Teenager dies after suspected ice bucket challenge goes horribly wrong

May 12: Gunmen stormed a hospital on Tuesday in an ongoing attack in the Afghan capital Kabul, as a suicide blast killed 15 people at a funeral in the country's restive east.

Special forces rescued 80 people including mothers and babies from the Kabul hospital after three gunmen launched a morning assault, killing at least four people, the interior ministry said in a statement.

Heavily armed forces were seen carrying babies wrapped in blankets away from the scene, as the clearance operation continued.

The facility, which has a large maternity ward, is located in the west of the city, home to the capital's minority Shiite Hazara community -- a frequent target of Sunni militants from the Islamic State group.

The flare-up in violence comes as Afghanistan grapples with myriad crises including a rise in militant operations across the country and a surge in coronavirus infections.

A paediatrician who fled the hospital told AFP he heard a loud explosion at the entrance of the building.

"The hospital was full of patients and doctors, there was total panic inside," he said, asking not to be named.

The maternity services at the hospital are supported by humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

"Hospitals and health workers must not be attacked. We call on all sides to stop attacking hospitals and health workers," said deputy health minister in the city, Waheed Majroh.

Around an hour later, a suicide bomber killed at least 15 people at the funeral of a local police commander in the country's eastern Nangarhar province, according to provincial spokesman Ataullah Khogyani.

The attacker detonated his explosives in the middle of the ceremony.

Zaher Adel, spokesman for the government hospital in Jalalabad, earlier said 12 bodies had arrived from the blast site and more than 50 people were being treated for injuries.

Amir Mohammad, who was wounded in the blast, said thousands of people had gathered for the funeral, an event which often draws huge crowds in Afghanistan.

The violence comes just a day after four roadside bombs exploded in a northern district of Kabul, wounding four civilians including a child.

The bombings were later claimed by the Islamic State group, according to the SITE intelligence group.

They were just the latest in a string of IS attacks on the capital.

In March, at least 25 people were killed by a gunman at a Sikh temple in Kabul, which was later claimed by the group.

IS is also responsible for an infamous attack in March 2017 on one of the country's largest hospitals, when gunmen disguised as doctors stormed the Kabul building and killed dozens.

In recent months, the jihadist group has suffered mounting setbacks after being hunted by US and Afghan forces as well as Taliban offensives targeting their fighters, but it still retains the ability to launch major assaults on urban centres.

The Taliban have largely refrained from launching large attacks on Afghan cities since February when they signed a landmark withdrawal deal with the US meant to pave the way for peace talks with the Kabul government.

Under the agreement, the Taliban promised not to target forces from the US-led coalition, but made no such pledge toward Afghan troops and have stepped up attacks in the provinces.

The Taliban have denied involvement in both of Tuesday's attacks.

Washington, Jun 18: US Defence officials are concerned over China's use of COVID-19 situation to gain stakes in strategically important companies of United States as the impact of novel coronavirus has left several companies in dire need of capital.

Amid the pandemic, it getting hard for the defence department to keep an eye on national security and help protect smaller companies down the chain, CNN reported.

"We are paying close attention to any indicators that China is leveraging Covid-19 to take advantage of a situation where defence companies need capital more than ever," a defence official told CNN.

In April, Ellen Lord, undersecretary of defence for acquisition and sustainment said it is paying close attention to 'adversaries' against the 'economic warfare' with the United States.

"We have to be very, very careful about the focused efforts some of our adversaries have to really undergo sort of economic warfare with us, which has been going on for some time," Ellen Lord, undersecretary of defence for acquisition and sustainment was quoted as saying by CNN.

US Committee on Foreign Investment protects its interest against hostile countries gaining ownership in strategically important companies. But the pandemic is changing the definition of national security concerns to include drugs, protective gear and medical supplies.

"These are now national security needs and we probably should have been thinking about it a long time ago in terms of biowarfare that we should have a trusted industrial base or a set of trusted allies -- the UK, or NATO allies or Japan or Korea -- who are trusted in that regard," Bill Greenwalt, a former Pentagon official.

Give the threat posed by foreign acquisition, Pentagon has been offering tools to help small US businesses defend themselves against adversarial investment and conducting background checks with other government agencies to ensure transparency.

US President Donald Trump's trade adviser Peter Navarro recently told CNN if Trump wins reelection, Washington DC will likely take offshore supply chains as national security priorities.

"If we fail to do that in the face of this crisis, we will have failed this country and all future generations of Americans," Navarro said.

The US State Department has also warned US allies to "avoid economic overreliance on China" and "guard their critical infrastructure" from China's influence.

Chad P Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, pointed to recent China's economic coercion of Australia on the political matter saying, "this is how China operates and everybody knows it."

Stockholm, Jan 4: “I’m not the kind of person who celebrates birthdays,” Greta Thunberg said as she turned 17 on Friday, marking the occasion in inimitable style - with a seven-hour hour protest outside the Swedish parliament.

The climate activist braved winter conditions in her native Stockholm to continue the weekly Friday School Strike for the Climate campaign that helped catapult her to international fame.

“I stand here striking from 8am until 3pm as usual ... then I’ll go home,” Thunberg, Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2019, told Reuters.

“I won’t have a birthday cake but we’ll have a dinner.”

It’s been a busy 12 months for Thunberg, who crisscrossed the globe by car, train and boat - but not plane - to demand action on climate change.

“It has been a strange and busy year, but also a great one because I have found something I want to do with my life and what I am doing is having an impact,” she said.

When she was 15, Thunberg began skipping school on Fridays to demonstrate outside the Swedish parliament to push her government to curb carbon emissions. Her campaign gave rise to a grassroots movement that has gone global, inspiring millions of people to take action.