Kabul, Nov 21: A suicide bomber blew himself up in the Afghan capital Kabul on Tuesday, killing more than 50 people, three government officials said.
Najib Danish, a spokesman for the interior ministry, said more than 70 other people were injured in the attack.
“A suicide bomber detonated his explosives inside a wedding hall where Islamic religious scholars had gathered to commemorate the birthday of Prophet Mohammad,” Danish said.
There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the blast.
May 15: Global deaths linked to the novel coronavirus passed 300,000 on Thursday, while reported cases of the virus are approaching 4.5 million, according to a news agency tally.
About half of the fatalities have been reported by the United States, the United Kingdom and Italy.
The first death linked to the disease was reported on January 10 in Wuhan, China. It took 91 days for the death toll to pass 100,000 and a further 16 days to reach 200,000, according to the Reuters tally of official reports from governments. It took 19 days to go from 200,000 to 300,000 deaths.
By comparison, an estimated 400,000 people die annually from malaria, one of the world’s most deadly infectious diseases.
The United States had reported more than 85,000 deaths from the new coronavirus, while the United Kingdom and Italy have reported over 30,000 fatalities each.
While the current trajectory of COVID-19 falls far short of the 1918 Spanish flu, which infected an estimated 500 million people, killing at least 10% of patients, public health experts worry the available data is underplaying the true impact of the pandemic.
New York, Jan 11: The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Friday renewed a six-year-long cross-border humanitarian aid deliveries mechanism into Syria.
According to Sputnik, the Security Council voted in favour of a resolution on Friday that allows cross border deliveries to be conducted via Turkey, preserving two checkpoints and excluding the Al-Yarubiyah border crossing with Iraq and the Al-Ramtha crossing with Jordan, until July 10, 2020.
Russia proposed to amend the adopted resolution by replacing a part of the draft which stipulates that humanitarian assistance into Syria should be delivered based on the principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence by the phrase that such aid should be provided "in accordance with the guiding principles of humanitarian emergency assistance, as contained in UNGA resolution 46/182."
The agreement was reached after Belgium and Germany decided to amend the original version of their joint resolution, which proposed keeping three points for cross-border deliveries into the Arab republic.
In December last year, the United Nations had said that over 235,000 people fled the Idlib region in the last two weeks after Russia and Syria launched airstrikes in a bid to take over the last major opposition bastion.
Russia backed Syria government launched a fresh assault to capture the province.
Syrian Bashar al-Assad regime, backed by Iran, has reportedly promised to take back the rebel-controlled area and broke a ceasefire that was announced in August.
They have since December 19 seized dozens of towns and villages from armed fighters amid clashes that have killed hundreds on both sides.
Tokyo, April 6: Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is planning to declare a state of emergency in view of the surging cases of coronavirus in the country, especially in Tokyo and other large cities, government sources said on Monday.
Pressure had been mounting on Abe to make the declaration amid a spurt in COVID-19 cases recently, with calls for the move from Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike and the Japan Medical Association intensifying, Xinhua news agency reported.
The Tokyo metropolitan government, along with healthcare specialists, said that the number of hospital beds available for coronavirus patients will soon reach capacity, with the health ministry rapidly trying to secure more beds.
Adding to pressure on the government to demonstrably bolster its preventive and countermeasures to the spread of the virus, a panel of government experts warned recently that the country's healthcare system could collapse if coronavirus cases continue to spike.
The healthcare system in Tokyo and four other prefectures are under increased strain and "drastic countermeasures need to be taken as quickly as possible," the experts said.
As of Sunday, 143 new cases of COVID-19 were recorded in Tokyo, a record daily high for the capital, bringing the total to 1,034, with Japan's health ministry and local governments adding that nationwide cases rose to 3,531 as of Sunday afternoon.
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