More than two billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered worldwide and several states have decided to open vaccination to over 12s, while G7 health ministers are meeting to discuss dose sharing with poor countries. 215 countries or territories are concerned, less than six months after the start of the first vaccination campaigns in December 2020. Israel remains the country with the most advanced vaccination campaign, with nearly six in ten Israelis already fully vaccinated. Also among the leading countries are countries such as Canada (59% of the population received at least one dose), the United Kingdom (58.3%), Chile (56.6%) and the United States (51%), while in the EU, 254.98 million doses were administered to 39% of its inhabitants. In Africa, hit by a new rise in cases, vaccine deliveries are almost at a standstill, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Thursday.

In London, a group of lawyers and human rights experts investigating the treatment of the Uighur Muslim minority in China's Xinjiang region begins a series of witness hearings in London on Friday, described as a "lie machine" by Beijing. The nine members of the "Uyghur Tribunal", so named despite the absence of any judicial authority, will collect first-hand testimonies on the crimes denounced against the Uyghurs, forced sterilizations, torture, abductions and forced labour. After the hearings, the organization intends to say whether it believes that Beijing has been guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity against the Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in China. Vice President Nick Vetch declined to comment on Beijing's attacks on the move. He promised that his work would be "impartial", based on testimonies collected this week and in September and on "thousands of pages" of documents already accumulated. It will be based "on evidence, nothing but evidence".

The France suspends, as a precautionary and temporary measure, its joint military operations with the Malian army. Paris ended up banging its fist on the table in an attempt to push the ruling junta towards the political transition demanded by the international community. This decision will be reassessed in the coming days in the light of the answers to be provided by the Malian authorities. Mali is shaken by two coups in nine months, is a key country in the fight against jihadists in the Sahel, in which the France is very involved. With this decision, Paris is demonstrating on the ground its condemnation of the coup d'état and is trying to support the pressure of the international community on mali's military putschists to obtain a return of power to civilians after elections scheduled for 2022. The France followed in the footsteps of the United States, whose State Department suspended assistance to Mali's security and defense forces at the end of May. The French Barkhane force, with 5,100 soldiers in the Sahel, will continue to operate but for the time being solo, says the Ministry of the Armed Forces.

Orange is asked to explain himself after the breakdown of the emergency numbers. The telephone operator Orange apologized for the "extremely rare" outage that prevented access to emergency numbers throughout the France the day before a return to "normal" Thursday at the end of the day. An unprecedented event that could be linked to the death of at least four people including a young child, according to a still very provisional assessment. For at least seven hours on Wednesday evening, from about 4:45 p.m. according to a minister, numbers 15 (Samu), 17 (police), 18 (firefighters) and 112 (single European number) were inaccessible or very difficult to access throughout the France, forcing people to call back many times, or to use 10-digit hotlines set up as a matter of urgency by the authorities. The situation would be completely normal. People can call these numbers, they will be perfectly routed to their destination," Orange CEO Stéphane Richard told RTL. The Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, for his part castigated "serious and unacceptable dysfunctions" and announced that at least three people, including one in Morbihan and two in Reunion, had died of cardiovascular accidents. In the early evening, the prefecture of the Vendée announced the death of a 28-month-old child, evoking a "drama" occurred in the context of the breakdown. The prosecutor's office in Vannes, Morbihan, has opened an investigation after the death of a 63-year-old man in the emergency room of the Vannes hospital. The prefect requested an administrative investigation.

Israel is nearing the end of an era after the formation in extremis of a heterogeneous coalition that could in the coming days oust Benjamin Netanyahu, the most perennial prime minister in the history of the country. This unprecedented coalition is made up of eight parties -- two left-wing, two center, three right-wing and one Arab party -- that are opposed to everything except the desire to remove Mr. Netanyahu from power. Parliament's vote of confidence in the government team is due to take place within a week, but Netanyahu began on Thursday to ramp up attempts at destabilization, hoping for last-minute defections.

  "All MPs elected with the support of the right must oppose this dangerous left-wing government," he tweeted in the morning, breaking his silence since the proclamation of the coalition agreement.

  From his personal Twitter account, the leader of Mr. Netanyahu's Likud party called on his former right-wing allies to "withdraw now" their signatures.

  To finish and in short, three police officers have been indicted for manslaughter in the investigation into the death in 2019 in Drancy (Seine-Saint-Denis) of a man after a choke key during his arrest, according to the Bobigny prosecutor's office.

A woman was seriously injured by her husband in the street in Metz, the man then attempting suicide. The public prosecutor is due to hold a press conference on Friday at 15:00 on this "attempted intentional homicide by spouse". 

After a false bomb threat, an Air France plane from Chad was escorted by a Rafale and then searched for a long time, at the Paris Roissy Charles-de-Gaulle airport, without "any explosive device" having been found on board.

French football validates a tightened elite. Thus, Ligue 1 will increase from 20 to 18 clubs from the 2023-2024 season, decided Thursday the General Assembly of clubs. This reform is supposed to contribute to the recovery of a professional football battered in recent months.