Asia

Taliban assassinate head of Afghan government media department

KABUL, Afghanistan (AFP) — The Taliban shot dead the head of the Afghan government’s media information centre Friday at a mosque in the capital, the ministry said, days after warning they would target senior administration officials in retaliation for increased air strikes. “Unfortunately, the savage terrorists have committed a cowardly act once again and martyred a patriotic Afghan,” interior ministry spokesman Mirwais Stanikzai said of the death of Dawa Khan Menapal. The Taliban claimed responsibility […]

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Israel doing world a ‘great service’ with Covid booster shots: PM

by Jonah Mandel JERUSALEM, Undefined (AFP) — Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Thursday that Israel was doing the world a “great service” by administering Covid vaccine booster shots, despite the World Health Organization’s plea for a moratorium. Nearly 60 percent of Israel’s 9.3 million people have had two jabs, mostly of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, with the government recently rolling out a third shot for the over-60s. The WHO has called for a moratorium on booster […]

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China pledges two billion vaccine doses to world: Xi

BEIJING, China (AFP) — China will “strive to provide” two billion Covid-19 vaccine doses to the world this year and donate $100 million to the international vaccine distribution system known as Covax, President Xi Jinping said Thursday. The pledge came in a written message by Xi to a video forum on vaccine cooperation as China battles a fresh outbreak fuelled by the highly contagious Delta variant. Delta has now been detected in parts of China, […]

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New Iranian president to take oath before parliament

by Karim Abou Merhi / Amir HAVASI TEHRAN, Iran (AFP) — New President Ebrahim Raisi takes the oath before parliament Thursday, with Iran facing an economy battered by US sanctions, a grinding health crisis and thorny negotiations on its nuclear programme. The ultraconservative former judiciary chief officially began his four-year mandate on Tuesday when he was inaugurated by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Raisi takes over from moderate Hassan Rouhani, whose landmark achievement during his […]

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Virus cases surge in Tokyo as government expands restrictions

TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Tokyo reported another large jump in virus cases on Thursday, again shattering records, as the government expanded restrictions to eight more regions just days before the Olympics ends. Tokyo is already under a virus state of emergency but is seeing an exponential growth in cases, driven by the more contagious Delta variant. On Thursday, the city reported 5,042 cases, up from 3,865 a week earlier, and 1,979 the week before that. […]

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‘Lost generation’ fears as Covid locks out India’s poor students

by Nivrita GANGULY MUMBAI, India (AFP) — C.S. Satheesha spells out “A-P-P-L-E” into his phone as he teaches remotely from the only place he can get a signal — a treehouse in his back garden in southern India. In the Kodagu district of Karnataka state, eight-year-old Shreeshma listens to Satheesha’s WhatsApp voice notes on her mother’s phone on her porch and repeats sentences such as: “This is a cat.” But in a country where schools […]

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Bangladesh street kitchens battle to keep free food on the menu

by Shafiqul ALAM DHAKA, Bangladesh (AFP) — Mohammad Masud braves Dhaka’s sweltering summer heat to pedal across the Bangladeshi capital in his rickshaw and queue at one of the last charities still feeding those left destitute by the pandemic. Nearby are hundreds of out-of-work or struggling security guards, transport workers, domestic servants and homeless children finishing their plates of rice and lentils at Mehmankhana, or the “dining place for guests”. “I have been hungry all […]

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Tanker attacked off Oman arrives at UAE anchorage

FUJAIRAH, United Arab Emirates (AFP) — An Israeli-linked vessel that was attacked off Oman last week anchored off the UAE emirate of Fujairah Tuesday amid accusations Iran was behind the attack in which two crew members were killed. Low visibility due to high humidity made it difficult to see the vessel in its mooring in the Gulf of Oman off the eastern coast of the United Arab Emirates, an AFP correspondent reported. Tracking service MarineTraffic […]

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Hundreds evacuated by sea as wildfire reaches Turkish power plant

by Kadir DEMIR and Fulya OZERKAN in Istanbul MILAS, Turkey (AFP) — Turkish rescuers on Thursday began evacuating hundreds of villagers by sea after a deadly wildfire engulfed the outer edges of a thermal power plant storing thousands of tonnes of coal. An AFP team saw firefighters and police fleeing the 35-year-old Kemerkoy plant in the Aegean province of Mugla as bright balls of orange flame tore through the surrounding hills. Hundreds of local villages […]

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Virus-wracked Indonesia hits 100,000 deaths

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Indonesia’s coronavirus death toll topped 100,000 on Wednesday as the country struggles to control the spread of the Delta variant. Southeast Asia’s biggest economy has now detected Delta in dozens of regions since it was first found in the archipelago in June. Scores of Indonesians are dying at home, unable to access hospital care or medical oxygen supplies as health care facilities are stretched to the limit. More than 3.5 million […]

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Iran Covid cases top four million amid new surge: ministry

TEHRAN, Iran (AFP) — Covid infections in Iran surged again Wednesday, hitting a new one-day record for a third straight day and taking total cases to more than four million. Iran registered 39,357 new cases in the 24 hours to Wednesday, taking the total since the pandemic started to 4,019,084, the health ministry said. It recorded 409 deaths over the same period taking the total in Iran to 92,194. The official figures are widely believed […]

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ASEAN names top Brunei diplomat as Myanmar envoy

SINGAPORE, Singapore (AFP) — The Association of Southeast Asian Nations on Wednesday appointed an envoy to Myanmar after a months-long delay in diplomatic efforts to resolve the coup-hit country’s political crisis. ASEAN’s foreign ministers said in a joint statement, delayed by internal wrangling, that they welcomed the appointment of Brunei Second Foreign Minister Erywan Yusof as the bloc’s special envoy. Member state Myanmar has been in political chaos since the military junta ousted Aung San […]

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