Beijing, Jun 15: China is locking now ten more neighbourhoods in Beijing to try and contain the spread of a new coronavirus outbreak linked to a food market, authorities announced Monday.
City official Li Junjie said at a press conference that fresh cases had been found in a second wholesale market in northwestern Haidian district, and as a result, the market and nearby schools would be closed, and people living in ten communities around it placed under lockdown.
Islamabad, Jun 24: A plane crash which killed 97 people in Pakistan last month was because of human error by the pilot and air traffic control, according to an initial report into the disaster released Wednesday.
The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane came down among houses on May 22 after both engines failed as it approached Karachi airport, killing all but two people on board.
"The pilot as well as the controller didn't follow the standard rules," the country's aviation minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan said, announcing the findings in parliament.
He said the pilots had been discussing the coronavirus pandemic as they attempted to land the Airbus A320.
"The pilot and co-pilot were not focused and throughout the conversation was about coronavirus," Khan said.
The Pakistani investigation team, which included officials from the French government and the aviation industry, analysed data and voice recorders.
The minister said the plane was "100 percent fit for flying, there was no technical fault".
The county's deadliest aviation accident in eight years came days after domestic commercial flights resumed following a two-month coronavirus lockdown.
Many passengers were on their way to spend the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr with loved ones.
Kabul, Jun 12: A blast in a mosque during Friday prayers in the western part of capital Kabul has killed at least four people and wounded many more, Afghanistan's interior ministry said.
"Explosives placed inside the Sher Shah Suri Mosque exploded during Friday prayers," said a statement issued by the ministry, which added that the mosque's prayer leader Mofleh Frotan was among those killed.
Interior ministry spokesman Tariq Arian said police have cordoned off the area and helped move the wounded to ambulances and nearby hospitals.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but a mosque attack earlier this month was claimed by an ISIL (or ISIS) group affiliate, headquartered in eastern Afghanistan's Nangarhar province.
"Interestingly, every time you have the peace process gaining some momentum and pace, you have these kinds of attacks in the country," Habib Wardak, a national security analyst based in Kabul, told Al Jazeera.
"The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack that happened last week on a mosque in Kabul, so despite the fact that you have these news and press conference from the government that they have eliminated ISIL, how can they conduct such sophisticated operations?"
Friday's blast had parallels to one earlier this month, when an explosion tore apart a famous Kabul mosque and led to the death of renowned Afghan cleric Maulvi Ayaz Niazi.
"In this attack, the imam seems to be the target, not the rest of the crowd. These are the imams who have supported the peace process with the Taliban movement," Wardak said.
"The other political aspect for these kinds of attacks is that there are peace spoilers trying to convey a message that peace with the Taliban will not eradicate violence in the country because you have ISIL."
Violence has spiked in recent weeks in Afghanistan with most of the attacks claimed by the ISIL affiliate.
The United States blamed the armed group for a horrific attack last month on a maternity hospital in the capital that killed 24 people, including two infants and several new mothers.
The ISIL affiliate also took responsibility for an attack on a bus carrying journalists in Kabul on May 30, killing two.
It also claimed credit for an attack on the funeral of a strongman loyal to the government last month that killed 35 people.
Meanwhile, the US is attempting to broker peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban to end 18 years of war.
Washington's peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad was in the region earlier this week trying to resuscitate a US peace deal with the Taliban.
The peace deal signed in February calls for the withdrawal of the US and NATO troops from Afghanistan in return for a commitment by the Taliban to not launch attacks on the US or its allies.
Beijing, Mar 12: The number of fresh infections at the epicentre of China's coronavirus epidemic dropped to a new low on Thursday but the country imported more cases from abroad.
Another 11 people died, the lowest daily increase since late January, bringing the toll in China to 3,169 deaths, according to the National Health Commission.
There were only eight new cases in Wuhan, the city where the virus first emerged in December before growing into a national crisis and a pandemic.
It is the first time that new cases in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, have fallen to single-digits since figures started to be reported in January.
With cases falling dramatically in recent weeks, authorities this week began to loosen some restrictions on Hubei's 56 million people, who have been under quarantine since late January.
Healthy people living in low-risk areas of the province can now travel within Hubei. While Wuhan is not included, some of the city's companies were told they could resume work.
Only one other non-imported case was recorded elsewhere in the country.
But as global hotspots emerge elsewhere, China fears that cases arriving from abroad could undermine its progress.
On Thursday there were six more imported cases reported, bringing the total of infections from overseas to 85, health officials said.
Beijing has ordered a 14-day quarantine for everyone arriving in the city from any country.
Travellers flying into Beijing Capital International Airport from high-risk countries are now handled separately from other passengers.
A total of 80,793 people have now been infected in China.
President Xi Jinping said this week during his first visit to Wuhan since the crisis erupted that the spread of the disease has been "basically curbed" in China.
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