The News Room

  IMAGE SOURCE, AGENCIA PRESS SOUTH/GETTY IMAGES Image caption, The government says there are enough doses to vaccinate the entire population Ecuador has announced that the Covid-19 vaccine will be mandatory for most citizens, saying the measure is needed because of a rise in infections and the spread of variants such as Omicron. The health ministry said there were enough doses to "immunise the entire population". Those with a medical justification will be exempt. All others aged five or over must be vaccinated. To date, 77.2% of the eligible population has been given two doses. And more than 900,000 people have received a booster shot. The ministry said vaccines were a "shield of protection" against the virus, helping to prevent serious illness, hospitalisations and deaths. The decision, it added, was based in the country's constitution, in which the right to health must be guaranteed by the state. Austria and Germany are among other countries planning a simila...

    Japan now has 107 people on death row at detention centres, instead of regular prisons. Japan hanged three death-row inmates on Tuesday, its first executions in two years, amid growing criticism by human rights groups of the country’s use of the death penalty. One of the three, Yasutaka Fujishiro, was convicted of killing seven people and setting fire to their house in 2004, while the other two, Tomoaki Takanezawa and Mitsunori Onogawa, were convicted in the 2003 killings of two pinball parlor employees. Executions are carried out in high secrecy in Japan, where prisoners are not informed of their fate until the morning they are hanged. Since 2007, Japan has begun disclosing the names of those executed and some details of their crimes, but information is still limited. Justice Minister Yoshihisa Furukawa said at a news conference that the three had committed “extremely ghastly” crimes and the punishment was appropriate. Mr. Furukawa declined to comment on the timing of the...