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BEIJING, China (AFP) — China’s worst coronavirus outbreak in months has spread to two more parts of the country, health authorities said Saturday, including a sprawling megacity of 31 million people. The National Health Commission reported 55 new cases in areas including Fujian province and Chongqing municipality, in addition to the four provinces and Beijing where outbreaks of the Delta variant had already been reported. More than 200 infections nationwide have been linked to […]
COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AFP) — Monsoon floods and landslides have cut off more than 300,000 people in villages across southeast Bangladesh and killed at least 20 people including six Rohingya refugees, officials said Friday. The region along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border where nearly one million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar are in camps has been battered by torrential rain since Monday. “The floods have stranded some 306,000 people in Cox’s Bazar district. At least 70 villages […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — A coronavirus cluster that emerged in the Chinese city of Nanjing has now reached five provinces and Beijing, forcing lockdowns on hundreds of thousands of people as authorities scramble to stamp out the worst outbreak in months. China has previously boasted of its success in snuffing out the pandemic within its borders after imposing the world’s first virus lockdown in early 2020 as Covid-19 seeped out of Wuhan in the […]
BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) — Thailand’s health ministry sounded the alarm over Bangkok’s dire lack of hospital beds and isolation facilities on Thursday as Covid-19 cases and deaths soared to a new record. The Southeast Asian country is struggling to contain its latest outbreak fuelled by the highly contagious Delta variant, with infections and deaths skyrocketing and the healthcare system stretched thin. Despite the hardest-hit provinces being placed under severe restrictions and a nighttime curfew, […]
JALALABAD, Afghanistan (AFP) — At least 40 people have been killed with 150 more missing in northern Afghanistan after flash floods ravaged an area northeast of the capital Kabul, officials said on Thursday. A rescue operation was underway to find the missing people after torrential rains overwhelmed Kamdesh district in Nuristan province — about 200 kilometres (120 miles) northeast of Kabul. © Agence France-Presse
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Tokyo Olympics organisers dismissed any link to rising coronavirus cases in Japan on Thursday after reporting 24 infections among Games participants, the highest yet. At least 193 athletes, media and Olympic employees and contractors have now tested positive for the virus, according to Tokyo 2020 figures that do not include some cases at airports and in training camps. On Wednesday, Japan reported 9,583 cases nationwide, the first time the figure […]
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 […]
