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MEDAN, Indonesia (AFP) — Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung erupted on Wednesday, spewing a massive column of smoke and ash into the sky. The eruption of the volcano in North Sumatra province lasted about 12 minutes, a local geological agency said. “The volcanic material reached 4,500 metres into the air and lasted for quite a long time,” the head of the agency’s Sinabung monitoring post, Armen Putra, told AFP. An image shared by the agency showed […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Daily virus cases in Tokyo topped 3,000 for the first time on Wednesday, as several neighbouring regions weighed emergency restrictions to tackle a surge in infections. Tokyo, which is already under a virus state of emergency as it hosts the Olympics, reported 3,117 cases, and Governor Yuriko Koike called on people to avoid “unnecessary, non-urgent outings.” Japan’s vaccination programme started slowly, and only just over 25 percent of the population […]
LUCKNOW, India (AFP) — Eighteen migrant laborers sleeping on a highway in northern India after their bus broke down died when a truck rammed into the vehicle, police said Wednesday. At least 19 others were injured in the accident in Uttar Pradesh state, a senior police officer told reporters. Most of the passengers were returning home to the eastern state of Bihar after working in the states of Punjab or Haryana. The passengers got off […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — A tropical storm hit northern Japan on Wednesday but there were no immediate reports of damage and Olympic football matches in the region were due to go ahead. Local authorities issued non-mandatory evacuation orders and set up emergency shelters as Tropical Storm Nepartak made landfall in northern Japan’s Miyagi region shortly before 6:00 am (2100 GMT Tuesday). The storm is passing south of Morioka city in Iwate prefecture, bringing “strong” but […]
Workers prepare mattresses and blankets for 1800 cardboard beds at a field hospital at a warehouse in Don Muang International Airport in Bangkok. Thailand is among a host of Southeast Asian countries that kept infection numbers low during 2020 but now face record numbers of cases amid slow vaccination campaigns. © Agence France-Presse
A Hong Kong court convicted a former waiter of terrorism and inciting secession on Tuesday in the first trial conducted under a national security law that was imposed by China to stamp out dissent. The watershed ruling lays down a new marker in the city’s changing legal landscape and confirms certain slogans are now outlawed in the international finance hub. Tong Ying-kit, 24, was charged with terrorism for driving a motorbike into three police officers […]
by Martyn WOOD Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka conceded the pressure of trying to win an Olympic gold at home was a “bit much” after a 6-1, 6-4 defeat to Marketa Vondrousova ended her title dreams on Tuesday. Osaka, who lit the Olympic cauldron and was one of the faces of the Games, struggled in an error-strewn display that blew the draw wide open after the earlier exits of world number one Ashleigh Barty and […]
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Indonesia reported a record 2,069 coronavirus deaths in 24 hours Tuesday as the Southeast Asian nation faces its deadliest Covid-19 surge since the pandemic began. Tuesday’s grim tally was nearly 600 deaths higher than the previous day and topped last week’s daily record 1,566 deaths, the health ministry said. New infections also shot up to just over 45,000, from about 28,000 on Monday. The eye-watering data comes after Indonesia this week […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — The death toll from floods in central China’s Henan province rose to 71 on Tuesday as a tribute at a subway where 14 people died was sealed off in a sign of sensitivity to public criticism of the government’s handling of the disaster. Torrential downpours dumped a year’s rain in just three days last week on the hardest-hit city of Zhengzhou, flooding subway cars and trapping more than 500 commuters during […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — A wall of sand over 100 metres high swallowed a city on the fringes of the Gobi desert in northwestern China, in scenes reminiscent of a disaster film. Dunhuang, a tourist draw with a colourful history as a Silk Road outpost, momentarily disappeared in the dust clouds as the storm hit on Sunday. A resident surnamed Zhang told local media Jimu News that the sandstorm came abruptly and swept through the […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North and South Korea said Tuesday they had restored cross-border communications, more than a year after Pyongyang severed all official hotlines between the two rivals, who technically remain at war. The North unilaterally cut off all official military and political communication links with the South in June last year after threats over activists sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets over the border. The suspension came with inter-Korean ties at a standstill, despite three […]
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Small shops, streetside restaurants and some shopping malls reopened in coronavirus-battered Indonesia on Monday after the government loosened a shutdown despite warnings it could unleash another Covid-19 wave. President Joko Widodo said Sunday that a partial lockdown imposed in early July would continue until August 2 even as the highly infectious Delta variant tears across the vast archipelago nation, which has overtaken India and Brazil to become the global pandemic epicentre. […]
