BAKKACIMA BLOG

  WHO has said it is planning to approve several COVID-19 vaccines from Chinese and western manufacturers in the coming weeks/months, according to a document published on Wednesday, as the global health agency aims for rapid vaccine releases in poorer countries. COVAX, a global scheme co-led by the WHO, wants to deliver at least two billion COVID-19 doses across the world this year, with at least 1.3 billion going to poorer countries. Even when the facility has so far struggled to secure enough shots due to a shortage of funds, while wealthy nations have booked large volumes of vaccines for themselves.

India has been trending recently on different levels of incidents which have been marked by protests across the country. The latest is the  death of a father and son in police custody in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, which has caused outrage after the victims' family accused the police of torturing the duo in custody. P Jayaraj, 59, and his son J Bennix, 31, were imprisoned by police last Friday in Thoothukudi district for violating coronavirus lockdown orders in the state. The police accused them of opening their mobile phone shop beyond the 8pm limit. The police claim Bennix complained of chest pain and Jayaraj suffered from high fever while they were lodged inside the sub-jail of Kovilpatti. They were taken to Kovilpatti government hospital where both of them died within hours of each other, the police said.

In a post on the WhatsApp blog, the company has announced that digital payments for people and small businesses have just started. That is to say that  WhatsApp now has a new big feature, which is person-to-person payments. It’s just gone live in the past few hours, though only in one country right now: Brazil. Brazil for now is only the first step, obviously, and although no promises have been made of the feature making its way north to the U.S. or to other countries, it’s highly likely it will. This mirrors the way WhatsApp became so dominant in the first place - its multi-platform presence. Brilliant though the Messages app on iPhone is - and even though it’s probably about to see  a big upgrade announced by Apple in the coming days, its best experience is across Apple devices. Features such as invisible ink text, animated balloons and more are only visible on iPhone and iPad, for instance.

UBER Uber has furloughed 25% of its workforce in India, as it looks to cut costs to steer through the coronavirus pandemic. The job cuts, which affect teams across customer and driver support, business development, legal, policy, marketing, and finance, are part of the company’s global restructuring that eliminated 6,700 jobs this month.