Moscow, Mar 6: A Russian transport plane crashed in Syria on Tuesday, killing all 32 people on board, Russian news agencies cited the Russian Defence Ministry as saying.
The ministry was cited as saying that the plane crashed at Russia's Hmeymim air base in Latakia Province and that initial information suggested the crash may have been caused by a technical fault.
It was quoted as saying that 26 passengers and six crew members were on board.
Washington, Mar 28: A US-based lab has unveiled a portable test that can tell if someone has COVID-19 in as little as five minutes, it said in a statement Friday.
Abbot Laboratories said the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had given it emergency authorization to begin making the test available to healthcare providers as early as next week.
The test, which is the size of a small toaster and uses molecular technology, also shows negative results within 13 minutes, the company said in a press statement.
"The COVID-19 pandemic will be fought on multiple fronts, and a portable molecular test that offers results in minutes adds to the broad range of diagnostic solutions needed to combat this virus," said Abbot president and chief operating officer Robert Ford.
The test's small size means it can be deployed outside the "traditional four walls of a hospital in outbreak hotspots," Ford said, and Abbott is working with the FDA to send it to virus epicenters.
The test has not been cleared or approved by the FDA, and has only been authorized for emergency use by approved labs and healthcare providers, the company said.
Beijing, Apr 17: China denied Friday it had covered up the extent of its coronavirus outbreak, as it responded to growing questions from Western powers led by the United States.
A foreign ministry spokesman acknowledged that the virus's rapid spread had contributed to undercounting that resulted in China raising its death toll earlier Friday, but he added "there has never been any concealment, and we'll never allow any concealment."
The allegations China is too close to the World Health Organization (WHO), were an attempt at "smearing" Beijing, Zhao said.
US President Donald Trump has questioned China's handling of the pandemic and whether it had been completely transparent since the virus emerged in the central city of Wuhan late last year.
On Thursday, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and French President Emmanuel Macron also expressed doubts about China's virus response.
These doubts were spotlighted again on Friday when authorities in Wuhan, which has borne the brunt of Chinese deaths, abruptly raised its death toll by 50 percent -- or 1,290 deaths -- to a new total of 3,869.
That also pushed the nationwide death toll up sharply to 4,632, based on official national data released earlier in the day.
Wuhan authorities cited several reasons for the missed cases, including that the city's medical staff were overwhelmed in the early days as infections climbed, leading to "late reporting, omissions or mis-reporting".
Zhao said such miscounting was to be expected in the initial stages of a major disease outbreak.
US President Donald Trump -- under fire himself for initially denying the seriousness of the pandemic -- has accused the WHO of doing the same and being too trusting of China's assurances over the outbreak.
On Tuesday he announced a suspension of US funding to the world body.
Asked about the US allegations, Zhao defended the WHO and China.
"I think they are all smearing China and cooking up stories about China," he said, without specifying which countries he was referring to.
China has largely brought the contagion under control domestically via tough measures including the unprecedented lockdown of Wuhan and tens of millions of people in surrounding areas, but not before it spread worldwide.
Mar 6: UK stocks fell again on Friday as growing economic risks from the coronavirus outbreak shattered investor confidence, with Britain recording its first death from the pathogen.
A 1.5% fall for the FTSE 100 erased the blue-chip index's gains from earlier this week. Export-heavy companies have now lost over $230 billion in value since the epidemic sparked a worldwide rout last week.
The domestically focussed mid-cap index was down 1.9%.
Cruise operator Carnival dropped 4.2% to its lowest level since 2012, a day after its Grand Princess ocean liner was barred from returning to its home port of San Francisco on virus fears.
Britain said an older person with underlying health problems had succumbed to the flu-like virus on Thursday, while the number of infections jumped to 115.
In company news, drug maker AstraZeneca fell 1% after it said its treatment for a form of bladder cancer failed to meet the main goal of improving overall survival in patients in a late-stage study.
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