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international
Nagaland Post, Dimapur SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2020
China’s novel coronavirus toll soars to 636, total confirmed cases over 31,000 cases to 86, the second highest figure after China which on Friday confirmed 636 deaths and 31,161 infections, a BBC report said. “The results of the remaining 171 tests came out and 41 tested positive,” Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said. “Today they will be sent to hospitals in several prefectures, and we are now preparing for that.” With the quarantine due to last until February 19, there has also been concern over supplies of normal medicine to the ship.
China announces probe into death of doctor Li
BEIJING/TOKYO/LONDON, FEB 7 (PTI/IANS/ AP): The death toll in China’s novel coronavirus epidemic has risen to 636 with 73 new mortalities reported, mostly from the worst-affected Hubei province, while the total number of confirmed cases has crossed 31,000, Chinese health officials said on Friday. Hubei province and its provincial capital Wuhan, the epicentre of the virus outbreak, reported 69 deaths on Thursday while Jilin, Henan, Guangdong and Hainan provinces reported one each, China’s National Health Commission said. As many as 73 people died on Thursday, while another 3,143 new cases of infection were reported, taking the total number of confirmed cases of infection to 31,161 from 31 provinciallevel regions, the commission said. A total of 1,540 patients infected with the virus have been discharged from hospital after recovery by the end of Thursday, it said, highlighting that a large number of people are getting cured. The Chinese officials said 19 foreign nationals living in the country had been confirmed of contracting
the novel coronavirus as of Thursday, but did not disclose their nationalities. Meanwhile, China on Thursday opened a new 1,500-bed makeshift hospital especially built for virus patients, days after a 1,000bed hospital started functioning with prefabricated wards and isolation rooms in Wuhan. Chinese officials argue that the death toll and confirmed cases are rising in Hubei province because of lack of enough hospitals and beds. Officials also started setting up tent hospitals and mobile clinics to treat the growing number of patients. China also lodged diplomatic protests to countries over cancellation of flights to China due to virus fears. Several international airlines, including Air India and IndiGo, have cancelled flights to China over fears of the virus spreading across the world, a move which Beijing described as being against WHO guidelines. Many countries including India and the US have also announced travel bans.
strain separated from pangolins was 99 per cent identical to that from infected people, indicating that the scaly mammal may be an intermediate host of the deadly virus, a study has found. The study was led by the South China Agricultural University, reports Xinhua news agency. According to Liu Yahong, president of the university, the research team analyzed more than 1,000 Pangolins may be samples of intermediate nCoV host metagenome wild animals and found panThe genome sequence golins as the most likely inof the novel coronavirus termediate host. Molecular
biological detection revealed that the positive rate of Betacoronavirus in pangolins was 70 per cent. Researchers further isolated the virus and observed its structure with an electron microscope. They found that the genome sequence of the coronavirus strain was 99 per cent identical to those in infected people. Results showed that pangolins were a potential intermediate host of the novel coronavirus, Liu said, adding that the study will support the prevention and control of the
Pakistan passes resolution to hang child abusers
Heavy rain hits Australia’s bushfire-ravaged east coast
Trump confirms key Al Qaeda leader killed in Yemen
Sydney, Feb 7 (IANS): Australia’s bushfire-ravaged east coast was lashed by heavy rain on Friday, prompting authorities to issue flood warnings for the region. In the midst of the worst drought on record, the huge downpour has been predicted to continue for at least a week, bringing relief to the long-suffering communities, reports Xinhua news agency. “A coastal trough near the northern and central New South Wales (NSW) coast is bringing increased rainfall and other severe weather to the area,” the Bureau of Meteorology said in a forecast. “This trough is expected to deepen and gradually shift southwards, increasing rainfall and bringing dangerous winds and surf conditions along the central and southern parts of the coast and adjacent ranges during the next few days.” Thunderstorm activity or the formation of mesoscale lows embedded within the coastal trough are possible, according to the forecast. In the tourism hotspot of Byron Bay, the town received over 250 mm of rain in less than 24 hours -- the heaviest single-day
rainfall since 2002. With severe flooding blanketing several north coast areas of the state, the NSW Emergency Service (SES) said they had received over 600 calls for assistance already. “We’ve got our rescue crews right up and down the coast because we know this event will really go border to border,” SES Assistant Commissioner Paul Bailey told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “We put crews in those areas where we traditionally have problems with people driving into flood waters.” While there are still around 40 fires burning across NSW, it’s hoped that the sustained downpour will finally bring a halt to Australia’s wildfire season which has claimed the lives of 34 people, destroyed over 3,000 homes and burnt around 18.6 million hectares of land. Although the rain is mostly being seen as good news, authorities are also warning that fire-damaged areas are at extreme risk of flooding. “In some places there is not a lot of vegetation around to stabilize the slopes,” said the Bureau of Meteorology’s acting NSW State Manager Jane Golding.
Washington, Feb 7 (IANS): US President Donald Trump has confirmed that Qasim al-Rimi, the leader the Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) terror group, was killed in an operation carried out by American forces in Yemen last month. “The US conducted a counterterrorism operation in Yemen that successfully eliminated Qasim al-Rimi, a founder and the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and a deputy to
New virus cases in UK, Germany and Italy
epidemic, as well as offer Britain, Germany and scientific reference for poli- Italy have announced more cies on wild animals. cases of the new virus from China, bringing the total 61 test positive of confirmed cases on Japanese ship number in Europe to 31. In GerJapan’s Health Ministry many, all but two cases are on Friday confirmed that the related to auto parts supplier number of people who tested Webasto, whose headquarpositive for the novel corona- ters near Munich was visited virus on board a quarantined by a Chinese colleague. cruise ship off the coast of Germany’s 13th conYokohama has increased to firmed case of the new 61, after the emergence of 41 coronavirus, announced by fresh cases. Bavaria’s health ministry, The new cases on the was the wife of an emDiamond Princess ship bring ployee previously diagnosed Japan’s number of confirmed with virus. Two of their
Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri,” Xinhua news agency quoted Trump as saying in a statement issued by the White House on Thursday. Trump added that alRimi had been a part of the group since “the 1990s, working in Afghanistan for Osama bin Laden” and under him, the Al Qaeda “committed unconscionable violence against civilians in Yemen and sought to conduct and inspire numerous attacks against the US and
our forces”, reports Efe new. Al-Rimi’s death degrades the Al Qaeda branch and the global movement, Trump said. “The US, our interests, and our allies are safer as a result of his death. We will continue to protect the American people by tracking down and eliminating terrorists who seek to do us harm.” The 41-year-old AlRimi’s death is a major blow for the group, considered one of the most dangerous Al Qaeda branches, as it has
carried out attacks beyond its borders in Yemen. The New York Times newspaper had reported last week that American officials believed they may have killed the leader in January in an airstrike after months of tracking him using aerial surveillance and other intelligence. According to the daily, the CIA came to know of al-Rimi’s location from an informant in Yemen last November and began tracking him through surveillance
C h i n a ’s a n t i - g r a f t watchdog on Friday launched a probe into the death of a whistle blower doctor who was reprimanded by police for spreading “rumours” about the coronavirus outbreak in China that has claimed over 630 lives, amid an outpouring of global grief and anger over his demise. China’s ruling Communist Party has sent a high-level investigation team to the epidemic-hit Wuhan city in Central Hubei province to probe Li Wenliang’s death on Thursday. Li, 34, was among eight Wuhan residents who were reprimanded by local police in early January for spreading “rumours” about the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in the province. The doctor died due to the very virus he desperately tried to highlight in December last year through social media and has become a national icon with millions of netizens expressing their grief and anger over the way he was treated.
drones. Al-Rimi had led the branch in Yemen since mid2015 following the death of his predecessor, Naser al-Wahishi, in a US drone strike. Until then, al-Rimi had been the military chief of the branch and played an important role in recruiting the current generation of its militants. In May 2010, al-Rimi was included in the US’ most-wanted terrorist list and Washington had also offered a $10 million bounty for information on him.
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Islamabad, Feb 7 (IANS): Pakistan’s National Assembly on Friday passed a resolution calling for the public hanging of offenders convicted for sexually abusing and murdering children by a majority of votes. The resolution was presented by Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan and passed by all lawmakers, apart from the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Dawn news reported. Raja Pervez Ashraf, PPP leader and former Prime Minister, said: “Ramping up the severity of punishments does not result in a reduction in crime. “We cannot put public hanging into practice as it violates the laws of the UN.” He was not the only one to raise his voice against the passing of the resolution. Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry “strongly condemned” it. “This is just another grave act in line with brutal civilisation practices. Societies act in a balanced way. Barbarism is not the answer to crimes... This is another expression of extremism,” he wrote on Twitter.
Security guards take temperature readings at a seafood market in Guangzhou.
children are among those infected. Neither they nor their mother are showing any symptoms. Germany’s two other cases tested positive after arriving on an evacuation flight from China last weekend. British authorities confirmed the country’s third case, saying the patient did not contract the virus in the UK. Italy announced the first case of an Italian citizen confirmed to have the virus. A government health institute official, Giovanni Rezza, said the 34-year-old man contracted the virus in Wuhan, where he was living. The man was one of 56 Italians who arrived in Italy on Monday via an Italian air force plane that evacuated them from Wuhan. All the evacuees were put in quarantine at a military facility near Rome, but the man was moved to Rome’s Spallanzani infectious disease hospital after test results Thursday indicated “a suspected case” of the virus. That is the same hospital where a Chinese couple in their 60s were admitted last week with confirmed virus cases. They are in intensive care with pneumonia.
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