October 27, Wednesday, 2021 (1:30 p.m.) Newsline

1.The U.S. State Department says Secretary of State Antony Blinken has talked with Sudan’s Abdalla Hamdok by phone after the prime minister was released from detention. Sudan’s military seized power and detained Hamdok and several Cabinet ministers in a coup on Monday. The coup ended a period of joint military rule with pro-democracy forces since the collapse of an autocratic government in 2019.
2.An expert committee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has voted to recommend the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for children aged five to 11.
3.Chinese authorities are stepping up measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus ahead of the Beijing Olympics that will start in 100 days. The Games will be held for 17 days from February 4 in the capital Beijing and the city of Zhangjiakou in Hebei Province. The upcoming event is the first winter Olympics to be held in China. Beijing hosted the 2008 summer Games, and is set to become the first city in history to host both summer and winter Games.