World news digest: February 7, 2022

Some news around the world, in short:

• About 130,000 electric cars were sold across the world every week in 2021; about the same number were sold during all of 2012, according to the International Energy Agency. In 2019, there were 2.2 million electric cars sold, about 2.5% of all sales. In 2021, there were three times as many, 6.6 million for 9% of the market. China accounts for more than half of all the electric cars sold, but there’s also strong growth in Europe and the United States. By contrast, the market for electric cars is barely growing in Brazil, India, Indonesia and Japan.
• After Senegal’s football team won the Africa Cup of Nations for the first time in its history, President Macky Sall made Monday a national paid holiday for celebrations.
• The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) revealed that the country recorded the highest number of cholera cases in the world in 2021. Nigeria reported 111,062 cases of the disease, with 3,604 deaths.
• Israeli scientists have made paralyzed mice walk by giving them spinal cord implants, and say they are less than three years away from doing the same for humans in clinical trials.
• The 1‑euro coin for Croatia was supposed to represent a mint, which is the same word as kuna, the soon-to-be old country’s currency, in Croatian. But the winner of the contest drew from a photo he didn’t give credit to.
• Facebook threatened to leave Europe because of a potential prohibition on data sharing.
• Ottawa’s mayor declared a state of emergency over the ongoing ‘Freedom Convoy’ protest.
• Panama refused the ambassador Mexico had chosen because he faced sexual harassment allegations.