLO, Oct 1 (Reuters) – The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced just three weeks before world leaders gather for a climate summit that scientists say could determine the future of the planet, one reason why prize watchers say this could be the year of Greta Thunberg. With the COP26 climate summit set for the start of November in Scotland, that issue could be global warming. While parliamentarians from any country can nominate candidates for the prize, in recent years the winner has tended to be a nominee proposed by lawmakers from Norway, whose parliament appoints the prize committee. But other documents, including this year’s full list of 329 nominees, are kept behind an alarmed door protected by several locks at the Norwegian Nobel Institute, to be made public in 50 years. It would take another 41 years for Monnet’s creation, the EU, to finally win the prize in 2012.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea said Friday it had test-fired a newly developed anti-aircraft missile in the fourth round of weapons firings in recent weeks, even as it pushes to reopen dormant communication channels with South Korea in a small reconciliation step. Earlier this week, North Korea leader Kim Jong Un expressed his willingness to restore communication hotlines with South Korea in coming days to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula. Some experts say North Korea wants South Korea to persuade the United States to ease punishing economic international sanctions on it. Other say North Korea aims to get an international recognition as a nuclear power. Earlier in September, North Korea also test-fired a new hypersonic missile, a newly developed cruise missile and a ballistic missile launched from a train.

Millions of internet addresses assigned to Africa have been waylaid, some fraudulently, including through insider machinations linked to a former top employee of the nonprofit that assigns the continent’s addresses. The internet service providers and others to whom AFRINIC assigns IP address blocks aren’t purchasing them. Africa has been allocated just 3% of the world’s first-generation IP addresses. Making things worse: the alleged theft of millions of AFRINIC IP addresses, involving the organization’s former No. He shook up management and began trying to reclaim wayward IP address blocks.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The UN Security Council voted unanimously on Thursday to extend the U.N. political mission in Libya until after the country’s critical presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for late December. However, the UN’s most powerful body remained divided over the withdrawal of all mercenaries and foreign forces from the oil-rich North African nation and the mission’s leadership. The vote extended the current mission until Jan. 31 to ensure the United Nations can continue supporting Libya’s transitional government. Thursday’s vote postponed a Security Council statement on mercenaries and foreign fighters and Kubis’ base. In May 2020, the panel said Wagner provided between 800 and 1,200 mercenaries to support Hifter, the eastern Libyan commander.

Bahrain and Gulf neighbor United Arab Emirates normalized relations with Israel last year in a U.S.-brokered deal known as the Abraham Accords that built on common commercial interests and worries about Iran. Our threats are also shared, and they aren’t far from here,” Lapid said in remarks to reporters, apparently alluding to Gulf power Iran. The Sunni-ruled kingdom accuses Iran of stoking unrest in Bahrain, a charge that Tehran denies. On Thursday, Bahraini activists circulated on social media images of what appeared to be small protests in Bahrain. In Gaza, the Islamist Hamas group criticised Bahrain for hosting Lapid, who returns to Israel on Thursday evening.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli troops shot and killed a 40-year-old Palestinian man in the Gaza Strip on Thursday as he was setting bird traps near the Israeli border, his family said. The shooting came hours after two other Palestinians were killed in separate incidents in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. The shooting in Gaza occurred just before noon, near the Bureij refugee camp. The border area remains volatile and three Palestinians and an Israeli soldier have been killed in clashes in the area in recent weeks. Earlier Thursday, Israeli police shot a Palestinian woman who allegedly attempted to stab an officer in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Some 4 million people live in the northwest, 1.7 million of them in camps for those uprooted by the conflict. “The hospitals can no longer absorb this attack,” Fouad added, saying that younger people were being hit harder by this wave. This is the biggest spike we have seen since the beginning of the pandemic in northwest Syria. Vaccination campaigns have made slow progress more widely in Syria, where the overall population stands at around 18 million. At a Damascus hospital this week, medics in disposable gowns and face masks tended to patients hooked up to oxygen.

A Palestinian boy waits with his family for a travel permit to cross into Egypt through Rafah border crossing after it was opened by Egyptian authorities for humanitarian cases, in Gaza Strip 2017. REUTERSCAIRO - 11 October 2021: Egyptian authorities on Tuesday continued operating Rafah border crossing on both sides acting upon the directives of the political leadership to facilitate the transit of stranded Palestinians and the entry of aid and construction materials to the Gaza Strip. The crossing has been opened according to directives of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi since May 16, 2021. It is also part of the Egyptian commitment announced by Sisi to quickly improve the living conditions of the Gaza dwellers. And, on May 10-20, Israel shelled and carried out airstrikes against Gaza Strip.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose for the third straight week, a sign that the highly contagious delta variant may be slowing a recovery in the job market. Claims rose unexpectedly by 11,000 last week to 362,000, the Labor Department said Thursday, though economists had been expecting claims to go in the opposite direction. The four-week moving average of claims, which smooths out week-to-week ups and downs, rose for the first time in seven weeks to 340,000. “Overall, the jump in claims in the last three weeks bears close watching but is not yet alarming,″ Contingent said. Altogether, 2.8 million Americans were receiving some type of jobless aid the week of Sept. 18, down by 18,000 from the week before.