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Afghanistan

UN AGENCIES have asked donors for

$4.4 billion in aid for Afghanistan in 2022, calling the funds an “essential stop gap” to ensure the country’s future after a period of turmoil marked by the Taliban’s seizure of power and a hasty US exit.

The UN says the appeal, which amounts to nearly a quarter of the country’s GDP, is the largest sought for a country and is triple the figure it received in 2021 when the Us-backed government collapsed.

The withdrawal of foreign aid last year left Afghanistan’s economy in near collapse. Western sanctions also prevented the flow of basic supplies. | Reuters

New York

US RESEARCHERS have found that cannabis compounds have the ability to prevent the virus that causes Covid-19 from entering human cells. A team from Oregon State University identified hemp, known scientifically as cannabis sativa, compounds via a chemical screening technique. The team found that a pair of cannabinoid acids bind to the Sars-cov-2 spike protein, blocking a critical step in the process the virus uses to infect people. The findings were published in the Journal of Natural Products. The compounds are cannabigerolic acid, or CBGA, and cannabidiolic acid, CBDA.

| IANS

Child labour

POPE Francis has urged governments to combat child labour, saying it was terrible that children were working as adults or scavenging in garbage dumps for something to sell. Francis also lamented that in many countries people were being exploited in the underground economy, working without legal protection. The UN International Labour Organization said in a report last year that the number of children in labour rose to about

160 million worldwide in 2020. Africa has the largest number of child workers in the world, with about 72 million, about 43% of them doing hazardous work. | Reuters

United States

THE US has announced an increase in Covid-19 tests for schools in a bid to keep pupils in the classroom, as a surge in infections threatens to bring back remote learning. About 4% of US schools have already shut with the Omicron variant tearing across the country. Teachers’ unions have been at loggerheads with local authorities, as families and experts remain torn about virtual education when effective vaccines are widely available from age 5 and up. President Joe Biden pledged an additional 10 million Covid-19 tests a month for US schools, with testing units to be deployed near school grounds. | AFP