U.S. asks Pakistan to freeze funds of designated terror groups, supports actions against JeM

New Delhi, Jan 8: Iran will welcome any peace initiative by India for de-escalating its tensions with the US after the killing of Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian envoy here said on Wednesday.

His comments come hours after Iran launched missile strikes against two US military bases in Iraq in retaliation to the killing of its top commander General Qassem Soleimani.

"India usually plays a very good role in (maintaining) peace in the world. At the same time, India belongs to this region. We welcome all initiatives from all countries, especially India as a good friend for us, to not allow escalation (of tensions)," Iranian Ambassador to India Ali Chegeni told reporters after a condolence meeting for Solemani at the country's embassy here.

"We are not for war, we are looking for peace and prosperity for everybody in this region. We welcome any Indian initiative or any project that can help peace and prosperity in this world," he said.

On the Iranian attack on US targets in Iraq, Chegeni said his country retaliated under its right to defend.

Amid spiralling US-Iran tensions over the killing of Soleimani, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Sunday had a conversation with his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, voicing India's concerns over the escalation of tensions.

Months after the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan city of central China, families of those deceased, who contracted the contagious infection, stood in long queues at funeral homes demanding to receive the cremated ashes of their loved ones.

Now this has spurred questions about the actual tally of COVID-19 related casualties in Wuhan, in a renewed pressure on the Chinese government that is already struggling to control its containment narrative of the pandemic spread.

Chinese media outlet Caixin showed how trucks carrying 2,500 urns with the ashes of the deceased COVID-19 cases were being shipped in a funeral home last week. Another picture published revealed how 3,500 urns were stacked within these funeral homes. It is therefore unclear how many urns have been filled in.

According to media reports, workers at several funeral parlors declined to provide any details as to how many urns were waiting to be collected, saying they either did not know or were not authorised to share the number.

Some families said they had been forced to wait for several hours to pick up the ashes. The photos circulated as mass deaths from the virus spiked in cities across the west, including Milan, Madrid and New York, where hospitals were erecting tents to handle the overflow as global infections soar past 500,000, with 24,000 dead.

According to Chinese government figures, 2,535 people in Wuhan have died of the virus. The announcement that a lockdown in place since January would be lifted came after the country said its tally of new cases had hit zero and stepped up diplomatic outreach to other countries hard hit by the virus, sending some of them medical supplies.

But some in China have been skeptical of the accuracy of the official tally, particularly given Wuhan's overwhelmed medical system, authorities' attempts to cover up the outbreak in its initial stages, and multiple revisions to the way official cases are counted.

Residents on social media have demanded disciplinary action against top Wuhan officials.

Many people who died had Covid-19 symptoms, but weren't tested and excluded from the official case tally, Caixin said. There were also patients who died of other diseases due to a lack of proper treatment when hospitals were overwhelmed dealing with those who had the coronavirus.

There were 56,007 cremations in Wuhan in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to data from the city's civil affairs agency. The number of cremations was 1,583 higher than those in the fourth quarter of 2018 and 2,231 higher than the fourth quarter of 2017.

Two locals in Wuhan who have lost family members to the virus said online that they were informed they had to be accompanied by their employers or officials from neighborhood committees when picking up the urns, likely as a measure against public gatherings.

COVID-19 is affecting 199 countries and territories around the world. Over 664,000 coronavirus cases have been registered globally out of which 30,890 have succumbed to the infection.

The total number of global coronavirus cases has topped 15.4 million, while the deaths have increased to over 631,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

As of Friday morning, the total number of cases stood at 15,439,456, while the fatalities rose to 631,926, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed in its latest update.

The US accounted for the world's highest number of infections and fatalities at 4,034,831 and 144,242, respectively, according to the CSSE.

Brazil came in the second place with 2,287,475 infections and 84,082 deaths.

In terms of cases, India ranks third (1,238,798), and is followed by Russia (793,720), South Africa (408,052), Peru (371,096), Mexico (370,712), Chile (334,683), the UK (298,721), Iran (284,034), Spain (270,166), Pakistan (269,191), Saudi Arabia (260,394), Italy (245,338), Turkey (223,315), Colombia (218,428), France (216,667), Bangladesh (216,110), Germany (204,881), Argentina (148,027), Canada (114,398), Qatar (108,244) and Iraq (102,226), the CSSE figures showed.

The other countries with over 10,000 deaths are the UK (45,639), Mexico (41,908), Italy (35,092), France (30,185), India (29,861), Spain (28,429), Iran (15,074), Peru (17,654) and Russia (12,873).