Category: General Interest

THE BEST ASIAN POLE VAULTER IN THE WORLD IS A FILIPINO Obiena cleared 5.93m in his gold medal foray in the 17th International Golden Roof Challenge in Innsbruck, Austria Saturday evening (Sunday morning Philippine time). With the gold already in the bag after soaring to 5.80m, the Filipino world No. 5 kept going en route to setting a new Asian pole vault record with a 5.93m clearance on his third and last try. That mark surpassed the almost quarter-century old record of Kazakhstan’s Igor Potapovich, who cleared 5.92m in 1992.…

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Biontech founder Özlem Türeci expects the vaccine for five- to 11-year-olds to be available in just a few weeks. The results from the study with children will be presented to authorities worldwide in the coming weeks, Türeci said in an interview with Der Spiegel on Friday (Sept. 10). “Furthermore, we will apply for approval, including here in Europe.” The vaccine is the same as administered to adults, he said, but it has a lower dosage and must be filled differently. According to the Spiegel article, study data on children six…

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John Arcilla got the Coppa Volpi for Best Actor for his performance in Erik Matti’s On the Job: The Missing 8. Erik Matti received the award at the ceremony on behalf of the actor, while Arcilla thanked the jury in his acceptance speech through video. On the Job: The Missing 8 is a Philippine crime thriller. John Arcilla plays Sisoy Salas, a corrupt reporter for a local newspaper. It also puts a spotlight on the real-world predicament concerning fake news and how easily truth can be manufactured and disseminated to the public in…

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Pope Francis begins a visit to Hungary and then Slovakia today. It will be the 84-year-old’s second trip abroad this year – and 34th overall. The head of the Catholic Church plans to celebrate Mass in the Hungarian capital of Budapest at the conclusion of the International Eucharistic Congress and travel to Bratislava, Slovakia, on the same day. In Budapest, Francis will also meet with Hungarian head of government Viktor Orban. With his commitment to refugees, Francis is in a sense a counterweight to the conservative Orban, who likes to…

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Berlin virologist Christian Drosten recently made people sit up and take notice with a statement: “Actually, the goal is not to always have to vaccinate for all time,” Drosten said, looking to the future. “Learning to live with the virus after population protection has been achieved via vaccination,” is his motto. Everyone who is healthy and has no pre-existing conditions should get their individual “booster immunization” through recurrent contact with the virus. “We need to get to a state where the virus can spread insidiously through the population but will…

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Pope Francis has arrived in the Hungarian capital Budapest on his 34th international trip. The plane carrying the Vatican delegation and 78 journalists landed in the Hungarian capital around 7:45 a.m. Sunday morning. The occasion for Francis’ visit is the closing Mass for the 52nd International Eucharistic Congress, which is meeting in Budapest. Representatives of the Catholic Church have gathered from all parts of the world. Actually, the congress was already planned last year, but the organizers had postponed it because of the Corona pandemic. Thousands of people are expected…

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More than 223.66 million people worldwide have been confirmed to be infected with coronavirus. That’s according to a Reuters count based on official data. More than 4.78 million people have died with or from the virus since it was first detected in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The United States has the most cases of infection and death. India and Brazil rank second and third, respectively. After the U.S., Brazil has the most deaths with 585,174. There, 20,958,899 cases of infection were detected. In India, 442,009 people died in connection…

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Austria: The Ministry of Health is changing the rules on the green passport. In the future, the vaccination in the Corona card will be valid for one year. This has been determined as of today. The Ministry of Health published on Friday in the Federal Law Gazette that a full vaccination is valid for twelve months. Until now, the Corona vaccination in the green passport had an “expiration date” of nine months. For several countries, entry requirements will be tightened because they fall from the list of countries with a…

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Two neighboring countries, Germany and Switzerland, now the Czech Republic and Croatia follow put Austria on the red entry list. As the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague announced on Friday, the new regulation will already apply from next Monday (13.09.2021). Unvaccinated persons must show a negative PCR test when entering the Czech Republic and go into quarantine. This can then only be ended on the fifth day at the earliest with a second negative PCR test result. Those who have been fully vaccinated for at least 14 days, on…

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