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Earlier this year, Germany's environment ministry suggested there should be stricter limits on importing trophies from hunting animals. Botswana's President Mokgweetsi Masisi told German media this would only impoverish people in his country. He said elephant numbers had exploded as a result of conservation efforts, and hunting helped keep them in check. Germans should "live together with the animals, in the way you are trying to tell us to", Mr Masisi told German newspaper Bild. Herds were causing damage to property, eating crops and trampling residents, Mr Masisi said. Germany is the EU's largest importer of African elephant trophies, and...

Home to the world’s largest elephant population, Botswana has already gifted 8,000 of the animals to Angola and offered another 500 to Mozambique. For the second time this year, Botswana has threatened to send thousands of elephants to Europe. In March, the southern African nation warned it would fill one of London’s parks with the animals. Now, the president has said his country will send 20,000 elephants to Germany. The warnings have been sparked by a diplomatic row as the UK and Germany mull the idea of stricter limits on the import of hunting trophies amid concerns over poaching. Why...

Scientists say Omicron appears to have a clear lab origin Future lab releases of Covid-19 variants are “likely” When Omicron emerged, many scientists were bowled over by the lightning speed with which it spread. Although public health officials had warned that the original Covid-19 was highly contagious and fast-moving— it looked like it was standing still next to the Omicron variant. Watch video at link: Link Now, some scientists examining the virus have concluded “vast” genetic mutations that likely occurred in a lab setting are what makes Omicron spread so quickly. Omicron was first detected in Botswana, South Africa, reported...

When the Botswanan scientists saw the sequences, they were stunned. Four international travelers had tested positive for COVID-19 on Nov. 11, four days after entering the country. But when the cases were genetically sequenced, where the genetic code of the virus is analyzed to look for worrying changes, the scientists discovered a variant they had never encountered before. And soon, they alerted the world to what would become known as the omicron variant. The team in Botswana was headed by Sikhulile Moyo, the laboratory director at the Botswana-Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership and a research associate with the Harvard T.H. Chan...

Botswana's government on Monday lost a legal attempt to overturn a landmark ruling that decriminalized homosexuality. The country's High Court in 2019 ruled in favor of campaigners seeking to strike down jail sentences for same-sex relationships, declaring the punishment to be unconstitutional. But the government sought to revoke the ruling, arguing that the courts had no jurisdiction in this matter.

Gay rights campaigners expressed joy at the Botswana court of appeal’s decision to uphold a ruling that decriminalised same-sex relationships, saying the country’s judiciary had set an example for other African countries. The government had appealed a 2019 ruling that criminalising homosexuality was unconstitutional. The ruling had been hailed as a major victory for gay rights campaigners on the continent, following an unsuccessful attempt in Kenya to repeal colonial-era laws criminalising gay sex. Dismissing the appeal on Monday, the bench of five judges unanimously ruled that criminalising same-sex relationships was a violation of the constitutional rights of LGBTQ+ individuals to...

<p>The new ‘Omicron’ variant of COVID-19 was first detected in four people who were fully vaccinated, according to a public statement by the Botswana government.</p><p>The new variant, which some claim is three times more contagious, was initially discovered in Botswana before it spread across South Africa.</p>

The US will restrict travel from South Africa and seven other nearby countries from next week as fears grow over the new COVID-19 Omicron variant, the White House said Friday. The travel ban, which doesn’t apply to American citizens or permanent residents, will come into effect from Monday. The new restrictions apply to South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi.

Researchers in South Africa are racing to track the concerning rise of a new variant of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The variant harbours a large number of mutations found in other variants, including Delta, and it seems to be spreading quickly across South Africa. A top priority is to track the variant more closely as it spreads: it was first identified in Botswana this month and has turned up in travellers to Hong Kong from South Africa. Scientists are also trying to understand the variant’s properties, such as whether it can evade immune responses triggered by vaccines and whether...

>PRETORIA, November 26. / TASS /. South African doctors and experts have found no evidence that the new B.1.1.529 COVID-19 variant causes severe illnesses, Health Minister Joe Phaahla stated during a press conference on Friday. >"[At this stage], the scientists have found no evidence that this variant will create severe illnesses," the health minister noted. He also emphasized that no scientific evidence regarding an increased aggressiveness of the B.1.1.529 variant had been reported so far. "Scientists have found no evidence that this variant is more transmissible," Phaahla pointed out. >The health minister mentioned that it was too early to say...

The new COVID-19 variant first detected in South Africa was given the name Omicron by the World Health Organization on Friday. An advisory panel classified Omicron as a highly transmissible virus of concern and gave it its name under its Greek-letter system. It marks the first time in months that WHO has classified a COVID-19 variant with such a name – and is only the fifth variant to be given the designation amid the pandemic.

Thanksgiving has come and gone. While many Americans suffered high food prices and travel costs due to higher gasoline prices, President “Middle Class Joe” Biden was enjoying his Thanksgiving on Nantucket with billionaire David Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group private equity firm, at his compound/mansion. After Biden and The Fed have done a “Nantucket Sleigh-ride” on the American middle class. It is only appropriate that Biden and his clan party on Nantucket. But Americans have a lot to be scared about: inflation (turkey prices were up 24% according to the Farm Bureau and a new COVID outbreak B.1.1.529 —...

(Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures slumped on Friday, with travel, bank and commodity-linked stocks bearing the brunt of the selloff, as the discovery of a new and possibly vaccine-resistant coronavirus variant spooked investors ahead of a short trading session.

"We are currently on the verge of a state of emergency" he said in a live address, adding that the B.1.1.529 variant had "arrived at a very complicated time", coinciding with the Hanukkah vacation when children, mostly unvaccinated, are out of school.

The US will not restrict travel from South Africa, where a new 'super mutant' variant of COVID-19 is panicking scientists, until officials can study the variant more, Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Friday despite the UK and some European countries banning travel. The World Health Organization is currently meeting to discuss the variant, which is expected to be named Nu, today. It remains unclear exactly how deadly it is among unvaccinated people, and American health agencies are yet to make any form of warning about it but there are fears it is more transmissible than any other variant yet and...

Israel right this moment turned the most recent nation to formally report a case of the super-mutant Botswana Covid variant, as it spreads to no less than four nations in simply two weeks Its well being ministry mentioned the affected person examined constructive for B.1.1.529 after getting back from Malawi, suggesting it’s already widespread on continental Africa. There are two different suspected instances in the nation.

Professor Francois Balloux, a geneticist at University College London, said it likely emerged in a lingering infection in an immunocompromised patient, possibly someone with undiagnosed AIDS, the report added. Changes to the spike make it difficult for current jabs to fight off, because they train the immune system to recognise an older version of this part of the virus. ....

British experts have sounded the alarm over a new Covid variant believed to have emerged in Botswana that is the most mutated version of the virus yet.

British experts have sounded the alarm over a new Covid variant believed to have emerged in Botswana that is the most mutated version of the virus yet. Only 10 cases of the strain, which could be named 'Nu', have been detected so far. But it has already been spotted in three countries, suggesting the variant is more widespread. It carries 32 mutations, many of which suggest it is highly transmissible and vaccine-resistant, and has more alterations to its spike protein than any other variant. Professor Francois Balloux, a geneticist at University College London, said it likely emerged in a lingering...

A huge rough diamond, an impressive stone with a silvery sheen that fits in the palm of a hand, was discovered in June in Botswana, the Canadian company Lucara said Wednesday. The 1,174-carat gem, discovered on June 12, steals third place on the podium of the world's largest diamonds from another exceptional stone found a few days earlier, on June 1, in the same country but by another mining company. This is a "historic discovery, for us and for Botswana as well," commented Lucara's Managing Director, Naseem Lahri. "In the hierarchy of large stones, it ranks third," she proudly told...