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by Claire LEE SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un replaced several senior officials after a “grave incident” in the country’s efforts to defend itself against the coronavirus pandemic, state media reported Wednesday. Pyongyang closed its borders in January last year to defend itself against the pandemic that first emerged in neighbouring China and has gone on to sweep the world. It has not publicly confirmed any cases of the disease […]
by Bhuvan BAGGA NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — India authorized the emergency use of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine on Tuesday as it seeks to ramp up inoculations in the wake of a record-breaking surge in infections and deaths. The vast nation of 1.3 billion people was hit by a massive spike in coronavirus cases in April and May that pushed the healthcare system to breaking point. Moderna’s shot is the fourth to be approved by New […]
HONG KONG, China (AFP) — Hong Kong is to ban all incoming flights from the United Kingdom from July 1 to curb the more infectious Delta strain of the coronavirus, the financial hub’s government said in a statement Monday. “All passenger flights from the UK will be prohibited from landing in Hong Kong,” the statement said. The UK would now be designated in the “extremely high-risk” category of countries, it added, the most severe rating […]
MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — Work-from-home restrictions were reimposed in Moscow on Monday as Russia tried to contain a deadly coronavirus wave fuelled by the Delta variant, while several Asian nations also tightened curbs to contain growing outbreaks. While many wealthy countries have brought down infections through rapid vaccinations, outbreaks are still raging from Bangladesh and Indonesia to South America — many fuelled by the highly contagious Delta variant that was first detected in India. […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — China began operating the world’s second-largest hydropower station on Monday in what officials hailed as a milestone towards Beijing’s carbon neutrality goals, despite warnings of environmental damage. The 289-meter (948 feet) high Baihetan Hydropower Station in southwest China, second in the world only to the country’s Three Gorges Dam in terms of power generation, began partial operation Monday morning, state media reported. Baihetan was built with a total installed capacity of […]
ISTANBUL, Turkey (AFP) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday launched the start of construction on a controversial canal aimed at easing congestion on the Bosphorus but which critics say courts environmental disaster. The “Canal Istanbul” is a gigantic waterway running parallel to the Bosphorus Strait connecting the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara and the Mediterranean. “Today we are opening a new page in the history of Turkish development,” Erdogan said during […]
Total COVID-19 cases at over 2.1M, while total deaths reach 57,138 JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Indonesia set a new record for daily coronavirus cases on Sunday with more than 21,000, as hospitals are flooded with patients in Jakarta and other Covid-19 hotspots across Southeast Asia’s hardest-hit nation. The figure brings the country’s tally for the pandemic to more than 2.1 million coronavirus cases with 57,138 deaths. But the real number is believed to be […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean state television has aired a citizen’s comment about Kim Jong Un’s “emaciated” condition, a highly unusual broadcast in a country where public discussion of the leader’s health and personal life has always been off-limits. Analysts say the remarks showed authorities were seeking to use the change to Kim’s weight to reinforce loyalty to the regime in desparate times. The impoverished, nuclear-armed country is more isolated than ever behind […]
YANGON, Myanmar (AFP) — Violence in post-coup Myanmar has escalated as anti-junta “self-defense” forces step up to take on the military, a report said Monday, warning of an “enormous” human cost if the regime uses its full power in subsequent crackdowns. Myanmar has been in turmoil since the February coup that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s government, with more than 880 killed in a junta crackdown on dissent, according to a local monitoring group. In […]
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Over a dozen fully vaccinated doctors have died of Covid-19 in Indonesia, a medical association said Friday, as the Southeast Asian country battles a rash of severe cases in inoculated medical workers and highly infectious new virus strains. Infections have surged in the nation of 270 million people in the past week, passing two million cases on Monday as hospital occupancy rates soared to over 75 percent in Jakarta and other […]
TEHRAN, Iran (AFP) — Iran has drones capable of flying 7,000 kilometres (more than 4,000 miles), the commander of its Revolutionary Guard force said Sunday. “We have drones which can fly 7,000 kilometres, without a pilot, and land back at the same spot or anywhere else,” General Hossein Salami said in a speech broadcast by state television. He gave no other details but the new drone would give it a range of 3,500 kilometres, compared […]
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AFP) — At least seven people were killed and another 50 people were injured after a powerful explosion ripped apart a three-storey building in central Dhaka on Sunday, Bangladeshi officials said, citing a gas pipeline as the likely cause. Police said the explosion was so forceful that it broke the windows of at least four moving buses, injuring dozens of passengers on board. Dhaka police chief Shafiqur Rahman said at least seven people […]
