Trump's immigration ban sparks massive protests at airports across US

Islamabad, Jun 10: The World Health Organization has told Pakistan it should implement "intermittent" lockdowns to counter a surge in coronavirus infections that has come as the country loosens restrictions, officials said.

Since the start of Pakistan's outbreak in March, Prime Minister Imran Khan opposed a nationwide lockdown of the sort seen elsewhere, arguing the impoverished country could not afford it.

Instead, Pakistan's four provinces ordered a patchwork of closures, but last week Khan said most of these restrictions would be lifted.

Health officials on Wednesday declared a record number of new cases in the past 24 hours. The country has now confirmed a total of more than 113,000 cases and 2,200 deaths -- though with testing still limited, real rates are thought to be much higher.

"As of today, Pakistan does not meet any of the pre-requisite conditions for opening the lockdown", the WHO said in a letter confirmed by Pakistan officials on Tuesday.

Many people have not adopted behavioural changes such as social distancing and frequent hand-washing, meaning "difficult" decisions will be required including "intermittent lockdowns" in targeted areas, the letter states.

Some 25 percent of tests in Pakistan come back positive for COVID-19, the WHO said, indicating high levels of infection in the general population.

The health body recommended an intermittent lockdown cycle of two weeks on, two weeks off.

Responding to the WHO's letter, Zafar Mirza, the prime minister's special advisor for health, said the country had "consciously but gradually" eased lockdowns while enforcing guidelines in shops, mosques and public transport.

"We have to make tough policy choices to strike a balance between lives and livelihoods," Mirza said Wednesday.

Punjab's provincial health minister Yasmin Rashid, who received the WHO's letter, said the provincial government had already given "orders to take strict action against those violating" virus guidelines.

Hospitals across Pakistan say they are at or near capacity, and some are turning COVID-19 patients away.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Monday that 136,000 cases had been reported in the previous 24 hours, "the most in a single day so far", with the majority of them in South Asia and the Americas.

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.

Washington, Apr 8: President Donald Trump has threatened to put a "very powerful" hold on US' funding to the World Health Organization, accusing the UN agency of being "very China centric" and criticising it for having "missed the call" in its response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump slammed the global health agency for its early guidance aimed at countering the international spread of the coronavirus.

"We're going to put a hold on money spent to the WHO. We're going to put a very powerful hold on it and we're going to see. It's a great thing if it works. But when they call every shot wrong, that's no good," Trump told reporters at his daily White House news conference on Tuesday.

The Geneva-headquartered World Health Organization (WHO), receives vast amounts of money from the United States.

"We pay for a majority or the biggest portion of their money. They actually criticized and disagreed with my travel ban at the time I did it. They were wrong. They've been wrong about a lot of things. They had a lot of information early and they didn't want to - they're very - they seem to be very China centric," Trump said.

The president said his administration was going to look into the US funding to the WHO.

"We give a majority of the money that they get, and it's much more than the USD 58 million. USD 58 million is a small portion of what they've got over the years. Sometimes they get much more than that. Sometimes it's for programs that they're doing, and-it's much bigger numbers. If the programmes are good, that's great as far as we're concerned," he said.

"But we want to look into it, WHO, because they called it wrong. They (WHO) called it wrong. They missed the call. They could've called it months earlier. They would have known and they should have known and they probably did know. So, we'll be looking into that very carefully, and we're going to put a hold on money spent to the WHO," Trump said.

Meanwhile, Senator Jim Risch, chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called for an independent investigation into the WHO's handling of the COVID-19 response.

"The WHO has failed not only the American people, it has failed the world with its flagrant mishandling of the response to COVID-19," said Risch.

WHO Director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus' apparent unwillingness to hold the Chinese Communist Party to even the minimum standard of global health and transparency hindered the world's ability to blunt the spread of this pandemic, he said.

"It is completely unacceptable that the world's global health organization has become a political puppet of the Chinese government," he alleged, adding that "an independent investigation into the WHO's handling of the COVID-19 response is imperative."

The United States is the largest contributor to the WHO.

"Our valuable tax payer dollars should go towards investments to prevent the spread of disease, not to aid and abet cover-ups that cost lives and isolate portions of the world's population on political grounds, as has been the case with Taiwan," Senator Risch said.

A bipartisan group of nearly two dozen lawmakers announced Tuesday to introduce a resolution to defund the WHO until Ghebreyesus resigns and an international commission investigates the organisation's role in covering up the Chinese Communist Party's failed COVID-19 response.

"The WHO helped the Chinese Communist Party hide the threat of COVID-19 from the world and now more than 10,000 Americans are dead, a number that is expected to rise dramatically in the coming weeks," Congressman Guy Reschenthaler alleged.

"The United States is the largest contributor to WHO. It is not right that Americans' hard-earned tax dollars are being used to propagate China's lies and hide information that could have saved lives. This bill will hold the WHO accountable for their negligence and deceit," he asserted.

The United States' intelligence community has reported that the Chinese government hid the threat of COVID-19 and, as a result, made it difficult for the rest of the world to respond early, appropriately and aggressively, said Congressman Fred Keller.

"For reasons beyond understanding, the WHO acted as a silent partner in this effort instead of protecting the lives of millions across the world, including hundreds of thousands of American citizens. Our hard-earned tax dollars should not go to a global organization more concerned with not offending the Chinese government than providing accurate information and protecting innocent lives," Keller said.

Senator Marco Rubio accused the Chinese Communist Party of using WHO "to mislead the world."

"The organisation's leadership is either complicit or dangerously incompetent. I will work with the Trump Administration to ensure that WHO is independent and has not been compromised by the CCP before we continue our current funding, he added.

According to Johns Hopkins University, there are over 1.43 million confirmed coronavirus cases across the world and over 82,000 people have died due to the disease. The US has nearly 400,000 infections, the highest in the world.