Tuberculosis (TB) infections among children in the European region rose 10 percent in 2023, indicating ongoing transmission and the need for immediate public health measures to control the spread, the World Health Organization said on Monday.
WHO’s European region, which comprises 53 countries in Europe and Central Asia, reported more than 7,500 cases among children under 15 years of age in 2023, an increase of over 650 cases compared to 2022.
“The worrying rise in children with TB serves as a reminder that progress against this preventable and curable disease remains fragile,” said Hans Henri Kluge, WHO’s Regional Director for Europe.
Askar Yedilbayev, regional TB adviser for WHO’s European region, said in an interview that a rise in overall cases might indicate improved diagnoses. However, it could also result from increased cross-border movement due to the Russia-Ukraine war, the two countries with the highest disease burden in the region.
Children under 15 years of age made up 4.3 percent of all TB cases in the European Union, a joint report by the WHO and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control showed.
This shows an increase in cases in this age group for the third consecutive year, which Yedilbayev said was a “worrisome scenario.”
WHO has previously warned that funding cuts from global donors will undo progress in controlling TB infections across low- and middle-income countries. These cuts can hurt TB programs in non-EU countries, fueling a rise of hard-to-treat strains, the agency said.
Several local, on-ground workforces have been hurt from the funding cuts, and the supply of diagnostics and treatments remains at risk, said Yedilbayev.
TB, among the top 10 causes of death worldwide, is a potentially fatal bacterial infection that mainly affects the lungs and spreads through coughing or sneezing.
WHO calls for immediate action as report shows 10% rise in child TB infections in European region
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WHO calls for immediate action as report shows 10% rise in child TB infections in European region
- WHO’s European region reported more than 7,500 cases among children under 15 years of age in 2023
- Children under 15 years of age made up 4.3 percent of all TB cases in the European Union
After brief X outage, Musk says refocusing on businesses
- As a backlash to job cuts grew and Tesla share prices slipped, Musk began drawing away from the government role and returning to his original work
WASHINGTON: Social media platform X was hit by a two-hour outage Saturday, prompting owner Elon Musk to say he needs to spend more time focusing on his companies.
The billionaire has an extraordinarily full plate as owner/CEO of X, xAI (developer of the AI-powered chatbot Grok), electric-car maker Tesla and rocket builder SpaceX — not to mention his recent polarizing efforts to help Donald Trump slash thousands of US government jobs.
As a backlash to those job cuts grew and Tesla share prices slipped, Musk began drawing away from the government role and returning to his original work.
On Saturday, following the X outage, he suggested that he might have been away too long.
“As evidenced by the X uptime issues this week, major operational improvements need to be made,” he said.
“Back to spending 24/7 at work and sleeping in conference/server/factory rooms,” the South African-born businessman posted on X.
“I must be super focused on X/xAI and Tesla (plus Starship launch next week), as we have critical technologies rolling out.”
Of the X outage, he said: “The failover redundancy should have worked, but did not.”
X had largely returned to normal service by 11:00 am Saturday (1500 GMT).
Contacted by AFP for comment, the company did not immediately reply.
SpaceX announced Friday that it plans to attempt a new launch of its mega-rocket Starship next week. Still under development, Starship exploded in flight during two previous launches.
Musk acknowledged early this month that his ambitious effort to slash US federal spending, led by his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), did not fully reach its goals despite tens of thousands of job cuts and drastic budget reductions.
Trump administration releases people to shelters it threatened to prosecute for aiding migrants
- Border shelters were rattled by a letter from FEMA that raised “significant concerns” about potentially illegal activity
- FEMA suggested shelters may have committed felony offenses against bringing people across the border illegally or transporting them within the US
TEXAS, USA: The Trump administration has continued releasing people charged with being in the country illegally to nongovernmental shelters along the US-Mexico border after telling those organizations that providing migrants with temporary housing and other aid may violate a law used to prosecute smugglers.
Border shelters, which have long provided lodging, meals and transportation to the nearest bus station or airport, were rattled by a letter from the Federal Emergency Management Agency that raised “significant concerns” about potentially illegal activity and demanded detailed information in a wide-ranging investigation.
FEMA suggested shelters may have committed felony offenses against bringing people across the border illegally or transporting them within the United States.
“It was pretty scary. I’m not going to lie,” said Rebecca Solloa, executive director of Catholic Charities Diocese of Laredo.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement continued to ask shelters in Texas and Arizona to house people even after the March 11 letter, putting them in the awkward position of doing something that FEMA appeared to say might be illegal. Both agencies are part of the Department of Homeland Security.
After receiving the letter, Catholic Charities received eight to 10 people a day from ICE until financial losses forced it to close its shelter in the Texas border city on April 25, Solloa said.
The Holding Institute Community, also in Laredo, has been taking about 20 families a week from ICE’s family detention centers in Dilley and Karnes City, Texas, Executive Director Michael Smith said. They come from Russia, Turkiye, Iran, Iraq, Papua New Guinea and China.
Annunciation House in El Paso, Texas, has been receiving five to 10 people day from ICE, including from Honduras and Venezuela, said Ruben Garcia, its executive director.
International Rescue Committee didn’t get a letter but continues receiving people from ICE in Phoenix, according to a person briefed on the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss information that has not been made public. The releases include people who had been held at ICE’s Krome Detention Center in Miami, the site of severe overcrowding.
Working around conflicting issues
ICE’s requests struck Solloa as a “little bit of a contradiction,” but Catholic Charities agreed. She said some guests had been in ICE detention centers two to four weeks after getting arrested in the nation’s interior and ordered released by an immigration judge while their challenges to deportations wound through the courts. Others had been flown from San Diego after crossing the border illegally.
Those released were from India, China, Pakistan, Türkiye, and Central and South America, Solloa said.
Smith, a Methodist pastor, said that the FEMA letter was alarming and that agreeing to continue caring for people released by ICE was “probably not a good idea.” Still, it was an easy choice.
“There’s some things that are just right to do,” he said.
Tricia McLaughlin, spokeswoman for the Homeland Security Department, drew a distinction with large-scale releases under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden. The Biden administration worked closely with shelters but, during its busiest times, released migrants at bus stops or other public locations.
“Under the Biden administration, when ICE has aliens in its custody who are ordered released, ICE does not simply release them onto the streets of a community — ICE works to verify a sponsor for the illegal alien, typically family members or friends but occasionally a non-governmental-organization,” McLaughlin said.
The government has struggled to quickly deport people from some countries because of diplomatic, financial and logistic challenges. Those hurdles have prompted ICE to deport people to countries other than their own, including El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama and — this week — South Sudan. If those options aren’t available, ICE may be forced to release people in the United States.
People can challenge deportations in immigration court, though their options are much more limited when stopped at the border. If a judge orders their release, ICE is generally left with no choice but to release them.
Families pose another challenge. ICE is generally prohibited from holding families with children under 18 for more than 20 days under a long-standing court agreement that the Trump administration said Thursday it would try to end.
The Trump administration has boasted that it virtually ended the practice of releasing people who cross the border illegally with notices to appear in immigration court. The Border Patrol released only seven people from February through April, down from 130,368 the same period a year earlier under President Joe Biden. But those figures do not include ICE, whose data is not publicly available
Close ties between shelters and federal authorities
FEMA awarded $641 million to dozens of state and local governments and organizations across the country in the 2024 fiscal year to help them deal with large numbers of migrants who crossed the border from Mexico.
FEMA has suspended payments during its review, which required shelters to provide “a detailed and descriptive list of specific services provided.” Executive officers must sign sworn statements that they have no knowledge or suspicions of anyone in their organizations violating the smuggling law.
The releases show how border shelters have often maintained close, if cordial, relations with federal immigration authorities at the ground level, even when senior officials publicly criticize them.
“We have a good working relationship with our federal partners. We always have,” Solloa said. “They asked us to help, then we will continue to help, but at some point we have to say, ‘Yikes I don’t have any more money for this. Our agency is hurting and I’m sorry, we can’t do this anymore.’”
Catholic Charities hosted at least 120,000 people at its Laredo shelter since opening in 2021 and housed 600 to 700 people on its busiest nights in 2023, Solloa said. It was counting on up to $7 million from FEMA. The shelter closed with loss of nearly $1 million, after not receiving any FEMA money.
Holding Institute, part of United Women in Faith, has cut paid staff and volunteers to seven from 45 amid the absence of federal funding, Smith said. To save money, it delivers most meals without protein. Language differences have been challenging.
The International Rescue Committee said in a statement that it intends to continue providing support services to released people in Phoenix.
“As the scale and scope of these needs evolve, the IRC remains committed to ensuring individuals have access to essential humanitarian services, including food, water, hygiene supplies and information,” it said.
Bangladesh interim govt calls for unity to stop ‘return of authoritarianism’
- “Broader unity is essential to maintain national stability,” said the interim government
DHAKA: Bangladesh’s interim government, which took over after a mass uprising last year, warned on Saturday that unity was needed to “prevent the return of authoritarianism.”
“Broader unity is essential to maintain national stability, organize free and fair elections, justice, and reform, and permanently prevent the return of authoritarianism in the country,” it said in a statement after a week of escalation during which rival parties protested on the streets of the capital Dhaka.
The South Asian nation of around 170 million people has been in political turmoil since ex-prime minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted by student-led protests in August 2024.
Germany mass stabbing suspect has ‘psychological illness’: police
- The woman has “very clear indications of a psychological illness,” police said
- She was subdued by two passersby and law enforcement officers
BERLIN: A German woman accused of a mass stabbing attack that wounded 18 people at a train station in Hamburg suffers from mental illness, police said Saturday.
The suspect, a 39-year-old woman, is accused of going on a stabbing spree on Friday at the main station in Hamburg, stunning the northern city in the middle of the evening rush hour.
The woman has “very clear indications of a psychological illness,” police said in a statement, without giving further details on her condition.
They added there were no signs she was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the attack, which left four victims seriously wounded.
The woman was subdued by two passersby and law enforcement officers, then taken into custody at the scene without resisting arrest, police said.
She was due to appear before a judge later Saturday.
Police say they have ruled out a “political motive” for the attack and believe the suspect acted alone.
The victims range in age from 19 to 85.
The four in serious condition were a 24-year-old man and three women, aged 24, 52 and 85, police said.
Emergency officials initially said their wounds were life-threatening, but police say all the victims now appear to be out of immediate danger.
The attack took place just after 6:00 p.m. (1600 GMT) Friday on one of the platforms in front of a standing train, German media reported.
The suspect was thought to have turned “against passengers” at the station, a spokeswoman for the Hanover federal police directorate, which also covers Hamburg, told AFP.
Some of the victims were treated onboard waiting trains in the station, German daily Bild reported.
Images of the scene showed access to the platforms at one end of the station blocked off by police and people being loaded into waiting ambulances.
Forensic police could also be seen walking up and down the platforms where the attack took place.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz expressed his shock in a call with the mayor of Hamburg.
“My thoughts are with the victims and their families,” Merz said, according to a readout from a spokesman.
Germany has been rocked in recent months by a series of violent attacks with often jihadist or far-right extremist motivations that have put security at the top of the agenda.
The most recent, on Sunday, saw four people injured in a stabbing at a bar in the city of Bielefeld.
The investigation into that attack has been handed over to federal prosecutors after the Syrian suspect told the police officers who arrested him that he had jihadist beliefs.
The question of security — and the immigrant origin of some of the attackers — was a major topic during Germany’s recent election campaign.
Merz’s conservative CDU/CSU topped the February vote, which also saw a record score of more than 20 percent for the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Last year, Germany toughened its legislation on carrying knives, now banned at public gatherings and on long-distance trains.
They are also banned in specific zones in some cities, including at Hamburg’s train station.
But experts and police unions have previously questioned whether such bans are effective.
Cannes, with the lights back on after outage, prepares to award the Palme d’Or
- The ceremony and the awarding of the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, remained as scheduled
- A few hours before stars began streaming down the red carpet, power was restored in Cannes
CANNES: The Cannes Film Festival closing ceremony got underway Saturday after a major power outage struck southeastern France due to what police suspected as arson.
The ceremony and the awarding of the festival’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, remained as scheduled during the hours-long outage due to an alternative power supply. But a few hours before stars began streaming down the red carpet, power was restored in Cannes.
Laurent Hottiaux, the prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes department, condemned “serious acts of damage to electrical infrastructures”
But as stars including Jane Fonda, Cate Blanchett and Elle Fanning arrived on the red carpet, and attention turned to who might win the Palme d’Or.
The Grand Prix award went to Joachim Trier’s family drama, “Sentimental Value.”
Kleber Mendonça Filho won the best director award for the Brazilian political thriller “The
Secret Agent.”
The jury prize went to two films: the Morocco-set “Sirât” and the generation-spanning German drama “Sound of Falling.”
Also among the winners Saturday were best actress for Nadia Melliti in “The Little Sister” and best actor for Wagner Moura for his starring role in “The Secret Agent.” A special prize was given to Bi Gan’s sci-fi film “Resurrection.”
One of the big questions heading into the ceremony was whether Neon could extend one of the most unprecedented streaks in movies. The past five winners in Cannes have all been released by the indie distributor, including last year’s victor and eventual best-picture Oscar winner, “Anora.”
On Saturday, Neon could make it six in a row, adding to its Palmes for “Parasite,” “Titane,” “Triangle of Sadness,” “Anatomy of a Fall” and “Anora.” As far-fetched as that might sound, it might even be likely.
Four of the most widely acclaimed film of the festival — Trier’s “Sentimental Value,” Jafar Panahi’s revenge thriller “It Was Just an Accident,” Filho’s “The Secret Agent” and Óliver Laxe’s desert road trip “Sirât” — will be distributed in the US by Neon.
No one knows which way the nine-member jury headed by Juliette Binoche might vote. Their deliberations are done privately, and there are several other films seen as contenders. But critical reception is often a decent guide to what’s in the mix at Cannes.
Other films will strong support include Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Logznitsa’s period drama “Two Prosecutors”; Richard Linklater’s New Wave ode “Nouvelle Vague”; and Spanish filmmaker Carla Simón’s personal coastal tale “Romeria.”
Saturday’s ceremony brings to a close a 78th Cannes Film Festival where geopolitics cast a long shadow, both on screen and off. Shortly before the French Riviera extravaganza, which is also the world’s largest movie market, US President Donald Trump floated the idea of a 100 percent tariff on movies made overseas.
Most filmmakers responded with a shrug, calling the plan illogical. “Can you hold up the movie in customs? It doesn’t ship that way,” said Wes Anderson, who premiered his latest, “The Phoenician Scheme” at the festival.
That was one of the top American films in Cannes, along with Spike Lee’s “Highest 2 Lowest,” the Christopher McQuarrie-Tom Cruise actioner “Mission: Impossible — Final Reckoning” and Ari Aster’s “Eddington.”
