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by Nina Larson with Shaun Tandon in Washington Russia ruled out Sunday any concession at talks with the United States on soaring tensions over Ukraine as Moscow seeks a wide-ranging new security arrangement with the West but faces strong pressure to pull back troops. Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russian news agencies ahead of his talks in Geneva the Kremlin was also “disappointed” with signals coming from both Washington and Brussels, where NATO […]
by Christopher RICKLETON As protesters armed with sticks and discarded police shields prepared to storm the mayor’s office in Kazakhstan’s largest city Almaty, they marched to chants of “old man out!” They were not referring to President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, 68, but Nursultan Nazarbayev, the octogenarian who after more than a quarter-century in office picked career diplomat Tokayev as his loyalist successor in 2019. Since Kazakhstan’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Nazarbayev has been […]
A strong earthquake with a magnitude of 6.6 struck China’s remote northwestern Qinghai province early Saturday, the US Geological Survey said. The epicentre of the quake, which struck at about 1:45 am (1745 GMT) at a shallow depth of 10 kilometres (six miles), was located about 140 kilometres north-northwest of the city of Xining, US seismologists said. A 5.1-magnitude aftershock followed about 25 minutes later, USGS said. The China Earthquake Networks Center put the magnitude […]
by Matthew WALSH BEIJING, China (AFP) — At least three people died when an explosion caused a building to collapse Friday in the Chinese city of Chongqing, state media reported. The blast at 12:10pm (0410 GMT) was triggered by a suspected gas leak and brought down a neighbourhood committee building housing a canteen, trapping 27 people, state news agency Xinhua said. As of 6pm, 13 people had been pulled from the rubble, three of whom […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — China’s President Xi Jinping on Friday praised the Kazakhstan government’s deadly crackdown on protesters as “highly responsible” in a message to Kazakh leader Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, state media reported. “You decisively took strong measures at critical moments and quickly calmed down the situation, showing your position of responsibility and sense of duty as a politician, and of being highly responsible for your country and your people,” Xi told Tokayev in the message, […]
by Jing Xuan TENG BEIJING, China (AFP) — The distressing case of a pregnant Chinese woman miscarrying after a strict lockdown delayed her access to medical treatment has reignited debate over the limits of China’s zero-tolerance approach to Covid-19. The country where the coronavirus was first detected in 2019 is now among the last places still hewing to “zero Covid”, placing millions under quarantine even as Beijing prepares to host next month’s Winter Olympics. – […]
by Aishwarya KUMAR Agence France Presse NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — Haunted by the spectre of last year’s crisis, India is bracing for a deluge of Covid-19 cases, with authorities of various megacities bringing in restrictions in a bid to keep infections in check. Case numbers have yet to match the enormous figures seen last spring, when thousands died each day and the Hindu city of Varanasi maintained round-the-clock funeral pyres for the mass […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — At least 20 people were trapped after an explosion Friday at a government office in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing, according to state media. The blast occurred soon after midday and was caused by a “suspected gas leak” in an office canteen, the state-run People’s Daily reported, adding that rescue teams are en route to the site. © Agence France-Presse
JERUSALEM, Undefined (AFP) — Israel’s health ministry on Wednesday announced nearly 12,000 new coronavirus cases, constituting the largest daily rise in infections since the beginning of the pandemic nearly two years ago. According to the figures, 11,978 new Covid cases were detected over the course of Tuesday, surpassing the country’s previous record high of 11,344 cases recorded on September 2 last year. While there were currently nearly 60,000 people with Covid in Israel, the number […]
HONG KONG, China (AFP) — Macau has announced a two-week ban on any inbound passenger flights from outside of China after three coronavirus cases were found in passengers arriving from overseas. The move came the same day Hong Kong banned flights from eight nations and ramped up social distancing measures, leaving the two neighbouring Chinese territories even more cut off from the rest of the world. Like mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau have […]
MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — More than 1,000 people have been wounded in days of mounting unrest in Kazakhstan, the health ministry said Thursday. “More than 1,000 people were wounded following riots in different regions of Kazakhstan, nearly 400 among them were hospitalised and 62 people are in intensive care,” deputy health minister Azhar Guiniyat said on Khabar-24 television, according to Russian news agencies Interfax and TASS. © Agence France-Presse
BEIJING, China (AFP) — Chinese authorities said Thursday they have punished officials after footage went viral of an eight-month pregnant woman miscarrying in the locked-down city of Xi’an when a hospital refused her entry without a Covid test. The historic city of 13 million has been under strict home confinement for two weeks as Beijing sticks to its “zero-Covid” strategy to stamp out all virus cases. The distressing incident was detailed in a social media […]
