Briefly

UNITED STATES

Senate passes stopgap debt default deal

The US Senate voted on Thursday to stave off a credit default that would have sparked a recession and roil world markets as Democrats and Republicans agreed to a stopgap fix to raise the nation's debt limit. The breakthrough, which temporarily defers the crisis by adding another $480 billion to the allowable debt total, came with an estimated 11 days to go until the country would no longer have been able to borrow money or pay off loans for the first time in its history. Chuck Schumer, who leads the Democrats in the Senate, announced the breakthrough deal after fractious negotiations in Congress going into the early hours of the morning.

SWITZERLAND

WHO targets 40%vaccination rate

The World Health Organization announced on Thursday an initiative to vaccinate 40 percent of the population of every country against COVID-19 by the end of 2021 and 70 percent by mid-2022, by prioritizing vaccine deliveries to low-income countries, particularly those in Africa. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said achieving these targets will require at least 11 billion doses, which is an allocation problem instead of a supply problem. Records show that more than 6.4 billion vaccine doses have already been administered globally, with almost one-third of the world's population fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

AFGHANISTAN

At least 100 dead, wounded in blast

A Taliban police official said on Friday at least 100 people have been killed and wounded in a mosque explosion targeting Shiite Muslims in northern Afghanistan. Dost Mohammad Obaida said the "majority of them have been killed". There was no immediate claim for the blast in Kunduz Province. A doctor at Kunduz Central Hospital, who did not want to be named, said: "So far, we have received 35 dead bodies and over 50 wounded people in our hospital." Another hospital run by Doctors Without Borders received the bodies of at least 15 people, a source said.

Xinhua - Agencies