WORLD

The Omicron wave appears to have spiked in some regions of the world even as big economies push for booster doses to prevent another Covid-19 wave. While the daily cases in the UK have halved over two weeks, the Omicron wave in Australia's New South Wales and Victoria has reportedly peaked.

However, countries like Japan are still witnessing a high daily caseload as an increased number of restrictions come into force.

Here are the top coronavirus related developments around the world:

The daily Covid-19 cases in the United Kingdom have halved in the last two weeks. On Saturday, the UK recorded 76,807 new Covid cases, down by 54 per cent from 176,191 cases detected two weeks ago.

It’s been five months since the Taliban took over the reins in Afghanistan, but the National Resistance Force (NRF) is still fighting them, committed to oust the extremists from power. The NRF has issued a video message, which has appeared on social media, in which they are seen urging people of Afghanistan to not be silent.

In a separate audio message, NRF leader Ahmad Massoud clarified that their struggle is not for a specific ethnic group, or geography, but for complete independence of Afghanistan.

Some photos being circulated on social media show that NRF fighters now have the anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM) to destroy the Taliban vehicles.

Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia said on Thursday that negotiations on President Joe Biden's signature economic legislation will start again at square one — if and when it ever gets off the ground.

"We'll just be starting from scratch, whenever they start," Manchin told media. "I'm hoping to talk to everybody. We'll just start with a clean sheet of paper and start over but we're off that," he told reporters, referring to a $1.8 trillion compromise Manchin offered the White House in mid-December that didn't include an extension of the popular child tax credit monthly checks to parents. The Washington Post first reported it.

He also appeared far more interested in forging a bipartisan elections reform bill with negotiations underway on the Electoral Count Act. "We can work on everything," he told Insider, adding that voting rights are "the thing we want to make sure we get done quickly."

Not only was it sudden, but highly intense, so much so that shockwaves from this volcanic eruption were felt across different countries, including the United States. The eruption captured in satellite images has shocked people across the world as the undersea volcano erupted in a giant mushroom cloud in the Pacific.

Researchers have now estimated that the volcanic cloud suggests that it reached an altitude of 39 kilometer above the surface, indicating the devastating energy it carried. The eruption went as high as 1,28,000 feet in air, lasting for about 10 minutes. The power of the eruption of the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai volcano ranks among the world’s biggest over the past 30 years, and the height of the plume of ash.

Simon Proud, a researcher at the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford, who released the analysis based on preliminary data, however, said, "These are unheard of altitudes and our usual methods do not work as well up there. Even if this gets corrected downwards it will still be extraordinarily high. I can't see it being below 30km in any case."

Looking to further step up "critical support" for Sri Lanka, which is battling an acute shortage of foreign exchange, India has offered a new line of credit (LoC) of $500 million to the island neighbour for purchase of petroleum products. Foreign minister S Jaishankar made the offer in a letter to his counterpart GL Peiris, said the Indian high commission in Colombo.

India had recently also extended foreign exchange support of over $900 million to Sri Lanka for import of essential items like food and medicines.