Briefly

UNITED STATES

Biden's 40% rating a dark sign for Democrats

Three weeks from midterm elections in the United States, President Joe Biden's approval rating stayed close to the lowest level of his presidency as citizens worried about inflation, a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll completed on Tuesday found. The two-day national poll found that 40 percent of respondents approve of Biden's job performance, unchanged from a week earlier. Biden's unpopularity is helping drive the view that Republicans will win control of the House of Representatives on Nov 8, though experts said Democrats have a better chance of keeping the Senate. By even controlling just the House, Republicans would be able to bring Biden's legislative agenda to a halt.

SOUTH KOREA

Chat app's co-chief resigns after outage

Kakao's co-CEO Whon Namkoong has stepped down, the company said on Wednesday, after an outage that shut down South Korea's largest mobile chat app and other services, triggering a widespread backlash from authorities and the public. The resignation, effective Wednesday, leaves co-CEO Hong Eun-taek as the sole CEO. The company apologized for the outage that started on Saturday due to a fire at a data center run by SK C&C near Seoul. Most of its systems were restored by Wednesday, but miscellaneous functions remain shaky and disruptions to a wide range of services from payments to taxis and restaurant bookings have raised questions about public reliance on the app.

CAMEROON

Cholera outbreak kills at least 10 in Far North

Authorities in Cameroon's Far North region on Tuesday declared an outbreak of cholera after recording at least 10 deaths arising from the disease. A total of 113 suspected cases of cholera had been recorded as of Monday, the official media outlet CRTV reported, quoting the region's Governor Midjiyawa Bakari as saying. Bakari made the disclosure during a crisis meeting held on Tuesday in the region's capital Maroua. Three health districts of the region, including Mokolo where the country's largest refugee camp is located, have been affected, according to health officials in the region. Bakari said the resurgence was due to poor sanitation.

Agencies - Xinhua