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.
Geneva, Mar 30: The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide has reached 634,835, among them 29,957 fatalities, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday.
Over the past 24 hours, 63,159 people were confirmed to be infected with the novel coronavirus and 3,464 people died, the WHO said.
According to the latest situation report, the majority of the confirmed cases - more than 361,000 - are presently concentrated in Europe, with Italy leading the tally with over 92,000 cases, followed by Spain with over 72,000 cases, and Germany with over 52,000 cases.
Italy and Spain are also the countries that top the worldwide death toll from COVID-19, with 10,023 and 5,690 fatalities, respectively.
The second most affected region is currently the Americas with over 120,000 verified COVID-19 cases, of which the majority - over 103,000 - have been found in the United States. The US is also the country with the highest single tally of COVID-19 cases at the moment.
The WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11.
Beijing, June 30: China said on Tuesday it was concerned about India’s decision to ban Chinese mobile apps such as Bytedance’s TikTok and Tencent’s WeChat and was making checks to verify the situation.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters during a daily briefing that (the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government of) India has a responsibility to uphold the rights of Chinese businesses.
India on Monday banned 59, mostly Chinese, mobile apps in its strongest move yet targeting China in the online space since a border crisis erupted between the two countries this month.
The apps are “prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of India, the defence of India, the security of state and public order", the ministry of information technology said in a statement, which came two weeks after 20 Indian Army personnel were killed in a violent clash on the India-China border in Ladakh.
The companies have been invited to offer clarifications before a government panel, which will decide whether the ban can be removed or will stay.
The move also came ahead of military and diplomatic talks between India and China scheduled this week.
A shrimp seller at the wet market in the Chinese city of Wuhan believed to be the centre of the coronavirus pandemic, may be the first person to have tested positive for the disease, a media report said on Saturday.
The report by the London-based Metro newspaper said that 57-year-old woman, named by the Wall Street Journal as Wei Guixian, was selling shrimp at the Huanan Seafood Market when she developed what she thought was a cold last December.
Chinese digital news outlet, The Paper has said that she may be epatient zero'.
Wei was told by doctors her illness was "ruthless" and other workers at the market had come to the Wuhan Union Hospital with the same symptoms, the Metro newspaper report quoted the outlet as saying.
"Every winter, I suffer from the flu, so I thought it was the flu," the woman was quoted as saying by The Paper news outlet.
The shrimp seller added that she believed she contracted the coronavirus from the shared toilet in the market.
She said the fatal disease would have killed fewer people if the government had acted sooner.
Wuhan Municipal Health Commission has confirmed that Wei was among the first 27 people to test positive for the coronavirus.
It said she was one of 24 cases with direct links to the market, the Metro newspaper reported.
Though Wei may be "patient zero", it does not mean she is the first person to have contracted the virus, added the Metro report.
Chinese researchers have claimed that the first person diagnosed with the airborne virus had no contact with the seafood market and was identified on December 1, 2019.
Wei was later quarantined when a connection was made between the bug and the market before recovering in January.
As of Saturday, the global number of coronavirus cases stood at 104,837 with 27,862 deaths, according to the latest update by the Washington-based Johns Hopkins University.
The US has the highest number of cases at 104,837, followed by Italy 86,498 and China 81,948.
Italy has recorded the highest number of fatalities with 9,134 deaths, followed by Spain and China, at 5,138 and 3,299, respectively.
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