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May
At least 68 killed in Afghan school blast, families bury victims
Written by Nur Yasmin
The death toll from a bomb attack outside a school in the Afghan capital Kabul has risen to 68, officials said on Sunday, with doctors struggling to care for 165 injured victims and families searching desperately for missing children.
Explosions on Saturday evening shook the neighbourhood of Dasht-e-Barchi, home to a large community of Shi'ites from the Hazara ethnic minority which has been targeted in the past by Islamic State, a Sunni militant group.
A car bomb was detonated in front of the Sayed Al-Shuhada school and two more bombs exploded when students rushed out in panic.
Officials said most of those killed were schoolgirls. Some families were still searching hospitals for their children.
"The first blast was powerful and happened so close to the children that some of them could not be found," said an Afghan official, requesting anonymity.
An eyewitness told Reuters all but seven or eight of the victims were schoolgirls going home after finishing their studies. On Sunday, civilians and policemen collected books and school bags strewn across a blood-stained road now busy with shoppers ahead of celebrations for Eid al-Fitr next week.
President Ashraf Ghani on Saturday blamed Taliban insurgents but a spokesman for the group denied involvement and condemned any attacks on Afghan civilians.
Pope Francis called the attack as "inhuman act" in remarks to pilgrims in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City on Sunday.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also condemned the attack and expressed his deepest sympathies to the victims' families and to the Afghan government and people.
Families of the victims blamed the government and Western powers for failing to put an end to violence and the ongoing war.
MORGUES
Bodies were still being collected from morgues as the first burials were conducted in the west of the city. Some families were still searching for missing relatives on Sunday, gathering outside hospitals to read names posted on the walls, and checking morgues.
"The entire night we carried bodies of young girls and boys to a graveyard and prayed for everyone wounded in the attack," said Mohammed Reza Ali, who has been helping families of the victims at a private hospital.
"Why not just kill all of us to put and end to this war?" he said.
Security was intensified across Kabul after the attack but authorities said they would not be able to provide security to all schools, mosques and other public places.
Conflict is raging in Afghanistan, with security forces in daily combat with the Taliban, who have waged war to overthrow the foreign-backed government since they were ousted from power in Kabul in 2001.
Although the United States did not meet a May 1 withdrawal deadline agreed in talks with the Taliban last year, its military pull-out has begun, with President Joe Biden announcing that all troops will be gone by Sept. 11.
But the foreign troop withdrawal has led to a surge in fighting between Afghan security forces and Taliban insurgents.
Critics of the decision say the Islamist militants will make a grab for power and civilians live in fear of being subjected once more to brutal and oppressive Taliban rule.
On Twitter, China's ambassador to Afghanistan, Wang Yu, said the abrupt U.S. announcement of a complete withdrawal of forces had led to a succession of attacks throughout the country.
"China calls on foreign troops in Afghanistan to take into full account the security of people in the country and the region, pull out in a responsible manner and avoid inflicting more turmoil and suffering on the Afghan people," he said.
Condemning the killing of civilians, India's foreign ministry said the death of more than 50 young girls made this an attack on the future of Afghanistan.
"The perpetrators clearly seek to destroy the painstaking and hard-won achievements that the Afghans have put in place over the last two decades," a statement said. (Reuters)
May
Afghan Taliban declares three-day ceasefire for Eid celebration this week -spokesman
Written by Nur Yasmin
Taliban insurgents said on Monday they would observe a three-day ceasefire in Afghanistan for the Muslim religious holiday of Eid, starting this week, after weeks of increasing violence that gripped the country.
"In order that the Mujahideen again provide a peaceful and secure atmosphere to our compatriots during Eid-ul-Fitr so that they may celebrate this joyous occasion, all Mujahideen ... are instructed to halt all offensive operations," Mohammad Naeem, a Taliban spokesman, said on Twitter.
Eid will begin on Wednesday or Thursday this week depending on the sighting of the moon.
The ceasefire declaration came two days after bombings outside a school in the western part of the Afghan capital, Kabul, killed at least 68, most of them students, and injured more than 165 others.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack.
Taliban insurgents, fighting to overthrow the Afghan government since their ouster by U.S.-led forces in late 2001, denied involvement in the bombings and condemned them.
Afghan government leadership said the group was behind the attack.
Naeem said the group's fighters had been instructed to cease all military operations against the Afghan government, but added they were ready to retaliate if attacked by government forces.
Fraidoon Khwazoon, a spokesman for Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of Afghanistan’s High Council for National Reconciliation, which heads the peace process, said the group welcomed the Taliban's ceasefire announcement.
President Ashraf Ghani's spokesmen were not immediately available to comment on whether they would observe the ceasefire.
Peace talks between both warring sides in the Qatari capital, Doha, which began last year, have made no progress and violence has risen.
Kabul has been on high alert since Washington announced plans last month to pull out all U.S. troops by Sept. 11, with Afghan officials saying the Taliban stepped up attacks across the country following the announcement. (Reuters)
May
Vietnam says new COVID outbreak threatens stability
Written by Nur Yasmin
Vietnam reported 102 new COVID-19 infections on Sunday as the Southeast Asian country battled a fast-spreading outbreak which Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said threatened political stability if not brought under control.
The new cases raised the total to 3,332 since the pandemic began, with 35 deaths, the Ministry of Health said.
Vietnam has been praised for its record in containing its outbreaks quickly through targeted mass testing and a strict, centralised quarantine programme.
But a new outbreak emerged late last month and has spread rapidly in the country, infecting 333 people in 25 cities and provinces, including the capital Hanoi, and leaving around 10 hospitals under lockdown.
"The risk for the outbreak to spread nationwide is very high," Chinh said on Sunday. "We need to deploy stronger measures to curb the outbreak.
"If the outbreak spread nationwide, it would affect political stability, people's health and the National Assembly and People's Council elections, and the consequence would be unpredictable."
Chinh said coronavirus infections in neighbouring countries has put pressure on Vietnam, adding that illegal immigrants were among the prime sources of the virus.
Of the 102 new cases, 92 were transmitted locally, the health ministry said. (Reuters)
May
Australia's most populous state extends COVID restrictions in hunt for outbreak source
Written by Nur Yasmin
Australia's most populous state recorded no new COVID-19 infections for a third straight day on Sunday but extended raised social distancing and mask-wearing rules by a week as the authorities hunted for the source of a small outbreak.
After a Sydney couple tested positive to the coronavirus last week, ending a long run without community transmission, the authorities reinstated some social distancing measures until May 10, and a campaign to get more people tested, as they scrambled to determine the source of infection.
On Sunday, the authorities reported a third straight day without a new case, easing concerns about a wider outbreak in the city, but cited the mystery cause of infection as a reason for extending the measures.
"As the 'missing link' case hasn't been identified we're keen to prevent a super-spreading event," said New South Wales state premier Gladys Berejiklian in a tweet.
"All safeguards/restrictions will be in place for an extra week, except for shoppers in retail who will no longer be required to wear a mask."
That means the more than five million people living in and around Sydney must wear masks on public transport and in most public venues, while households are limited to 20 guests at any one time until May 17.
Australia has largely eliminated the virus, with 79 days in 2021 without a locally acquired case, according to the government, as a result of a strategy of closing international and domestic borders, as well as social distancing measures.
As the country awaits vaccine shipments and watches infection spikes in other countries, top lawmakers have said borders now appear likely to reopen in 2022, not 2021 as previously envisaged.
In an interview with News Corp newspapers published on Sunday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said it was unlikely Australia would reopen its borders soon, although he did not offer a timeline.
"I don't see an appetite for that at the moment," he said, referring to border reopening.
"What we're seeing at the moment is the appreciation of the people that the pandemic isn't going anywhere. We have to be careful not to exchange that way of life for what everyone else has." (Reuters)
May
Chinese rocket debris lands in Indian Ocean, draws criticism from NASA
Written by Nur Yasmin
Remnants of China's biggest rocket landed in the Indian Ocean on Sunday, with most of its components destroyed upon re-entry into the atmosphere, ending days of speculation over where the debris would hit but drawing U.S. criticism over lack of transparency.
The coordinates given by Chinese state media, citing the China Manned Space Engineering Office, put the point of impact in the ocean, west of the Maldives archipelago.
Debris from the Long March 5B has had some people looking warily skyward since it blasted off from China's Hainan island on April 29, but the China Manned Space Engineering Office said most of the debris was burnt up in the atmosphere.
State media reported parts of the rocket re-entered the atmosphere at 10:24 a.m. Beijing time (0224 GMT) and landed at a location with the coordinates of longitude 72.47 degrees east and latitude 2.65 degrees north.
The U.S. Space command confirmed the re-entry of the rocket over the Arabian Peninsula, but said it was unknown if the debris impacted land or water.
"The exact location of the impact and the span of debris, both of which are unknown at this time, will not be released by U.S. Space Command," it said in a statement on its website.
The Long March was the second deployment of the 5B variant since its maiden flight in May 2020. Last year, pieces from the first Long March 5B fell on Ivory Coast, damaging several buildings. No injuries were reported.
"Spacefaring nations must minimize the risks to people and property on Earth of re-entries of space objects and maximize transparency regarding those operations," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, a former senator and astronaut who was picked for the role in March, said in a statement after the re-entry.
"It is clear that China is failing to meet responsible standards regarding their space debris."
ANXIETY OVER POTENTIAL DEBRIS ZONE
With most of the Earth's surface covered by water, the odds of populated area on land being hit had been low, and the likelihood of injuries even lower, according to experts.
But uncertainty over the rocket's orbital decay and China's failure to issue stronger reassurances in the run-up to the re-entry fuelled anxiety.
"It is critical that China and all spacefaring nations and commercial entities act responsibly and transparently in space to ensure the safety, stability, security, and long-term sustainability of outer space activities," Nelson said.
Harvard-based astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell told Reuters that the potential debris zone could have been as far north as New York, Madrid or Beijing, and as far south as southern Chile and Wellington, New Zealand.
Since large chunks of the NASA space station Skylab fell from orbit in July 1979 and landed in Australia, most countries have sought to avoid such uncontrolled re-entries through their spacecraft design, McDowell said.
"It makes the Chinese rocket designers look lazy that they didn't address this," said McDowell.
The Global Times, a Chinese tabloid, dismissed as "Western hype" concerns the rocket was "out of control" and could cause damage.
"It is common practice across the world for upper stages of rockets to burn up while reentering the atmosphere," Wang Wenbin, a spokesman at China's foreign ministry, said at a regular media briefing on May 7.
"To my knowledge, the upper stage of this rocket has been deactivated, which means most of its parts will burn up upon re-entry, making the likelihood of damage to aviation or ground facilities and activities extremely low," Wang said at the time.
The rocket, which put into orbit an unmanned Tianhe module containing what will become living quarters for three crew on a permanent Chinese space station, will be followed by 10 more missions to complete the station by 2022. (Reuters)
May
Israel and South Korea to sign free trade pact -
Israel will sign a free trade agreement with South Korea this week, marking the first such arrangement with an Asian market, Israel's economy ministry said on Sunday.
The deal is meant to bolster bilateral trade by cutting out customs duties and offering safety nets on investments. Bilateral trade reached about US$2.4 billion in 2020, about two thirds of it goods and services imported into Israel, the ministry said.
More than 95per cent of Israeli exports to South Korea will be customs-free, the ministry said. Israel is working on similar deals with China, Vietnam and India, it added//CNA
May
Australia's most populous state extends COVID-19 restrictions in hunt for outbreak source
Written by nuke
A medical worker swabs a member of the public at the Bondi Beach drive-through coronavirus disease (COVID-19) testing centre as the city experiences an outbreak in Sydney, Australia, December 21, 2020. REUTERS/Loren Elliott -
Australia's most populous state of New South Wales recorded no new COVID-19 infections for a third straight day on Sunday (May 9), but extended raised social distancing and mask-wearing rules by a week as the authorities hunted for the source of a small outbreak.
After a Sydney couple tested positive for the coronavirus last week, ending a long run without community transmission, the authorities reinstated some social distancing measures until May 10, and a campaign to get more people tested, as they scrambled to determine the source of infection.
"As the 'missing link' case hasn't been identified we're keen to prevent a super-spreading event," said New South Wales state premier Gladys Berejiklian in a tweet.
"All safeguards/restrictions will be in place for an extra week, except for shoppers in retail who will no longer be required to wear a mask."
That means the more than 5 million people living in and around Sydney must wear masks on public transport and in most public venues, while households are limited to 20 guests at any one time until May 17.
Australia has largely eliminated the virus, with 79 days in 2021 without a locally acquired case, according to the government, as a result of a strategy of closing international and domestic borders, as well as social distancing measures.
As the country awaits vaccine shipments and watches infection spikes in other countries, top lawmakers have said borders now appear likely to reopen in 2022, not 2021 as previously envisaged.
In an interview with News Corp newspapers published on Sunday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said it was unlikely Australia would reopen its borders soon, although he did not offer a timeline.
"I don't see an appetite for that at the moment," he said, referring to border reopening.
"What we're seeing at the moment is the appreciation of the people that the pandemic isn't going anywhere. We have to be careful not to exchange that way of life for what everyone else has."//CNA
May
Labour's Sadiq Khan speaks after he was reelected and declared as the next Mayor of London at City Hall, in London, Saturday, May 8, 2021. (Photo: AP/Victoria Jones/PA) -
Labour politician Sadiq Khan won re-election as London mayor on Saturday (May 8) in a narrower than expected victory over Conservative rival Shaun Bailey.
Khan became the first Muslim mayor of a Western capital when first elected in 2016.
He won a second term with just over 1.2 million votes, who gained 977,601 votes in Thursday's poll. Turnout was lower than at the previous election, at 42 per cent.
The 50-year-old politician's victory was one of the bright spots for the main opposition Labour party after a largely desultory showing in local elections on Thursday.
In his victory speech Khan said that during his second term he would be focusing on "building bridges between the different communities" and between city hall and the government.
He said he wanted "to ensure London can play its part in a national recovery" and to "build a brighter greener and more equal future" for the capital.
Khan campaigned on a promise of "jobs, jobs, jobs", bidding to keep London on its perch as a top world city while tackling the crisis and the fallout from Brexit, which could threaten the capital's vital financial sector.
Khan has made a name for himself as a vocal critic of Brexit and of successive Conservative prime ministers, including his mayoral predecessor Boris Johnson - as well as for a feud with former US president Donald Trump.
The pair became embroiled in an extraordinary war of words after Khan criticised Trump's controversial travel ban on people from certain Muslim countries.
In a series of bizarre attacks, Trump accused Khan of doing a "very bad job on terrorism" and called him a "stone cold loser" and a "national disgrace".
Entering his first term, Khan vowed to focus on providing affordable homes for Londoners and freezing transport fares, but saw his agenda engulfed by the pandemic.
He is London's third mayor after Labour's Ken Livingstone (2000-2008) and Johnson (2008-2016), and there is widespread speculation he could try to follow in his predecessor's footsteps to Downing Street.
In his previous role as a human rights lawyer, Khan spent three years chairing the civil liberties campaign group Liberty.
In his victory speech, Khan referred to his humble origins, growing up in public housing in an ethnically mixed residential area in south London.
"I grew up on a council estate, a working class boy, a child of immigrants, but I'm now the Mayor of London," he said, describing himself as "a Londoner through and through"//CNA
May
Malaysia to ban all interstate, inter-district movement for 4 weeks
Written by nuke
A woman wearing a face mask walks in front of the Twin Towers during the first day of the third movement control order (MCO) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on May 7, 2021. (Photo: AP/Vincent Thian) -
Malaysia will ban all interstate and inter-district movement without permission from the police starting from Monday (May 10).
The nationwide ban will last four weeks until Jun 6. It covers all states regardless if they are under the movement control order (MCO), or recovery, conditional or enhanced MCO, said Senior Minister for Security Ismail Sabri Yaakob.
Any social or official face-to-face events, whether in the public or private sector, will also not be allowed.
Mr Ismail Sabri said the restrictions will be reviewed after two weeks.
Amid a rising number of COVID-19 cases, Malaysia has put in place tighter measures in parts of the country.
Kuala Lumpur is under MCO until May 20. Several districts in Selangor and Johor have also been placed under renewed restrictions.
Mr Ismail Sabri said on Saturday there are no plans to implement a nationwide MCO. A targeted MCO can be enforced by identifying areas with large COVID-19 outbreaks, he said.
Under the movement curbs, social events such as weddings, reunions and retreats are prohibited.
For areas under conditional or recovery MCO, visiting will be allowed for the first three days of Aidilfitri, subject to a maximum of 20 or 25 visitors.
For enhanced MCO areas, no visiting is allowed during Hari Raya.
As of Saturday, Malaysia has reported 436,944 COVID-19 infections and 1,657 deaths//CNA
May
7 community cases among 20 new COVID-19 infections in Singapore
Written by nuke
7 community cases among 20 new COVID-19 infections in Singapore -
Seven community cases were among the 20 new COVID-19 infections reported in Singapore as of noon on Saturday (May 8), said the Ministry of Health (MOH).
Of these, two cases were linked to previous infections and had already been placed on quarantine.
Among them, nine are Singaporeans or permanent residents.
No new cases were reported in migrant workers' dormitories.
Details of the new cases will be released on Saturday night, said MOH.
On Friday, the Ministry of Manpower said Singapore would stop accepting new entry applications for work pass holders from higher-risk countries and regions.
This excludes workers needed for key strategic projects and infrastructural works.
Higher-risk countries and regions refer to all places except Australia, Brunei, mainland China, New Zealand, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.
Work pass holders from higher-risk places who earlier received approval to enter Singapore before Jul 5 will no longer be allowed to do so - except for migrant domestic workers and those in the construction, marine shipyard and process industry.
As of Saturday, Singapore has reported a total of 61,331 COVID-19 cases//CNA