The World Health Organisation on Aug 14 declared mpox a global public health emergency for the second time in two years, following an outbreak of the viral infection in Democratic Republic of Congo that has spread to neighbouring countries.

       An emergency committee met earlier on Aug 14 to advise WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on whether the disease outbreak constitutes a “public health emergency of international concern,” or PHEIC.

       PHEIC status is WHO’s highest level of alert and aims to accelerate research, funding and international public health measures and cooperation to contain a disease.

       “It’s clear that a coordinated international response is essential to stop these outbreaks and save lives,” said Dr Tedros.

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       Ukraine’s forces advanced further into Russia’s Kursk region on Aug 14, as Kyiv said its gains would provide a strategic buffer zone to protect its border areas from Russian attacks.

       Kyiv’s surge into Russian territory last week caught Moscow by surprise. Russian forces that began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 had been grinding out steady gains all year.

       Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met top officials to discuss the humanitarian situation and possible establishment of military administrations in an occupied area that Ukraine says exceeds 1,000 sq km.

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       Myanmar’s embattled junta chief and China’s foreign minister on Aug 14 discussed security along their shared border where ethnic minority armed groups have captured territory from the Myanmar military in recent weeks, junta media said.

       China is a major ally and arms supplier to the junta but analysts say it also maintains ties with ethnic armed groups fighting the military in Myanmar’s northern Shan state.

       The meeting in the capital Naypyidaw was the first between Mr Wang Yi and General Min Aung Hlaing, chief of the junta that seized power in 2021 when it deposed the government of Ms Aung San Suu Kyi.

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       Argentine ex-president Cristina Kirchner testified on Aug 14 in the trial of three people charged in an attempt to kill her in 2022, saying the planners and financiers of the attack had yet to be found.

       The three in the dock, said Kirchner, were merely the executors of the plan.

       “We have the material authors but not to the ideologues and financiers,” Kirchner, 71, said as she came face to face with 37-year-old Fernando Sabag Montiel, who is accused of having pointed a gun at her head at point blank range and pulling the trigger twice. The gun misfired.

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       Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama and his team were robbed during a stopover in London while heading to the first leg of the PGA Tour playoffs after winning a bronze medal at the Paris Olympics, Japanese media reported on Aug 14.

       The former Masters champion told Golf Digest Japan that he had his wallet stolen, and the passports and visas of his caddie, Shota Hayato, and coach Mikihito Kuromiya were also taken.

       World number 12 Matsuyama told the website that Hayato and Kuromiya have returned to Japan and are working to get their documents reissued.

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