EAST AFRICA: Drought is threatening millions of people in the Horn of Africa.

More than six million people in Ethiopia are expected to need urgent humanitarian aid by mid-March, Unicef said today. 

And in neighbouring Somalia more than seven million people need urgent help, the Somali NGO Consortium said in a separate statement, pleading with international donors to give much more. 

This could be the region’s worst drought in 40 years, the consortium said.

GENEVA: The World Health Organisation said today that overuse of gloves, “moon suits” and the use of billions of masks and vaccination syringes to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus have spurred a huge glut of healthcare waste worldwide.

The UN health agency said that tens of thousands of tons of extra medical waste has strained waste management systems and is threatening both health and the environment, pointing to a dire need to improve those systems and get a response from both governments and people.

UNITED STATES: Tesla is recalling nearly 54,000 cars and SUVs because its “full self-driving” software lets them roll through stop signs without coming to a complete halt.

Tesla agreed to the recall after two meetings with officials from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. 

The “rolling stop” feature allows vehicles to go through intersections with all-way stop signs at up to 5.6 miles per hour. The firm will disable the feature with a software update. 

Tesla said that it knows of no crashes or injuries caused by the feature.