World News

Your Thursday Briefing – The New York Times


The West African nation of Ghana received the first major shipment of Covid-19 vaccines under a global sharing program aimed at making vaccine access more equal. Ghana and other West African countries will begin vaccinations in the coming days, officials said.

The program, called Covax, has a goal of delivering two billion free doses of Covid-19 vaccines to 92 low- and middle-income countries this year, which officials said would make it the largest vaccine procurement and supply operation in history.

Context: Many public health officials have criticized the unequal distribution of vaccines as wealthy nations have bought up tens of millions of doses for their populations. At least 44.5 million Americans, for instance, have already received a shot. The Ghana shipment of 600,000 doses covers just 1 percent of the population.

President Emmanuel Macron of France has called for Europe and the U.S. to send up to 5 percent of their vaccine supplies to developing nations. The doses of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine sent to Ghana were produced by the Serum Institute of India.

Context: When antigovernment protests swept Hong Kong in 2019, pro-Beijing officials blamed the education system for promoting liberal values. Since then, Beijing has imposed a strict set of restrictions on the city in its efforts to quash dissent.


The global market for Japanese anime reached an estimated $24 billion by 2019, and the pandemic has only increased demand. But many of the workers who help create the shows make as little as $200 a month, and under grueling working conditions. Above, Tokyo’s Akihabara district, a center of anime culture.

Studios can pay low wages because there are so many young people passionate about anime who want to work in the business. “There are a lot of artists out there who are amazing,” said a translator who works in the industry, so the studios “have a lot of cannon fodder.”

Tiger Woods: The golfer was “awake, responsive and recovering” after surgery for injuries to his right leg sustained in a single-car crash. He was said to have been driving at a “greater speed than normal” when the crash occurred.

China women: A divorce court ordered a man to pay his wife more than $7,700 in compensation for the housework she did during their marriage. The landmark decision prompted a fierce debate, with many saying the sum was inadequate.

Australia: A woman filed a formal police report against a former government employee who she said raped her in 2019. Since she went public, three other women have come forward about the same man.

Israel: A memoir by the daughter of Amos Oz, one of Israel’s most celebrated authors, who died in 2018, has shocked the country with allegations of physical and emotional abuse. Other family members have defended him.

“A growing number of the biggest pop stars in the world are from outside the traditional capitals of the continental U.S. and U.K.,” Lucas Shaw of Bloomberg writes. According to Bloomberg’s most recent Pop Star Power rankings — based on album sales, digital streams, YouTube views and more — five of the 25 biggest current pop stars are from Puerto Rico. Another seven are from Colombia, India or South Korea. YouTube is another place where English-speaking acts are losing their dominance, as Tim Ingham writes in Rolling Stone.

In part, the trend reflects the global popularity of Latin music like reggaeton, and of Korean music, notably K-pop. The band BTS, for example, held a two-day online concert event in October that sold nearly a million tickets across almost 200 countries, Variety reported.

The trend also reflects the growth of the world’s consumer markets, like India’s. When we checked the YouTube ranking yesterday, six of the top 10 artists on YouTube’s global charts were from India; the others were from Puerto Rico, Colombia or South Korea.


That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Jillian


Thank you
To Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the break from the news. Sanam Yar wrote the Back Story. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

P.S.
• We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is the second of two episodes on Covid in New York’s nursing homes.
• Here’s our Mini Crossword, and a clue: Wild party, slangily (five letters). You can find all our puzzles here.
• Top executives at The Times are calling for more workplace diversity following a report based on interviews with more than 400 employees.



Sahred From Source link World News

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *