Zimbabwe

Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has embarked on a five-nation Africa tour, which includes a visit to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Gabon and Sao Tome and Principe.

He will visit these countries between Jan. 8 and 14, the Foreign Ministry said in a written statement over the weekend.

Zimbabwe's annual inflation rate quickened to 191.6 percent in June, more than doubling the consumer price increases of two months ago, official statistics showed on June 25.

Inflation which was at 96.4 percent in April, crept up to nearly 200 percent as prices of cooking oil and bread are leaping higher as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Entering their fourth day without power or water, Durban's poorest residents lined up on Thursday to collect water from burst pipes and dug through layers of mud to retrieve their few possessions.

There was a sense of despair amid the stench of sewage, growing stronger as the rains which wrought so much devastation stopped and the tropical heat returned.

Turkey has detected the first cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, the country's health minister has said, calling on people to remain calm but vigilant.

"One of the [Omicron] cases was in Istanbul and the other five cases were in [the western province of] İzmir," Fahrettin Koca told lawmakers in parliament on Dec. 11 during discussions on the Health Ministry's 2022 budget.

Ljubljana – The Health Ministry has issued guidelines on testing for persons who receive mandatory quarantine orders following their return to Slovenia from areas and countries with the new coronavirus variant Omicron – currently South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and Zimbabwe.

Namely, as Novosti writes, the medical part of the Crisis Staff will request quarantine to be introduced for passengers from all countries where the omicron strain has been confirmed. But, since omicron is registered in many European countries, it is not certain that such a decision will be made.

The pandemic outlook has not changed significantly in Turkey and this course of COVID-19 makes it easier to bring the disease under control, the country's Health Minister has said.

The number of daily coronavirus infections, which climbed to record highs in April but declined to around 5,000, has remained below 30,000 since mid-October.

The Bulgarian Foreign Ministry has recommended avoiding travel to the South African region because of Omicron, a new variant of the coronavirus that has been declared a concern by the World Health Organization.

Turkish experts have urged the public to remain calm and not panic amid threats from the new COVID-19 strain, Omicron, but also called on people to get vaccinated and stick to anti-virus rules.

Turkey on Nov. 26 banned travel from five African nations, including South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia, and Zimbabwe, as a precaution against the new variant.

Turkey, the United States, Brazil, Canada, and Saudi Arabia became the latest countries on Nov. 26 to restrict travel from southern Africa, where a new Covid strain labelled a "variant of concern" has been discovered in a potentially heavy blow to the world's efforts to end the coronavirus pandemic.