Two feared dead, 17 hurt after Japan mass stabbing

Agencies
May 28, 2019

Tokyo, May 28: Two people, including a child, were feared dead on Tuesday in a mass stabbing attack that also injured 17 people in the Japanese city of Kawasaki, the local fire department said.

“One man and one female child are showing no vital signs,” said fire department official Yuji Sekizawa, employing a phrase commonly used in Japan to mean the victims have died but the death has not yet been certified by an official medical professional.

Footage broadcast on local TV stations showed multiple police cars, ambulances and fire engines at the scene. Emergency medical tents were put up to treat the wounded.

The fire department said 17 others were injured in the attack, among them more children.

“A man stabbed them,” another spokesman for the department, Dai Nagase, earlier told AFP.

“We received an emergency call at 7:44 am, which said four elementary schoolchildren were stabbed.”

Police said one suspect, a man, had been detained. Public broadcaster NHK said he had stabbed himself, suffering a serious wound. There was no immediate indication of a motive.

The broadcaster said two knives were spotted at the scene, but there was no immediate confirmation from officials.

The attack took place at the time of the morning commute and school run, with one eyewitness saying it occurred by a bus stop.

“I heard the sound of lots of ambulances and I saw a man lying near a bus stop bleeding,” the man, who was not identified, told NHK.

“There is another bus stop near the elementary school and I also saw elementary schoolchildren lying on the ground... It's a quiet neighbourhood, it's scary to see this kind of thing happen,” he added.

Japan has one of the lowest rates of violent crime in the developed world and mass attacks are extremely rare.

In 2018, a man was arrested in central Japan after stabbing one person to death and injuring two others aboard a bullet train, an attack that prompted new security measures on the famed rail service.

And in 2016, a man stabbed 19 people to death in a disability centre south of Tokyo in what he described as a mission to rid the world of people with mental illness.

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January 6,2020

Aboard Air Force One, Jan 6: US President Donald Trump threatened sanctions against Baghdad on Sunday after Iraq's parliament called on US troops to leave the country, and the president said if troops did leave, Baghdad would have to pay Washington for the cost of the air base there.

"We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that's there. It cost billions of dollars to build, long before my time. We're not leaving unless they pay us back for it," Trump told reporters on Air Force One.

Trump said that if Iraq asked US forces to leave and it was not done on a friendly basis, "we will charge them sanctions like they've never seen before ever. It'll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame."

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News Network
June 13,2020

Paris, Jun 13: The coronavirus pandemic has killed 425,000 people since it emerged in China late last year, according to an AFP tally of official sources at 0130 GMT on Saturday.

A total of 425,282 deaths have now been recorded from 7,632,517 cases.

Europe has registered 186,843 deaths from 2,363,538 cases, but the epidemic is progressing most rapidly in Latin America, where there have been a total of 76,343 deaths recorded from 1,569,938 cases.

The United States remains the country with the most recorded deaths at 114,643, ahead of Brazil which on Friday became the second worst-hit nation with 41,828 deaths. Britain is next with 41,481 deaths, followed by Italy (34,223) and France (29,374).

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May 19,2020

Washington, May 19: As the scientists across the world are struggling to develop a vaccine for combating coronavirus, US drugmaker Moderna announced on Monday (local time) that the phase I trial of its Covid-19 vaccine has shown positive early results.

The company is hopeful that it's vaccine could be available to the public as early as January next year. Several firms across the world are in the race to develop a vaccine for the deadly virus which has claimed over 3 lakh lives worldwide.

CNN citing Dr. Tal Zaks, Moderna's chief medical officer reported that "if future studies go well, the company's vaccine could be available to the public as early as January".

"This is absolutely good news and news that we think many have been waiting for for quite some time," Zaks was quoted as saying.

Moderna, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts announced that the vaccine developed neutralising antibodies to the virus at levels reaching or exceeding the levels seen in people who have naturally recovered from Covid-19, reported CNN.

These will be followed by phase 2 trials and phase 3 trials, which Moderna plans to start in July.

President Donald Trump had on Friday said that that the United States will be able to deliver a few hundred million doses of COVID-19 vaccine, under 'Operation Warp Speed', by the end of this year.

"I have very recently seen early data from a clinical trial with a coronavirus vaccine and this data made me feel even more confident that we'll be able to deliver a few hundred million doses of vaccine by the end of 2020 and we will do the best we can," Trump had said at a press conference at the White House on Friday.

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