US closely monitoring case of lab worker who ‘possibly’ died of plague in Siberia, says Rubio

The Guardian, Mon 5 Oct 2026, Pjotr Sauer and Luke Harding 

Quarantine measures in place in several hospitals in eastern Russia amid uncertainty over death of Darya Shipilova 

Darya Shipilova died on the night of 2 October at a regional hospital in
Shelekhov. Photograph: Social Media

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has said the US is closely monitoring the case of a Russian laboratory worker who died last week after a reported accident at a plague research institute in Siberia.

“We’re watching and monitoring it closely,” Rubio said on Monday before leaving for a trip to Europe. “I ⁠don’t think it’s cause for alarm, but it is cause for focus and a cause just to keep an ⁠eye on it.”

Darya Shipilova, a 28-year-old employee at the anti-plague institute in the city of Irkutsk, became ill at work. She died two days later on the night of 2 October at a regional hospital in the nearby town of Shelekhov.

It remains unclear how she became unwell. Unconfirmed reports in Russian media have suggested Shipilova may have been infected after a mishap at the laboratory. Officials have not publicly confirmed that account.

Local media have reported that the institute has subsequently been locked down, with staff forced to sleep on the floor and on chairs. “They’ve been isolating everybody since Friday – more than 60 people,” one relative, Roman, told the news portal Siberia.Realities.

He said family members were allowed to drop off food at a checkpoint while tests were carried out inside the building. Similar quarantine restrictions have been placed on several other hospitals in and around the city.

Rubio, citing what ‌Russians have released about the death, said it seemed a worker in the lab became ​infected and there was concern the disease may have spread internally.

“There’s very limited travel between the US and Russia, obviously,” he said. “But like anything else, something like that gets out, it just quickly spreads.”

Senior Russian officials have added to public disquiet by sending conflicting messages. Alexey Tsydenov, the head of the Buryatia region, which neighbours Irkutsk, initially wrote that Shipilova had died of plague, before editing his post to say she had “possibly” died of the disease.

Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s health watchdog, said Shipilova died from “pneumonia of unknown aetiology”. It insisted that tests found no micro-organisms linked to her professional work and described the “sanitary and epidemiological” situation in the area as stable.

Authorities in the nearby city of Baikalsk briefly urged residents to avoid travelling to Shelekhov and surrounding settlements after what they said was unofficial information about a possible plague infection. They later deleted the post from social media.

“There are no obvious changes to daily life on the streets, but people are worried and anxious. Locals are angry that they are not being told anything,” said Elena Trifonova, a journalist with People of Baikal, an exiled Russian media outlet specialising in Siberia.

Despite the lack of a confirmed diagnosis, precautionary measures appear to have been introduced across the region. The US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported on Monday that several hospitals in Irkutsk had been placed under quarantine.

The outlet confirmed that staff from Shipilova’s workplace, the Irkutsk Anti-plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East, had been kept inside the institute since 2 October.

Patients at Irkutsk city clinical hospital No 1 and the Ivano-Matreninskaya children’s hospital said relatives were not being allowed to visit and people inside were not permitted to leave.

On social media, local residents described some of the precautions being introduced.

Ulyana Gavryunina, who went on Monday to one of Irkutsk’s main maternity hospitals for a routine check-up on Monday, said doctors refused to allow her mother in, citing a quarantine imposed over the suspected plague case. Gavryunina said staff member checked her for flu-like symptoms and asked her to fill out a screening form for infections, on which “plague” was listed. She posted a photograph of the form on Instagram.

Elsewhere, a mask requirement was introduced at the Irkutsk aluminium smelter in Shelekhov. The plant’s director, Artyom Fominykh, called it a preventive measure, saying: “Better safe than sorry.” Over the weekend several public events in Irkutsk were cancelled.

Shipolova’s death has prompted intervention from senior federal health officials. Anna Popova, the head of Rospotrebnadzor and the country’s chief sanitary doctor, travelled to Irkutsk on Friday.

She attended an emergency meeting of the regional sanitary and anti-epidemic commission over what officials called a suspected case of a “particularly dangerous infection”.

Igor Kobzev, the governor of the Irkutsk region, urged residents to remain calm after meeting Popova to coordinate the response. “All identified contacts have been placed under medical observation. As of today, none is showing signs of illness and laboratory tests have returned negative results,” he wrote on Telegram.

Kobzev made no reference to reports that a laboratory worker had died.

US politicians have raised concerns about the incident, which follows longstanding and unfounded allegations by the Kremlin that Ukraine has secretly carried out biological weapons research with the support of Washington.

A Republican representative, Don Bacon, a senior member of the House armed services committee, wrote on social media: “I remember hearing from anti-Ukraine voices about their so-called bio labs. It was Russian disinformation ops at their best. But in reality it is Russia with the bio labs.”

Plague remains endemic in parts of Siberia and the Russian far east, where the bacterium persists naturally among wild rodents and their fleas.
But human cases in Russia are rare. Before the suspected Irkutsk case, the country’s last recorded human infection was in 2016, when a 10-year-old boy in Siberia’s Altai Republic contracted plague after helping butcher a marmot.

“This case here seems like a rare lab accident and is unlikely to go much further,” Prof Ian Jones, a professor of virology at the University of Reading, in the UK, said. “Although it is true that pneumonic plague is directly transmissible, the contacts of the primary case are known and can be treated if they show any sign of infection.”

He added: “Plague carries a huge history and is still present in many parts of the world, including Russia, but the living conditions associated with previously spread plague are no longer generally true, antibiotics are available and its potential is therefore limited.”

The victim was working at the anti-plague institute in 

the Siberia city of Irkutsk. AFP via Getty Images.

Related Articles:

Rubio urges Russia to share more information on plague lab worker's death

WHO says it does not have ‘full picture’ from Russia following suspected plague death

Why scientists are concerned about leaks at biolabs

"Corona 1", Reykjavik, Iceland, Mar, 2020 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - 

(>13.46 Min - Reference to the Global Coronavirus crisis)

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Sweden admits failure to protect elderly in care homes

Yahoo – AFP, Pia OHLIN, May 10, 2020

Sweden, whose softer virus approach has garnered international attention, admits it
has failed to adequately protect the elderly, with around half of COVID-19 deaths
occurring among nursing home residents (AFP Photo/Jonathan NACKSTRAND)

Stockholm (AFP) - Bjorn Branngard's mother died in a Stockholm nursing home where five of the eight people in her section and more than a third of residents have so far succumbed to the new coronavirus.

"They didn't have time to take care of my mother," he told AFP.

Her coronavirus test came back negative two days after her death, but Branngard, who claims she died of neglect, says the nursing home staff lacked protective gear and were spreading the virus around the home.

Sweden, whose softer approach to the coronavirus has garnered international attention, admits it has failed to adequately protect the elderly, with around half of COVID-19 deaths occurring among nursing home residents.

Reports have flooded Swedish media in recent weeks of care home staff continuing to work despite a lack of protective gear.

Others have refused to work and workers are encouraged to stay home even with mild symptoms, leaving homes short-staffed.

Other personnel have admitted going to work despite exhibiting symptoms of the virus, potentially infecting residents, while some elderly have reportedly been infected while admitted to hospital for other treatments and then sent back to care homes where they unwittingly spread the disease.

Sweden has reported 3,220 deaths from the virus as of Saturday.

The country said early on that shielding those 70 and older was its top priority.

Yet 90 percent of those who had died as of April 28 were over the age of 70. Half were nursing home residents, and another quarter were receiving care at home, statistics from the Swedish Board of Health and Welfare show.

"We failed to protect our elderly. That's really serious, and a failure for society as a whole. We have to learn from this, we're not done with this pandemic yet," Health and Social Affairs Minister Lena Hallengren told Swedish Television recently.

Reports have flooded Swedish media of care home staff continuing to work 

despite a lack of protective gear (AFP Photo/Jonathan NACKSTRAND)

'Staff spread the virus'

Unlike many European countries, Sweden has kept its primary schools open as well as bars and restaurants, while urging people to respect social distancing and hygiene recommendations.

It did, however, ban visits to care homes on March 31.

Sweden's Nordic neighbours also introduced bans around the same time, but have recorded far fewer care home deaths.

But unlike in those countries, Swedish nursing homes are often large complexes with hundreds of residents.

They are only available to those in very poor health and unable to care for themselves, and residents are therefore "a very vulnerable group", according to Henrik Lysell of the Board of Health and Welfare.

Bjorn Branngard told AFP the personnel at his mother's home did not have proper protective gear.

"There was no protection. The personnel were going between different sections and spreading the virus."

In greater Stockholm, the epicentre of Sweden's virus spread, 55 percent of nursing homes have so far confirmed COVID-19 cases, according to Region Stockholm health authorities.

In greater Stockholm, the epicentre of Sweden's virus spread, 55 percent of nursing 

homes, where unions say some 40 percent of staff are unskilled workers on short-term 

contracts, have confirmed COVID-19 cases, local authorities say (AFP Photo/Jonathan 

NACKSTRAND)

Poor working conditions

Kommunal, Sweden's largest union for municipal employees which includes many care workers, has meanwhile blamed precarious working conditions for the unfolding tragedy.

It said that in March, 40 percent of staff at Stockholm nursing homes were unskilled workers employed on short-term contracts, with hourly wages and no job security, while 23 percent were temps.

In other words: people who often can't afford not to go to work even if they're sick.

"There are a lot of different people who work at several nursing homes, and that also leads to a greater spread," the head of Kommunal's nursing home division, Ulf Bjerregaard, said.

At the end of April, Kommunal filed a complaint to the Swedish Work Environment Authority, claiming that 27 of the 96 residents at the home where Branngard's mother lived had so far died of the virus, and yet staff were not being provided protective gear or offered testing.

The authority is studying the complaint, and prosecutors have opened a preliminary investigation.

Abdullah, a pseudonym for a 21-year-old refugee who didn't want to disclose his real name, has worked as an assistant in a care home outside Stockholm for two years.

He told AFP about a resident treated in hospital for a broken leg.

"She tested negative for the virus when she was with us. When she returned from the hospital three days later, she was positive," he said.

"We had protective aprons but no masks when we were working with her," he said, adding that he has since refused to go to work.

The Public Health Agency meanwhile said efforts to improve basic hygiene routines in the homes were paying off.

"Stockholm has actually had a clear decrease in cases (in nursing homes), that feels positive," state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell told reporters on Thursday.

Updated UK virus toll becomes world's second highest

Yahoo – AFP, James PHEBY, Joe JACKSON, May 5, 2020

Britain remains in lockdown as it tries to pivot this month to a new strategy built
around mass testing and tracing infected people and those they may have come
into contact with (AFP Photo/Tolga Akmen)

London (AFP) - Britain's death toll from the coronavirus has topped 32,000, according to an updated official count released Tuesday, pushing the country past Italy to become the second-most impacted after the United States.

The new toll, from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and regional health bodies, has not yet been incorporated into the government's daily figures, which records the current number of deaths as 29,427.

That is still higher than Italy, which on Tuesday said it has recorded 29,316 virus fatalities to date, but far short of the US where nearly 69,000 have died in the pandemic.

However, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab urged against trying to make reliable international comparisons.

"There are different ways of counting deaths... we now publish data that includes all deaths in all settings and not all countries do that," he said at the daily Downing Street press conference.

"Can you reliably know that all countries are measuring in the same way? And it also depends on how good, frankly, countries are in gathering their statistics."

Raab called the lives lost "a massive tragedy" and "something in this country, on this scale, in this way, that we've never seen before".

Tuesday's updated statistics, showing 32,313 total deaths by around April 24, means Britain has probably had the highest official death numbers in Europe for days.

'Real verdict'

The toll has jumped dramatically on several occasions as the ONS -- which tallies all deaths -- has regularly updated its count.

The agency releases figures weekly, covers periods up to two weeks prior and includes coronavirus deaths in care homes and the community.

Until late last month, the health ministry's daily tallies only counted those who died in hospital after having tested positive for COVID-19.

Even after it began to include all fatalities with the virus listed on the death certificate, its totals have been far short of the later ONS totals.

They have risen dramatically as the extent of the pandemic's impact on care homes has emerged.

Nearly 6,400 people with coronavirus have died in care homes in England alone, with numbers still rising even as the wider outbreak slows.

More than 2,000 of those were reported in the last week of April -- when Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Britain was "past the peak".

Meanwhile the ONS has also recorded a total of around 42,000 "excess deaths" -- how many more people have died in total than would normally be expected -- in the past five weeks.

It suggests Britain's true death toll from the virus may be even higher.

"I don't think we'll get a real verdict on how well countries have done until the pandemic is over," Raab added.

Britain, in its seventh week of an economically crippling lockdown, is trying to implement a new contact tracing strategy so it can ease the measures.

Johnson is expected to set out his plan to lift the stringent social distancing regime next Sunday, according to media reports.:

Young street doctor defies virus to help Belarus homeless

Yahoo – AFP, Alexander Grebenkin, May 3, 2020

Since the onset of the coronavirus a project providing free health care to the needy
and homeless in Belarus has seen a spike in demand (AFP Photo/Sergei GAPON)

Minsk (AFP) - For the past year-and-a-half medical student Karina Radchenko has provided free health care to the homeless in the Belarussian capital Minsk.

Since the onset of the coronavirus outbreak she has seen a spike in the number of people needing her help.

Many people who were eking out a living in the ex-Soviet country before the epidemic can no longer afford to purchase medicines or go to a doctor, said Radchenko.

Together with those sleeping rough on the streets some of them come to see her.

"They are now forced to ask for help together with the homeless because there's nowhere else they can get it," Radchenko told AFP during one of her street rounds.

The 28-year-old is the founder of "Street Medicine," the country's first volunteer project to treat the homeless and needy.

Pensioner Tatyana, who declined to give her last name, said she comes to see the volunteers "sometimes" -- when she runs out of money.

On a recent afternoon Radchenko distributed nonprescription medicines to her patients with the help of several fellow volunteers in a small park.

She and her assistants wore visors and gloves to protect themselves against the infections.

An elderly woman turned up to have her blood pressure checked.

Another elderly woman received a surgical mask.

A 30-year-old ex-convict had his temperature taken.

Yury praised the volunteers for giving out medicines and masks.

"There are many fatalities. People should not be dying," he said, declining to give his last name.

Radchenko's team does not have testing kits to screen people for the coronavirus so all they can do is to watch out for the disease's telltale symptoms.

"We pay special attention to people with signs of a respiratory infection," she said.

Belarus, which has a population of more than nine million people, has reported more than 16,700 coronavirus cases overtaking neighboring EU member Poland and ex-Soviet Ukraine.

Ninety-nine people have died so far.

The ex-Soviet country remains one of the few nations that did not impose lockdown measures.

Its authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko has dismissed the contagion as a "psychosis" and plans to stage a military parade to mark victory over Nazi Germany next week.

'At our own risk'

Radchenko, who is a fifth year medical student, said the country's most vulnerable people -- who face a higher risk of being infected and then infecting others -- were not getting enough help.

Organisations providing care for the homeless were either closing doors or reducing working hours over coronavirus fears.

Radchenko, who was inspired by projects like the US-based Street Medicine Institute, started out on her own in late 2018.

The one-woman mission gradually grew, and now the team includes 25 volunteers including around seven doctors, all of them practising physicians except her.

Since the start of the project, they have cared for more than 200 patients.

Twice a week they hit the streets to seek out the homeless. But Radchenko does not know how long they will be able to continue. The state does not help, and donations are small.

There is also no law regulating their work.

"We operate at our own risk," Radchenko said..

Coronavirus: EU calls for coordinated exit plan

DW, 15 April 2020 

The Commission wants member states to collaborate on easing coronavirus restrictions. But with disparate national responses to COVID-19, there's no one-size-fits-all solution. Bernd Riegert reports from Brussels.

Ursula von der Leyen (Reuters/J.Geron)

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is unveiling on Wednesday her road map for lifting coronavirus restrictions across the bloc. In a 14-page document laying out her ideas, von der Leyen says that "although it is clear that the path back to normalcy will take a long time, it is also obvious that we cannot maintain these extraordinary restrictions indefinitely."

She says lockdowns across the continent had proven effective, yet also precipitated a tremendous economic shock and placed a heavy burden on public life. EU officials estimate that the eurozone economy could shrink by 10 percent this year — a drop in economic productivity not seen since the global economic crisis of the 1920s.

Austria has begun lifting restrictions, but people must contineu to wear masks
in public

Avoiding tensions between member states

Ursula von der Leyen urges all 27 EU member states to coordinate their lifting of restrictions and to continue coordinating their approach to tackling the pandemic going forward. She warns that "insufficient coordination in the lifting of restrictions poses the risk of creating negative effects for all member states and most likely increases tensions between them." She admits there is no one-size-fits-all solution, but that member states should strive to inform each other of steps taken.

At the onset of the coronavirus outbreak, various EU members states had closed their borders, or imposed travel restrictions, without giving each other advance warning. Ursula von der Leyen now hopes that the re-opening of borders over the coming weeks and months will happen in a more systematic fashion.

Sweden has thus far avoided implementing restrictive measures, even as deaths from
coronavirus have risen, meaning these Stockholm bargoers can enjoy beers out — for now

Infections could surge again

The EU Commission says three conditions must be met for coronavirus restrictions to be eased. Brussels says that curfews could be lifted once national health care systems are no longer under such extreme strain, once infections rates have dropped off, and once particularly vulnerable groups are able to be provided with extra protection. Brussels does not, however, propose a specific time plan for this.

The paper recognizes that this is fraught with danger: "It is certain that such a gradual lifting of restrictions will lead to new infections." This is why, it states, developments must be closely monitored and new, possibly even more draconian measures will have to be imposed. Von der Leyen writes that "we will have to live with the virus until a vaccine has been developed."

Member states are autonomous actors

Some EU states, like Austria and Denmark, have already announced plans to lift some restrictions on daily life. Countries like France and Spain, meanwhile, are keeping strict measures in place.

France will remain in a lockdown until May 11

And while some states have isolated themselves, others are still permitting international flights to operate. Roughly half of all member states have declared a state of emergency, whereas Sweden, in contrast, has kept restrictions to a bare minimum. In Germany, meanwhile, there is no universal approach among its 16 federal states to fighting the virus outbreak. In the state of Bavaria, for instance, all DIY stores have been closed to help contain the virus, while in neighboring Baden-Württemberg they're free to stay open.

Revised with caution

The bloc's heads of the states and governments had prompted Ursula von der Leyen to draw up an exit strategy for the bloc. She had been ready to unveil her road map last week, yet was called back by concerned governments demanding she revise the paper.

The amended paper now has a more cautious wording, and makes suggestions, instead of demands. It appeals to all states to gradually reactivate the common market and ease travel restrictions. EU members states, meanwhile, are still to reign supreme with regard to managing public health and disease control.

EU plans economic stimulus package

At the end of the document, Ursula von der Leyen pledges to draw up a plan to kick start the bloc's economy, which was been hit hard by the coronavirus. She says demand and production must be stimulated, and taxes possibly lowered. The paper states that "the Commission will develop a recovery strategy that builds on a new medium-term budget plan, and a reworked 2020 action plan."

Next week, the EU's heads of state and government will discuss the possibility of creating a European "Marshall Plan" to stimulate the bloc's economy recovery. Commission President von der Leyen plans to pump hundreds of billions of euros into into the recovery effort.

Millions watch Andrea Bocelli sing in empty Milan cathedral

Yahoo – AFP, April 13, 2020

The video of Andrea Bocelli performing a solo Easter concert from an empty
cathedral in Milan has been viewed millions of times (AFP Photo/Piero Cruciatti)

Milan (AFP) - Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli performed a solo Easter concert from an empty Milan Cathedral streamed live to millions of people around the world in coronavirus lockdown.

The "Music for Hope" performance, which was streamed on YouTube from Milan's Duomo cathedral, has been watched more than 22 million times so far.

Accompanied by an organist, Bocelli sang four songs inside the magnificent Gothic building and ended with a rendition of "Amazing Grace" from the cathedral steps with a montage of images showing the empty streets of Paris, London and New York.

"On the day in which we celebrate the trust in a life that triumphs, I'm honoured and happy to answer 'Si' to the invitation of the City and the Duomo of Milan," the visually impaired star said in a message played before the short concert.

"Thanks to music, streamed live, bringing together millions of clasped hands everywhere in the world, we will hug this wounded Earth's pulsing heart," he said.

The Lombardy region, of which Milan is the capital, has been the hardest hit in Italy's coronavirus crisis, with more than 9,000 deaths.

"Andrea Bocelli is a true gift from God. This was beautiful and just what I needed to see and feel right now. Thank you Mr. Bocelli for sharing your gift of your voice and music with us," wrote YouTube viewer Peggy Young.

Churches in Italy remain closed and even prayers given by Pope Francis on Easter Sunday were livestreamed.

Netherlands cuts pope flower display over coronavirus

Yahoo – AFP, March 11, 2020

For the past 35 years, Saint Peter's Square in the Vatican has been decked out
with tulips, daffodils, roses or orchids donated by the Netherlands (AFP Photo/
Vincenzo PINTO)

The Hague (AFP) - The Netherlands will this year break a long tradition of supplying the flowers for the pope's Easter address because of the coronavirus outbreak, if it goes ahead at all, organisers said Wednesday.

For the past 35 years, Saint Peter's Square in the Vatican has been decked out with tulips, daffodils, roses or orchids donated by the Netherlands, one of the world's biggest hubs for cut flowers.

"The developments around coronavirus in Italy are very serious. In consultation with all concerned parties, it has been decided to cancel the floral decorations for Saint Peter's Square this year," Paul Deckers, the florist in charge of the project, said on Twitter.

Last year, the Easter Sunday address by Pope Francis drew some 70,000 people to the Vatican, which is in the centre of the Italian capital Rome.

However, Italy is now under national lockdown after becoming the epicentre of the European virus outbreak with 631 deaths so far.

"It's the first time we haven't done it," Deckers told NOS public radio, adding that it was possible the address could be cancelled altogether.

Pizza boxes to pans: The Netherlands proposes EU-wide ban on PFAS

DutchNews, December 19, 2019

Photo: Depositphotos.com

The Netherlands is calling for an EU-wide ban on products containing PFAS – toxic chemicals used in a wide range of manufacturing processes, from pizza boxes to non-stick frying pans. 

PFAS do not break down naturally and have been linked to several types of cancer and other health problems. Most, according to EU documents, are considered moderately to highly toxic, particularly for children’s development.

Junior environment minister Stientje van Veldhoven will formally present her proposal to EU ministers on Thursday afternoon, and has already won the support of Germany, Denmark and Sweden, the Volkskrant reported on Thursday. 

The presence of high amounts of PFAS in Dutch soil and water had led to a number of building projects being halted since the introduction of new limits in July. 

However, officials have since increased the maximum permitted concentration up from 0.1 microgrammes per kilo to 0.8 microgrammes in an effort to get construction moving again. 

According to broadcaster NOS, the Netherlands is not calling for maximum limits to the amount of PFAS permitted in soil. 

Rather, the aim of the proposal is to stop the production of PFAS at source and the stimulate the development of alternatives, NOS said.

Related Articles:

Ministers aim to relax PFAS pollution rules after new limit halts earth-moving work


“Afraid of Love” + “What’s Wrong Today”, Laguna Hills, California, US(2), Dec 9, 2018 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

• Stagnation of the current US Politics: Compassioned (US) leaders will arise in the future
• Shortage of fresh/drinking water: Invention to make salt from salt water magnetic and remove it with water desalination process in high volumes
• Pollution on Earth: 1 - Stop killing the environment! / 2 - The rise of temperature on Earth is “temporary” and is part of the "regular" Watercycle.
• Replacement of current fossil energy source: Use of magnetics based (small/big) engines to produces electricity / free energy
• Plastic pollution in the oceans: Invention to remove the plastics gradually from the oceans

Dutch inventors roll out river plastic clean-up barge
Ocean Cleanup move to the Pacific, ‘a milestone’ says Dutch inventor

Photo: The Ocean Cleanup

Merkel says 'very well' despite third shaking spell

Yahoo – AFP, Hui Min NEO, July 10, 2019

German Chancellor Angela Merkel suffered her third public shaking spell in a 

month (AFP Photo/Tobias SCHWARZ)

Berlin (AFP) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel insisted she was "very well", despite suffering her third trembling spell in less than a month on Wednesday that has focused attention on her health.

Merkel began shaking involuntarily as national anthems were being played at the reception of Finnish Prime Minister Antti Rinne.

But she attended a press conference as planned just around an hour later, telling journalists that her health was no cause for concern.

"I feel very well, there is no need to worry," she said, adding that she was simply still in a phase of "processing" a previous shaking spell, but that "there has been progress".

"I will have to live with it for a while," added Merkel, who turns 65 next week.

"Just like how it has come, one day it will go away too," she said.

A source close to the government had said the cause of the repeat shaking was now psychological, with memories of the first incident provoking renewed trembling at events with similar settings.

Episodes played down

The shaking on Wednesday was visible although less severe than during the first episode in June.

On that occasion she appeared unsteady and shook as she stood in the midday sun next to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whom she was welcoming with military honours.

That first bout of shaking was blamed on dehydration. But a second episode struck a week later at the end of June, just hours before she was due to board a plane for a G20 summit in Japan.

Officials had sought to play down fears over her health then, saying that she was fine and that she would not be cancelling any planned engagements.

Longtime leader

Merkel has been leader of Europe's biggest economy for almost 14 years.

Merkel's latest shaking bout struck as she received the Finnish prime minister 

in Berlin (AFP Photo/Tobias SCHWARZ)

Frequently called the European Union's most influential leader and the most powerful woman in the world, Merkel has said she will leave politics at the end of her term, in 2021.

But she has struggled to stamp out repeated speculation that she may leave the political stage earlier than planned.

The coalition that she had forged with the centre-left Social Democratic Party was fragile from the start, and has lurched from crisis to crisis.

The latest health scare has prompted additional questions over the length of her reign.

There were brief concerns about her well-being in 2014 when she was taken ill during a television interview. The broadcast was interrupted when she experienced a drop in blood pressure.

Merkel's spokesman explained at the time that the leader did not feel well for a moment, then ate and drank something and continued the interview.

Earlier that same year, she fractured her pelvis while cross-country skiing in Switzerland and was ordered to cut back her schedule dramatically and stay in bed as much as possible for three weeks.

A keen hiker too, Merkel herself once asserted she had a "camel-like" ability to store energy for sleepless all-night summits.

German media, which had largely refrained from speculating about Merkel's health during her second spell of shaking, said they could not look away a third time.

"Angela Merkel's health is now a political issue," said Germany's largest selling daily Bild.

"If signs of physical or psychological weaknesses appear often, the government would have to rethink its stonewalling tactic. Otherwise, rumours will take on a life of their own," warned the daily.

In case of emergency, Merkel would be replaced by Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who would carry out her duties until parliament elected a new leader.

Andorra, one of Europe's last abortion holdouts

Yahoo – AFP, Charlotte DURAND, 28 September 2018

In Andorra, having an abortion is punishable by up to six months in prison

Andorra is best known as a ski destination and tax haven -- but it's the tiny principality's status as one of Europe's last countries with an abortion ban that activists want to highlight on International Safe Abortion Day.

Even in cases of rape or when their lives are in danger, women in the country of 85,500 people nestled in the Pyrenees mountains between France and Spain, have no right to an abortion.

Only Malta, the Vatican and San Marino, another micro-state surrounded by Italy, have the same rules, putting them in a group of outliers which lost a key member this year when Ireland voted to overturn its near-total abortion ban.

In Andorra, having an abortion is punishable by up to six months in prison.

"I had a baby that was at risk of dying in my stomach, but I didn't have the right to have it removed," said Sonia, who learned in the fifth month that her foetus had an incurable disease and would likely not survive the pregnancy.

Sonia -- her name has been changed -- had already announced the pregnancy to her friends and family, but ultimately decided to make the "difficult" decision to abort.

"I would have had to wait for him to die, keep him inside me for several days before realising, and then give birth to a dead baby," said Sonia, who is in her thirties.

Like some 120 other women who head across the border each year to Spain to terminate pregnancies, she travelled to Catalonia -- Catalan is the official language of Andorra -- to have the procedure.

"You come to our country to buy cigarettes -- we come to your country to buy our rights," reads a slogan on a pro-legalisation poster shared on social media.

"It's a form of torture," said Vanessa Mendoza Cortes from the Stop Violencies (Stop Violence) group which is campaigning for the legalisation of terminations.

On Saturday, the group is organising Andorra's first ever street protest in favour of decriminalising abortion.

"We should have the right to have an abortion in our hospitals, and not have to go to Barcelona with guilt and shame," said Mendoza Cortes, who wants to make it an issue in next year's legislative elections.

She decried the local system as "hypocritical", with the authorities turning a blind eye to women heading abroad for the procedure.

It's an option that's only open to women who can pay between 600 and 1000 euros ($700-$1,160), usually handed to the Spanish doctor in an envelope.

Maria, who had an abortion at 18, said she was "lucky" her family were able to scrape the cash together, but she is well aware that for many women "this is far from the case".

Today, aged 27, she recalls her shock at her Andorran gynaecologist forcing her to listen to her foetus' heartbeat, trying to dissuade her from ending the pregnancy.

The journey back from the abortion clinic in Spain took three hours by road, during which she was doubled over with abdominal pain.

She returned deeply distressed, but "there was no psychological or medical support afterwards", she added.

Doctors risk jail

Andorran doctors risk up to three years in prison and a five-year ban from practising if they are caught performing abortions.

Even giving patients information or the address of a clinic abroad is against the law, doctor Eric Sylvestre Dolsa told AFP.

"In cases where the mother's life is in danger, it would clearly pose a huge ethical problem for me as a doctor if you were to apply the law strictly," said the general practitioner.

He is one of few Andorran doctors openly backing legalisation, "no matter the motivation" for ending the pregnancy.

Many doctors are reluctant to debate abortion frankly due to fear of the instability that could arise from the issue blowing up in a principality with a unique political set-up, he said.

Although it is a parliamentary democracy, Andorra has two "co-princes" as head of state: French President Emmanuel Macron, and Joan-Enric Vives, a Catholic bishop staunchly opposed to abortion.

Vives has threatened to abdicate if abortion is legalised, noted Elisa Muxella, head of Andorra's Human Rights Institute.

"The government is hiding behind this excuse and saying that if we had abortion it would put our institutions in peril," said Muxella.

Sonia said she'd like to see Macron take a public stance on the issue.

"Do something for Andorran women," she implored him. "I don't want to see my daughters go through the same thing as me."