Day: December 21, 2021

We’re covering Asia-Pacific approaches to Omicron and progress in India’s ambitious water-access plan.

NAIROBI, Kenya — The captain and first officer of a ship that hit a coral reef and spilled toxic fuel off the coast of Mauritius last year in the worst environmental disaster in the island nation’s recent history have pleaded guilty to endangering safe navigation.

The spill was an environmental calamity for Mauritius, an Indian Ocean nation off the coast of East Africa that is famous for its stunning beaches and lagoons. It destroyed the livelihoods of fishermen and tourism workers and threatened biodiversity hot spots, including prominent snorkeling and diving areas.

The captain, Sunil Kumar Nandeshwar, and the first

TUNIS — Nearly 100 candidates declared they were running for president, a few of them among the most prominent in Libyan politics. More than a third of Libyans registered to vote, and most signaled their intention to cast ballots.

Western leaders and United Nations officials had thrown their support behind the election, one they said represented the best hope of reunifying and pacifying a country still largely divided in two and dazed from nearly a decade of internecine fighting.

For more than a year now, Libya has been hurtling toward a long-awaited presidential election scheduled for Friday, the 70th anniversary

LONDON — Last Thursday night, many people in Britain were worrying about the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, and whether the pandemic was about to disrupt Christmas plans for the second year in a row.

The country had just broken a record for new daily cases of the virus and Prime Minister Boris Johnson had urged the public to “think carefully” before going to Christmas parties.

But for three carol singers standing outside Leadbelly’s, a bar in south London, there was a more immediate problem: a lack of tenors.

Zoë Bonner, 41, a soprano and co-organizer of a caroling pub

ISTANBUL — The list of things that Bilal, a Turkish factory worker, and his family have had to give up is growing longer by the day. They stopped buying meat a year ago and recently had to cut back on using their gas heater and cooking oil, and on snacks for the children.

He and his wife are already heavily in debt and with inflation spiraling higher over the past two months, they cannot make ends meet even after those sacrifices. So Bilal had to turn to his mother for financial help this month, cashing in two gold coins she