Sindh province has been the worst-hit with 225,509 cases followed by Punjab province where 144,909 people have been tested positive, the NCOC said in a statement…reports Asian Lite News
A total of 2,899 people have tested positive of Covid-19 in Pakistan over the last 24 hours, taking the overall infection tally to 502,416, the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC) said on Sunday.
Sindh province has been the worst-hit with 225,509 cases followed by Punjab province where 144,909 people have been tested positive, the NCOC said in a statement.
Forty-six people died in the last 24 hours, raising the death toll to 10,644, the official statement said, adding that 2,804 patients are being treated in hospitals across Pakistan, Xinhua news agency reported.
The statement said 456,969 people have recovered so far.
A total of 7,088,014 tests have been conducted at various state-owned and private laboratories across the country, and 623 hospitals are working with Covid-19 facilities.
Several cases of a new variant of the coronavirus initially found in Britain have been reported in the country, and the relevant authorities are tracing their contacts, after quarantining them.
In a statement on Saturday, the State Ministry for Disaster Management said if the current level of violence prevail, aid agencies will not be able to reach vulnerable families in insecure regions…reports Asian Lite News
Afghan government figures have revealed that at least 18,000 families have been displaced due to conflicts in six provinces over the last month.
In a statement on Saturday, the State Ministry for Disaster Management said if the current level of violence prevail, aid agencies will not be able to reach vulnerable families in insecure regions, reports TOLO News.
The provinces are Baghlan, Kunduz, Farah, Herat, Ghor and Uruzgan.
Nearly 45,000 families were displaced during the last year, according to the Ministry.
“If the situation worsens and violence continues, there will be serious challenges in way of relief and rescue efforts,” Ministry spokesman Ahmad Tamim Azimi was quoted as saying.
According to the Ministry, there is the possibility that another 25,000 families will be displaced due to conflicts.
Officials added that 100 displaced people are living in a shelter at a school in the city of Kunduz.
“We received three bags containing the debris of the plane and five bags of human body parts,”said Operation Director of the National Search and Rescue Agency Rasman M.S…..reports Asian Lite News
Five bags of human body parts and three bags of debris were collected by search and rescue officials on Sunday from the waters off the Indonesian capital of Jakarta where a Sriwijaya Air plane crashed the previous day shortly after take-off
“We received three bags containing the debris of the plane and five bags of human body parts,” Operation Director of the National Search and Rescue Agency Rasman M.S. said.
All the eight bags were carried by the navy’s KRI Kurau ship, according to the director.
This has brought the total body parts discovered by the rescuers to seven, reports Xinhua news agency.
The Boeing 737-500 aircraft, flying from the capital Jakarta to Pontianak city in West Kalimantan province on Saturday afternoon, crashed into the Java Sea off the Seribu District in north of Jakarta, reports Xinhua news agency.
It was carrying 50 passengers, including 10 children and 12 crew members.
The body parts will be handed to the police’s DVI (disaster victims identification) unit for identification and the debris would be sent to the National Transport Safety Committee for analysis, according to the agency.
A total of 362 rescuers with 38 ships, some of them equipped with multi-beam echo-sounders and remotely operated vehicles (ROV) to detect objects underwater, were currently searching for the victims and the wreckage of the budget airline plane.
Earlier in the day, Indonesian military chief Hadi Tjahjanto said naval ship KRI Rigela equipped with a remote-operated vehicle, which arrived at the search location at 3 a.m., detected the signal possibly from the aircraft.
“Based on the results of monitoring, and according to the coordinates given from the last contact, it is strongly suspected that there was a signal from the plane,” he said.
President Joko Widodo on Sunday expressed his condolences to the families of the victims, saying at a press conference: “I am on behalf of the government and all the Indonesian people to express my deep condolences over this tragedy.”
The last plane crash in Indonesia took place in October 2018 when a Lion Air flight plunged into the sea about 12 minutes after take-off from Jakarta.
A total of 189 people died in that crash.
It was one of two crashes that led regulators to pull the Boeing 737 Max from service all across the world.
In December 2014, an AirAsia plane crashed into sea en route from Indonesia’s second biggest city Surabaya to Singapore, killing all 162 people aboard.
The 23 crew of the ship MV Jag Anand have lifted anchor, and cleared to sail and reach Chiba port, Japan by January 14…reports Asian Lite News.
In glad tidings, 23 Indian crew members aboard the ship ‘MV Jag Anand’ stuck off China for over six months, were allowed to set sail for a port in Japan on Saturday evening, the National Union of Seafarers of India (NUSI) said here.
NUSI General Secretary Abdulgani Y. Serang said that these crew members, along with their counterparts on another ship, ‘MV Anastasia’, were stranded off the China anchorage since six months.
“The 23 crew of the ship MV Jag Anand have lifted anchor, and cleared to sail and reach Chiba port, Japan by January 14. The crew change will take place there and after completing the Covid-19 formalities, they will start on their return journey to India,” Serang said.
The NUSI is hopeful that the crew of ‘MV Anastasia’ also shall be accorded similar clearances soon as their anxious families in India await their return.
After having been at sea for more than 18 months, and in the clutches of the global Covid-19 pandemic, the seafarers on both ships literally found themselves on a ‘floating prison’ as they were unwittingly caught in a political tussle between China and Australia even though many were ill and needed urgent medical attention.
In Mumbai, Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi had strongly taken up their cause with the Centre after which the Indian government followed up the issue at the diplomatic levels, culminating in the latest development and their return to the country soon.
Several of the crew members are from Mumbai, Thane and Palghar regions of Maharashtra and their families and other seafarers made a series of appeals to the Centre right up to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, demanding his intervention to secure their safe passage home.
JSPL AID
Naveen Jindal, the Chairman of Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL), has offered his help towards bringing back the 39 Indian sailors stranded in Chinese waters. Jindal has offered to buy coal for the ships in a bid to aid their return.
Two carriers, the ‘Anastasia’ (IMO 9625970) and the ‘Jag Anand’, owned by India’s Great Eastern Shipping Company, which were transporting Australian coal to China, arrived in Chinese waters when trade tensions were underay between China and Australia. Eventually, China banned the import of Australian coal.
The Indian seafarers are stranded in Chinese waters for months now.
The matter came to light after reportedly one seafarer recently committed suicide as he was denied permission to return home to look after his ailing wife and two sons, who were diagnosed with Covid-19.
Taking to Twitter, Jindal wrote on Friday: “This is a humanitarian crisis: 39 Indian sailors stranded at Chinese ports for months; were carrying coal from Australia to China. We are ready to buy the coal on these ships if it can help bring our sailors back home.”
The tensions between China and India arising in the past one year have also added to the problem. Vessels flying flags of other countries have been permitted to upload similar bulk cargo while these two with Indian flags have not been given the same permission.
Singh was earlier a senior spokesperson on the Mike Bloomberg presidential campaign and National Press Secretary for Cory Booker’s presidential campaign…reports Asian Lite News
Indian American Sabrina Singh, a long time aide to US Vice President elect Kamala Harris, has been named White House Deputy Press Secretary in the incoming administration, according to a statement released Friday by the Biden-Harris transition team.
Singh was earlier a senior spokesperson on the Mike Bloomberg presidential campaign and National Press Secretary for Cory Booker’s presidential campaign.
In roles prior to that, she served as Deputy Communications Director for the Democratic National Committee, Spokesperson for American Bridge’s Trump War Room and Regional Communications Director on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
The Office of the Vice President will consist of experienced individuals who represent the very best of our country, and who are ready to meet the challenges we’re facing and deliver results for the American people on day one.https://t.co/YCDzAhtq68
She has also worked at SKDKnickerbocker, served as Communications Director for Rep. Jan Schakowsky and worked at various Democratic committees.
In the weeks after the US election results were announced, several Indian Americans have been appointed to important posts by Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
They include Neera Tanden, who will be the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Vivek Murthy, the Surgeon General, both of whom will have to be confirmed in their positions by the Senate, and Vedant Patel, to be his assistant press secretary, Vinay Reddy to be the director of speechwriting and Gautam Raghavan to be the deputy director of the Office of Presidential Personnel.
Others include Atul Gawande and Celine Gounder to the Covid-19 task force, Mala Adiga to be the policy director for Jill Biden, who will become the First Lady, and Maju Varghese to be the executive director of their inauguration – the swearing-in ceremony and the festivities around it.
The Department said that they were charged after a nearly two-year investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which assisted Sri Lankan authorities….reports Asian Lite News
A US federal prosecutor has charged three Sri Lankans at a Los Angeles court in connection with the 2019 Easter Sunday terrorist attacks on the island nation that killed 268 people, including five Americans.
The Justice Department said on Friday that the three men, who are members of the ISIS in Sri Lanka, have been charged with “conspiring to provide, providing, and attempting to provide material support” to a foreign terrorist organisation.
ISIS in Sri Lanka is the arm of the dreaded Islamic State terrorist group.
The three are in Sri Lankan custody and were identified by the Justice Department as Mohamed Naufar, the “Second Emir” of the ISIS in Sri Lanka; Mohamed Anwar Mohamed Riskan, whoallegedly helped make explosives for the attacks,; and Ahamed Milhan Hayathu Moahmed, who allegedly killed a police officer and shot a suspected informant.
The charges were filed on December 11, 2020, in the federal court in Los Angeles but announced only now by the Justice Department in the last days of President Donald Trump’s administration.
The Department said that they were charged after a nearly two-year investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which assisted Sri Lankan authorities.
Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said: “These charges reflect that the US justice system remains a powerful tool to bring to bear against those who harm our citizens abroad. We will continue to pursue justice for the victims of these heinous attacks and for all American victims of terrorism.”
Commerce Department official Chelsea Decaminada, who was in Sri Lanka on an assignment, was killed in the attacks that targeted Christian places of worship and hotels where foreigners stay.
Another victim was Kieran Shafritz de Zoysa, a fifth-grade student from a Washington school.
“The domestic charges announced today for an attack on foreign soil represent the FBI’s commitment to deliver justice to travelling American victims and to protect U. interests here and abroad,” said Kristi K. Johnson, the FBI’s Assistant Director in Charge of the Los Angeles Field Office.
IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying that they were in retaliation against the West for defeating his terrorist organisation in Baghuz, Syria, in March 2019.
IS was almost completely wiped out of territories it had held in Syria and al-Baghdadi was killed in a US airstrike in October 2019.
Demers said that the charges against the three related to recruiting others to IS, purchasing and materials for and making explosives, training those who participated in the attacks, and murdering “in the name of this deadly foreign terrorist organisation.”
Kim said that halting hostilities by Washington will be the key to future relations between North Korea and the US….reports Asian Lite News
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, has urged the US to end its hostile policy towards Pyongyang. In the report, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim made the remarks at the ongoing eighth Congress of the ruling Workers’ Party, reports Xinhua news agency.
Kim said that halting hostilities by Washington will be the key to future relations between North Korea and the US.
However, Washington’s policy against Pyongyang won’t change regardless of who rules the White House, the KCNA report quoted Kim as saying.
This is the first response by North Korea to the new American government as President-elect Joe Biden will be inaugurated on January 20.
North Korea’s external political activities going forward should be focused on suppressing and subduing the US, the basic obstacle and the biggest enemy against Pyongyang’s revolutionary development, said the KCNA report.
On his new policy on South Korea, Kim said bilateral relations could return to three years ago when a peace mood was created “at any time”, but this only depends on Seoul’s attitude.
Relations with Seoul went cold starting June 2020 after Pyongyang demolished an inter-Korean liaison office in the border town of Kaesong in retaliation for South Korea’s failure to stop activists from sending anti-North Korean leaflets into the North.
The Congress, which opened on Tuesday, continued on Friday and the participants discussed the first agenda item “Review of the work of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea”, the KCNA reported.
Last week, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has vowed to further improve social system and foreign relations at the party congress.
In the report, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said that Kim suggested practical ways to give full play to the advantages of the country’s social system during third-day session of the eighth Congress of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea on Thursday, reports Xinhua news agency.
In his report reviewing the work of the Party’s seventh Central Committee, Kim analysed and evaluated in depth the shortcomings exposed and lessons drawn from work in the past five years, setting forth “directions and ways for opening up a fresh golden age” by carrying out reforms in such fields as “education, public health, literature and arts”, KCNA said.
During the session, Kim and the congress attendees also doubled down on the Party’s general stance to comprehensively expand and forge external relations, including ties with South Korea, KCNA added.
During the previous Congress held in 2016 for the first time in more than 30 years, the North announced its five-year development plan that ended last year and declared the “byongjin” policy of simultaneously seeking nuclear weapons and economic advance.
Iran will also stop voluntary implementation of the IAEA’s Additional Protocol, Amirabadi Farahani added…reports Asian Lite News
A senior Iranian lawmaker warned that Iran will expel the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors if the US anti-Iran sanctions are not lifted by February 21, semi-official Mehr news agency reported.
“If the sanctions against Iran, particularly in the fields of finance, banking and oil, are not lifted by Feb. 21, we will definitely expel the IAEA inspectors from the country,” Ahmad Amirabadi Farahani, a member of the presidium of Iran’s parliament, was quoted as saying on Saturday, Xinhua news agency reported.
Iran will also stop voluntary implementation of the IAEA’s Additional Protocol, he added.
“This is the law of the Iranian parliament and the government is obliged to implement it,” Amirabadi Farahani noted.
The main goal of the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal was the removal of sanctions against Iran, he said. “If the sanctions are not removed, we will see no reason to fulfill our obligations.”
Iran launched 20-percent uranium enrichment process on Monday as part of its Strategic Action Plan to Counter Sanctions which was approved by the parliament in December 2020.
In response to the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal in 2018 and re-imposition of sanctions against Iran, the Islamic republic stopped implementing parts of its obligations under the deal.
Earlier, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that the US is responsible for Iran’s recent decision of enriching uranium to 20 per cent.
The Iranian move was “a deviation” from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, but the “root cause” of such deviations is the “systematic gross violations” of international obligations by the US, the ministry said in a statement.
The US, contrary to Article 25 of the UN Charter, does not comply with the UN Security Council Resolution 2231 and deliberately creates obstacles to its implementation for other countries, the ministry said.
According to Moscow, enriching uranium to 20 per cent has nothing to do with Iran’s compliance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the Xinhua news agency reported.
All material enriched up to 20 per cent is under the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which does not record its switch to the use for undeclared purposes that go against the NPT, the statement read.
The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran announced late on Monday that the 20-per cent enriched uranium had started at its Fordow facility and had reached the stability level.
In May 2018, US President Donald Trump pulled his country out of the Iranian nuclear deal and reimposed harsh sanctions against Iran. In response, Tehran has gradually dropped some of its JCPOA commitments since May 2019.
Search and rescue operations underway were hampered by the bad weather. Workers of Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) have found debris and cables suspected to be of the ill-fated aircraft…reports Asian Lite News
Indonesia’s Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi has confirmed the crash of a Boeing 737-500 plane of an Indonesian airlines with 62 people on board that lost contact with the air traffic controller.
At a virtual press conference held on Saturday evening, the minister said the Sriwijaya Air flight SJ-182 heading from capital city Jakarta to Pontianak city in West Kalimantan province crashed into the waters off the Seribu District in north of Jakarta, Xinhua news agency reported.
According to him, the plane was believed to have crashed near the district’s Laki Island and Lancang Island, part of the Thousand Islands chain.
The plane departed from the Soekarno-Hatta international airport in Jakarta at 2.36 p.m. local time. According to Sumadi, the last contact with the plane was made by aviation authorities four minutes after its takeoff.
Search and rescue operations underway were hampered by the bad weather. Workers of Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) have found debris and cables suspected to be of the ill-fated aircraft.
Boats and aircraft from various Indonesian agencies were involved in the search.
Sumadi said that President Joko Widodo has instructed rescue workers to maximize searching efforts.
Basarnas spokesman Yusuf Latief told Xinhua that about 100 rescue workers were at the location, and his agency has sent its ship equipped with a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to search for the wreckage of the aircraft at the sea floor.
An investigation into the plane crash was launched by the Transportation Ministry.
Earlier, Captain EKo Surya Hadi, commander of Trisula coast guard ship, told a local TV that human body parts and debris of the plane were discovered.
“We found body parts, life jackets, avtur (aviation turbine fuel) and debris of the plane,” he said.
Sumadi said that aboard the Boeing plane were 50 passengers including seven children and three babies, and 12 crew members.
On October 29, 2018, all 189 people aboard were killed after a Boeing 737 Max plane of Indonesia’s Lion Air crashed into the Java Sea shortly after taking off from Jakarta.
In December 2014, an AirAsia plane crashed into sea en route from Indonesia’s second biggest city Surabaya to Singapore, killing all 162 people aboard.
The ban came into effect on Thursday, officials said…reports Asian Lite News
Nepal has stopped importing all kinds of poultry items from India after some states in the neighbouring country recently reported the outbreak of bird flu.
The ban came into effect on Thursday, officials said.
Nepal’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development has directed all its offices to halt the import of poultry items from India, which is the primary market for the Himalayan nation’s multi-billion poultry industry.
The Ministry has instructed all local offices and quarantine checkposts to remain vigilant and stop the import of poultry items.
It also urged the local authorities to stop open trading of poultry items close to the Nepal-India border.
There are several other border, as well as entry points between Nepal and India through which besides poultry, other items are also coming freely.
“It is very difficult to check the import and exports of all trading items in this time of urgency between Nepal and India because the countries share a long open border and is not possible to deploy officials to check the malpractices that take place in bordering areas,” a senior Nepal government official told IANS.
Shree Ram Ghimire, spokesperson at the Ministry of Agriculture, confirmed that only certified poultry products are permitted to be imported inside Nepal.
Nepal has set up 16 quarantine centres across the Nepal-India border on the Nepali side and told them to gear up to stop importing poultry products, Ghimire said, adding as of now, no single case has been detected in the Himalayan nation despite a surge in the bird flu cases in India. Also read:China, Nepal hold talks amid political turmoil
