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Nepal battles worst forest fires in years as air quality drops

A senior official of Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said that wildfires were burning in at least 60 places across 22 of Nepal’s 77 administrative districts. 
The air quality index (AQI) in Kathmandu was at an unhealthy level of 174 on Friday, according to data published on iqair.com, a site that monitors air quality. An AQI level below 50 is considered good.

Mutants, sluggish vaccine drive, carelessness: Add them and you get Covid surge, say top scientists.

“A new double mutant has emerged in India and is reported in 15-20 per cent of cases analysed from Maharashtra. If this percentage goes up further, it would be a clear indication of its role in the Maharashtra surge,” said the virologist.

In India, variants first identified in the UK, South Africa and Brazil have been found.

Strong earthquake kills 6 people in Java, Indonesia; no tsunami warning

It was the second deadly disaster to hit Indonesia this week. On Sunday, a downpour triggered by Tropical Cyclone Seroja killed at least 165 people and damaged thousands of houses. Some were buried in either mudslides or solidified lava from a volcanic eruption in November, while others were swept away by flash flooding.

Covid-19 vaccine shortages hit 60 poor countries in ‘shocking imbalance’

On Friday, the head of the World Health Organization slammed the “shocking imbalance” in global COVID-19 vaccination. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus said that while one in four people in rich countries had received a vaccine, only one in 500 people in poorer countries had gotten a dose

The vaccine shortage stems mostly from India’s decision to stop exporting vaccines from its Serum Institute factory, which produces the overwhelming majority of the AstraZeneca doses that COVAX counted on to supply around a third of the global population at a time coronavirus is spiking worldwide.

Richer countries administer most of world’s vaccinations

As of Thursday, 40 per cent of the Covid-19 vaccines administered globally have gone to people in 27 wealthy nations that represent 11 per cent of the global population.

Countries making up the least-wealthy 11 per cent have gotten just 1.6 per cent of Covid-19 vaccines administered so far, according to an analysis of data collected by the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker.

SBI drags feet on loan to Adani firm for controversial Australian coal mine

The Carmichael mine has been the focus of environmental protests since it was proposed in 2010. SBI shareholders have joined the opposition. BlackRock and Norway’s Storebrand ASA raised their objections over the past year, and Amundi SA divested its holdings of SBI’s green bonds because of the bank’s ties to the Carmichael mine.

SBI Chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara, who took charge in October, is reticent to disburse the funds to Adani given the opposition to the Australian project, bank officials said. Still, no decision has yet been made about the loan, they said.

After Facebook, LinkedIn faces massive 500 mn users’ data leak: Report

The leaked data up on sale includes LinkedIn IDs, full names, email addresses, phone numbers, genders, links to LinkedIn profiles, links to other social media profiles, professional titles and other work-related data

“While users on the hacker forum can view the leaked samples for about $2 worth of forum credits, the threat actor appears to be auctioning the much-larger 500 million user database for at least a 4-digit sum, presumably in bitcoin,” the report mentioned.

Sustainable investment group UNPRI reviews Liberty Mutual membership over Australian coal mine plan

Liberty Mutual has faced a backlash from community groups, Aboriginal traditional owners and farmers who are opposed to the development of the mine that they say will worsen climate change and carries a risk of polluting local waterways that lead out to the Great Barrier Reef.