World News in Brief: September 5

Mainland China reported 28 new COVID-19 cases on Sept. 4, the same as a day earlier, the country's national health authority said on Sunday. Total confirmed COVID-19 cases in mainland China stands at 95,010, with the death toll unchanged at 4,636.

Japan will issue online COVID-19 vaccination certificates from December, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Sunday.
Japan will issue online COVID-19 vaccination certificates from December, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Sunday.

* Russia's coronavirus cases tally hit 7 million on Sunday, with the country reporting 18,645 new infections in the past 24 hours and 793 more deaths. The latest figures took the total number of cases to 7,012,599, with the overall death toll at 187,200.

* US President Joe Biden will visit all three sites of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacking attacks next week to honor the nearly 3,000 people killed and mark the 20th anniversary of the most lethal terrorist assault on US soil, the White House said.

* Australia reported 1,684 new cases of the coronavirus on Sunday as authorities race ahead with vaccinations in a bid to end lockdowns on the populous southeast coast in the hope of making Christmas as close to normal as possible.

* New Zealand reported 20 local COVID-19 cases on Sunday, the same as in previous day, giving authorities more confidence that they are gaining a winning hand over the current outbreak of the highly transmissible Delta variant.

* Mexico has reported 15,586 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 as well as 647 more deaths, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 3,420,880 and the death toll to 262,868, health ministry data showed on Saturday.

* Italy reported 56 coronavirus-related deaths on Saturday, down from 58 the previous day, while the daily tally of new infections decreased to 6,157 from 6,735, the health ministry said.

* Britain has reported 37,578 new cases of COVID-19, government data showed on Saturday, meaning cases reported between Aug. 29 and Sept. 4 were up 2.4% compared with the previous seven days.

* Bahraini authorities have authorised the use of a booster dose of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, the first time the Russian shot has been approved for a third dose, the state-run Bahrain News Agency said on Saturday.

* A migrant caravan of around 400 people, including many children, set off from the southern Mexican city of Tapachula for the United States on Saturday, just a couple of days after security and migration officials dispersed another large group.

* Polls opened on Sunday in a presidential run-off in Sao Tome and Principe between the archipelago's former infrastructure minister Carlos Vila Nova, who won the first round in July, and former prime minister Guilherme Posser da Costa. The 262 polling stations in the former Portuguese colony in the Gulf of Guinea will close at 17:00 GMT.

* Syria said on Saturday that it welcomed Lebanon's request to import Egyptian gas for energy generation via its territory after Lebanese ministers made the highest level visit to Damascus in years.

* Two children were injured and buildings were damaged when a ballistic missile was intercepted over Saudi Arabia's oil-rich eastern region on Saturday, the ministry of defence said.

Reuters