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Hard Numbers: Vaxxed summer in the EU, Biden scraps "Remain in Mexico" policy, Lebanon is "sinking," boat in flames off Sri Lanka

June 02, 2021
Gabrielle Debinski
All traffic lights are green to create a European vaccination passport before the start of the summer holidays. The European Parliament wants to make haste and has laid down its own principles for an EU travel ticket. Vacations without mandatory quarantines or tests. This is proof that someone has been vaccinated, tested or has sufficient antibodies after a previous infection. Rotterdam, Netherlands on April 29, 2021

7:Seven EU countries — Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Croatia, and Poland — have rolled out a COVID vaccination certificate meant to facilitate easy travel within the European Union. The system, which documents whether a person has been fully vaccinated, recovered from COVID-19 or tested negative within 72 hours, will be fully operational throughout all 27 EU states by July 1.

68,000: The Biden administration has officially scrapped a Trump-era immigration rule that required around 68,000 migrants seeking asylum in the US to remain in Mexico while awaiting their court dates. The Biden administration says the Trump policy failed in its stated goal of addressing asylum backlogs.

3: Lebanon's economic crisis will soon be amongst the worst three global financial crises since the mid-nineteenth century, according to a new World Bank report. Sustained financial and economic stagnation, compounded by last year's Beirut port explosion and fallout from COVID, have resulted in soaring inflation and poverty. "Lebanon is sinking," the report says.

25: A sinking ship off the coast of Sri Lanka, which has been burning for weeks after catching fire upon leaving an Indian port, was carrying at least 25 tons of nitric acid used to make explosives and other chemicals. Environmentalists say that if the abandoned ship sinks, it will wreak havoc on marine life in the area.

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