A round-up of today's other stories in brief
New meningitis vaccine for €12m in Burkino Faso
LONDON – More than 12 million people in Burkino Faso will be the first to receive a new meningitis vaccine as part of an Africa-wide immunisation plan, the World Health Organisation said yesterday.
The vaccine, called MenAfriVac and made by Serum Institute of India, will be used to inoculate 450 million people throughout the continent by 2015.
It was developed for use against a type of the disease common in Africa and, at just 50 US cents per dose, it is designed to be cheap enough that poorer countries can afford it. It protects against bacterial meningitis A, a strain of the disease that causes annual epidemics in 25 countries in Africa in which thousands die and many more are permanently disabled. – (Reuters)
Nazi Samuel Kunz dies ahead of trial
BERLIN – One of the world’s most wanted Nazis, charged earlier this year with helping to kill 430,000 Jews in the Holocaust, has died at the age of 89 before he could stand trial, a German court said yesterday.
Samuel Kunz, charged in July with assisting in the murder of Jews at Belzec death camp near the Polish city of Lublin between 1942 and 1943, died on November 18th, the court in Bonn said.
Kunz, who was also accused of shooting dead 10 Jews, had been number three on the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s list of most-wanted Nazi war criminals after Sandor Kepiro of Hungary and Milivoj Asner of Austria.
Kunz’s case came to light during investigations into Ukrainian-born John Demjanjuk, who went on trial in Munich last year charged with helping to kill 27,900 Jews. – (Reuters)
Putin real leader, say Russians
MOSCOW – Prime minister Vladimir Putin is Russia’s real leader and 84 per cent of Russians believe he is just as powerful as he was before stepping down as president more than two years ago, a poll showed yesterday.
Mr Putin is the dominant member of what Russian officials call a ruling tandem with Dmitry Medvedev, whom Mr Putin tapped as his successor when a constitutional limit of two consecutive terms kept him out of the 2008 presidential race.
The poll, carried out between October 22nd and 25th by the Levada Centre, showed that 84 per cent of respondents believe Mr Putin has preserved his influence since stepping down as Kremlin chief in May 2008 to become prime minister. – (Reuters)