Almaty, Dec 27: At least 14 people died when a passenger plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Almaty airport in Kazakhstan, the government said on Friday.
"There are 14 dead at the (crash) site," Almaty city government said in a statement via its official channel on the Telegram messenger app.
It added that a further 17 patients were being treated in hospital in a "serious condition".
Washington, Jul 7: President Donald Trump on Tuesday formally started the withdrawal of the United States from the World Health Organization, making good on threats to deprive the UN body of its top funding source over its response to the coronavirus.
Public health advocates and Trump's political opponents voiced outrage at the departure from the Geneva-based body, which leads the global fight on maladies from polio to measles to mental health -- as well as Covid-19, at a time when cases have again been rising around the world.
After threatening to suspend the $400 million (Dh1.47 billion) in annual US contributions and then announcing a withdrawal, the Trump administration has formally sent a notice to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a State Department spokesperson said.
The withdrawal is effective in one year -- July 6, 2021 -- and Joe Biden, Trump's presumptive Democratic opponent, is virtually certain to stop it and stay in the WHO if he wins the November election.
A spokesman for Guterres and the global health body itself confirmed that the United States, a key founding WHO member, gave its notice.
In a speech earlier in the day, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said of Covid-19, "National unity and global solidarity are more important than ever to defeat a common enemy."
In line with conditions set when the WHO was set up in 1948, the United States can leave within one year but must meet its remaining assessed financial obligations, the UN spokesman said.
'Total control'
In late May, Trump said that China exerted "total control" over the WHO and accused the UN body led by Tedros, an Ethiopian doctor and diplomat, of failing to implement reforms.
Blaming China for the coronavirus, Trump, a frequent critic of the UN, said the United States would redirect funding "to other worldwide and deserving, urgent, global public health needs."
Democratic lawmakers have accused Trump of seeking to deflect criticism from his handling of the pandemic in the United States, which has suffered by far the highest death toll of any nation despite the president's stated hope that the virus will disappear.
"To call Trump's response to Covid chaotic and incoherent doesn't do it justice," said Senator Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee.
"This won't protect American lives or interests -- it leaves Americans sick and America alone," he wrote on Twitter.
Representative Ami Bera, himself a physician, said that the United States and World Health Organization had worked "hand in hand" to eradicate smallpox and nearly defeat polio.
"Our cases are increasing," Bera said of Covid-19. "If the WHO is to blame: why has the US been left behind while many countries from South Korea to New Zealand to Vietnam to Germany return to normal?"
Even some of Trump's Republican allies had voiced hope that he was exerting pressure rather than making a final decision to abandon the World Health Organization.
The investigative news outlet ProPublica reported last month that most of Trump's aides were blindsided by the WHO withdrawal announcement, which he made during an appearance about China.
The Trump administration has said that the WHO ignored early signs of human-to-human transmission in China, including warnings from Taiwan -- which, due to Beijing's pressure, is not part of the UN body.
While many public health advocates share some criticism of the WHO, they question what other options the world body had other than to work with China, where Covid-19 was first detected late last year in the city of Wuhan.
The anti-poverty campaign ONE said the United States should work to reform, not abandon, the WHO.
"Withdrawing from the World Health Organization amidst an unprecedented global pandemic is an astounding action that puts the safety of all Americans the world at risk," it said.
New Delhi, May 28: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey today reinforced his stance on pointing out "incorrect or disputed information about elections globally", a day after US President Donald Trump threatened to shutter social media over Twitter's actions on his posts.
Mr Dorsey appealed to "leave our employees out of this" as the face-off with Mr Trump is likely to escalate.
"Fact check: there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that's me. Please leave our employees out of this. We'll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make," Mr Dorsey tweeted.
"This does not make us an 'arbiter of truth.' Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves. More transparency from us is critical so folks can clearly see the why behind our actions," said the Twitter CEO.
Fact check: there is someone ultimately accountable for our actions as a company, and that's me. Please leave our employees out of this. We'll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally. And we will admit to and own any mistakes we make.
— jack (@jack) May 28, 2020
"Per our Civic Integrity policy (https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/election-integrity-policy), the tweets yesterday may mislead people into thinking they don't need to register to get a ballot (only registered voters receive ballots). We're updating the link on
@realDonaldTrump tweet to make this more clear," Mr Dorsey tweeted.
Twitter had tagged two of Mr Trump's tweets in which he claimed that more mail-in voting would lead to what he called a "rigged election" this November. There is no evidence that attempts are being made to rig the election, and under the tweets Twitter posted a link which read: "Get the facts about mail-in ballots."
Five states in the US already conduct elections primarily by mail-in vote: Utah, Colorado, Hawaii, Washington and Oregon.
For years, Twitter has been accused of ignoring the US President's violation of platform rules with his daily, often hourly barrages of personal insults and inaccurate information sent to more than 80 million followers, news agency AFP reported.
But Twitter's slap on the wrist was enough to drive Mr Trump into a tirade - on Twitter - in which "Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen," Mr Trump said.
He said that an increase in mail-in ballots - seen in some states as vital for allowing people to avoid crowds during the COVID-19 pandemic - will undermine the election.
"It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots," wrote Mr Trump, whose re-election campaign has been knocked off track by the coronavirus crisis. His torrent of angry tweets earned a top-10 trending hashtag: #TrumpMeltdown.
Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg also waded in to the row, telling Fox News that his social network - still the biggest in the world - has a different policy. "I just believe strongly that Facebook should not be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online," Mr Zuckerberg said in a snippet of the interview posted online Wednesday by Fox.
"I think, in general, private companies, especially these platform companies, shouldn't be in the position of doing that," he said.
he claimed that the political right in the US is being censored.
"Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen," Mr Trump said.
He said that an increase in mail-in ballots - seen in some states as vital for allowing people to avoid crowds during the COVID-19 pandemic - will undermine the election.
"It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots," wrote Mr Trump, whose re-election campaign has been knocked off track by the coronavirus crisis. His torrent of angry tweets earned a top-10 trending hashtag: #TrumpMeltdown.
Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg also waded in to the row, telling Fox News that his social network - still the biggest in the world - has a different policy. "I just believe strongly that Facebook should not be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online," Mr Zuckerberg said in a snippet of the interview posted online Wednesday by Fox.
"I think, in general, private companies, especially these platform companies, shouldn't be in the position of doing that," he said.
Seoul, Apr 15: Wearing masks and gloves, South Korean voters cast their ballots on Wednesday to elect 300 parliamentary lawmakers amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Voting kicked off at 6 am (local time) and was to run until 6 pm (local time) at 14,330 polling stations across the country, according to the National Election Commission (NEC). The number of eligible voters is 44 million, according to Yonhap news agency.
The once-in-four-years legislative election is widely seen as a referendum on President Moon Jae-in, whose five-year term will end in mid-2022, as well as a test of the country's fight against COVID-19 under the leadership of Moon, The Strait Times reported.
South Korea has received international praise for its massive testing capability and other innovative measures, such as drive-through testing and high-tech contact tracing.
Experts, therefore, expect the ruling Democratic Party (DP) to extend its lead in Parliament, given that the government's handling of the virus outbreak is viewed positively both at home and abroad, as per The Strait Times.
At least 10,564 people in the country have been infected by coronavirus, which has claimed 222 lives. About 2,800 patients are undergoing treatment.
The number of new cases has fallen from a high of 813 on February 29 to below 50 for six days in a row as an intensive social distancing campaign that started on March 21 remained in place.
Several surveys cited by the newspaper also showed that voters consider the pandemic as the biggest factor in their decision. A recent poll showed that 72.6 per cent of respondents rated the government's response to the outbreak as positive.
The NEC has said that public safety at polling stations will be a priority to prevent any possible spread of the virus.
All 14,330 polling stations and 251 counting stations will be disinfected on polling day, the NEC was quoted.
Voters will undergo temperature screening and those registering temperatures of 37.5 degrees Celsius or higher or display respiratory symptoms will have to exercise their franchise at a separate booth.
Tuesday was the last of 13 days of campaigning, which saw most candidates reducing their ground activities and face-to-face encounters with voters. Instead, the candidates boosted their online presence with videos and social media engagements in a bid to win votes, according to The Strait Times.
In addition, the government has also decided to temporarily lift quarantine rules to permit self-isolators to vote in the elections. Some 50,000 people in self-isolation who have no symptoms and expressed a willingness to vote will be allowed to cast ballots after the regular voting ends in the evening.
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