China virus toll nears 500, airlines cut Hong Kong flights, cases found on cruise ship

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A passenger checks herself with a digital infrared forehead thermometer measurement device at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang on February 4, 2020. (AFP)
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Workers set up beds at an exhibition centre that was converted into a hospital in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on February 4, 2020. (AFP)
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This handout from the Royal Thai Navy taken and released on Feburary 4, 2020 shows navy officials preparing for the arrival of a plane carrying Thai nationals who had been evacuated from Wuhan, the epicentre of the novel coronavirus outbreak, at U-Tapao Airport in Rayong. (AFP)
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This photo taken on February 3, 2020 shows a doctor being disinfected by his colleague at a quarantine zone in Wuhan, the epicentre of the new coronavirus outbreak, in China's central Hubei province. (AFP)
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Updated 05 February 2020
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China virus toll nears 500, airlines cut Hong Kong flights, cases found on cruise ship

  • The WHO's statement came as Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand all reported new infections not imported from China

BEIJING: The death toll from a coronavirus outbreak in China passed 490 on Wednesday, as two US airlines suspended flights to Hong Kong following the first fatality there and 10 cases were confirmed on a quarantined Japanese cruise ship.
China’s National Health Commission said another 65 deaths had been recorded on Tuesday, bringing the toll on the mainland to 490, mostly in and around the locked-down central city of Wuhan where the virus emerged late last year.
There have been two deaths outside mainland China. A 39-year-old man in Hong Kong with an underlying illness who had visited Wuhan city, the epicenter of the virus, died on Tuesday. A man died in the Philippines last week after visiting Wuhan, the first virus-related overseas fatality.
Across mainland China, there were 3,887 new confirmed infections, bringing the total accumulated number to 24,324.
Ten people on a cruise liner under quarantine at the Japanese port of Yokohama tested positive for coronavirus, Japan health minister said, a figure that could rise as medical screening of thousands of patients and crew continued.
The 10 confirmed cases were among 31 results from 273 people tested so far. There are around 3,700 passengers and crew aboard the Carnival Corp. ship.
Another 176 cases have been reported in 24 other countries and regions, according to the World Health Organization.

Two Malaysians who were flown back from the Chinese city of Wuhan have tested positive for the coronavirus, the Southeast Asian nation’s health ministry said on Wednesday, raising the tally of confirmed cases in the country to 12.
Malaysia sent a flight to Wuhan on Monday to bring back over 100 of its citizens who were stranded there since the city was locked down in an effort to contain the spread of the virus.
The two cases, a 45-year-old woman and her 9-year-old son, did not show any symptoms when subjected to health screening on arrival in Kuala Lumpur but lab tests confirmed on Wednesday they had contracted the virus, Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad said at the ministry’s daily news conference on the coronavirus.
"Both are receiving treatment in an isolation ward... and they are in stable condition," Dzulkefly said.

ECONOMIC IMPACT SPREADS
As the economic impacts of the virus spread, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said the epidemic would delay a surge in US exports to China expected from the Phase 1 trade deal set to take effect later this month, the first time a Trump administration official has said the outbreak would hamper the deal.
“It is true the trade deal, the Phase 1 trade deal, the export boom from that trade deal will take longer because of the Chinese virus,” Kudlow said, adding he did not believe the virus would have a catastrophic effect on business supply chains.
Global markets stabilized on Tuesday after days of selling triggered by fears about China’s econmic growth, with many factories closed, cities cut off and travel in and out of China severely restricted.
The financial and health impacts of the epidemic were increasingly being felt in Hong Kong, with American Airlines Group and United Airlines suspending flights to and from the Asian financial hub after this week.
Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which relies heavily on passengers who change flights in the financial center, said it plans to cut around 30% of its global capacity over the next two months, including around 90% of its flights to mainland China as it grapples with the coronavirus.

The airline has asked its 27,000 employees to take three weeks of unpaid leave, saying preserving cash was key for the carrier and that conditions were as grave as during the 2009 financial crisis.
Thousands of medical workers in Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous region of China, held a second day of strikes on Tuesday to press for complete closure of borders with the mainland after three checkpoints were left open.
“We’re not threatening the government, we just want to prevent the outbreak,” said Cheng, 26, a nurse on strike.
Hong Kong has confirmed about 17 cases. It was badly hit by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a coronavirus that emerged from China in 2002, killed almost 800 people worldwide and cost the global economy an estimated $33 billion.
Neighbouring Macau, also a special administrative region of China lying across the Pearl River estuary from Hong Kong, ordered its casinos to suspend operations on Tuesday, effectively closing off the lifeblood of its economy in a drastic measure to contain the epidemic.
Asian stocks steadied on Wednesday on hopes of additional Chinese stimulus to lessen the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.3%. Australian shares were up 0.58%, while Japan’s Nikkei stock index rose 1.19%.

CHINA EVACUATIONS CONTINUE
Beijing has criticized US travel restrictions, barring foreign nationals who have visisted China, as an overreaction and has called on Washington to do more to help China.
US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex said he hoped China would accept an offer from the United States and the WHO to send epidemiological experts to China.
“We have been requesting this since January 6. The World Health Organization sent names over today. We’re hoping the Chinese will act quickly on that,” Azar told Fox Business Network in an interview.
“This is a novel strain. That’s why we’ve got to get on the ground with the world’s best experts and run the studies to get to the bottom of what is the incubation period. We’ve got to confirm what is the risk of asymptomatic transmission,” he said.

The WHO has declared the flu-like virus a global emergency and experts say much is still unknown, including its mortality rate and transmission routes.
Chinese data suggests the new virus, while much more contagious, is significantly less lethal although such numbers can evolve rapidly.
Several countries including Australia and New Zealand continued to evacuate citizens from Wuhan city. The United States said it may stage additional evacuation flights for private US citizens in China’s virus-hit Wuhan on Thursday.
Wuhan authorities are converting an additional eight buildings, including gymnasiums, exhibition centers and sports centers, into hospitals, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.
The latest announcement adds to plans revealed earlier this week to convert three other venues in the city into hospitals. Once all 11 buildings are converted, a process that is expected to be completed later on Wednesday, they will be able to accommodate 10,000 patients.
A specially constructed hospital in Wuhan, designed with 1,000 beds, opened to patients on Monday, while the building of a second hospital, with 1,600 beds, is also scheduled to be completed on Wednesday

For a graphic comparing coronavirus outbreaks, see https://tmsnrt.rs/2GK6YVK.


Ukraine to evacuate more children from frontline villages

Updated 8 sec ago
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Ukraine to evacuate more children from frontline villages

“I have decided to start a mandatory evacuation of families with children” from around two dozen frontline villages and settlements, Donetsk region governor Vadym Filashkin said
Around 110 children lived in the area affected

KYIV: Ukraine on Friday announced the mandatory evacuation of dozens of families with children from frontline villages in the eastern Donetsk region.
Russia’s troops have been grinding across the region in recent months, capturing a string of settlements, most of them completely destroyed in the fighting since Russia invaded in February 2022.
“I have decided to start a mandatory evacuation of families with children” from around two dozen frontline villages and settlements, Donetsk region governor Vadym Filashkin said on Telegram.
Around 110 children lived in the area affected, he added.
“Children should live in peace and tranquility, not hide from shelling,” he said, urging parents to heed the order to leave.
The area is in the west of the Donetsk region, close to the internal border with Ukraine’s Dnipropretovsk region.
Russia in 2022 claimed to have annexed the Donetsk region, but has not asserted a formal claim to Dnipropretovsk.
The order to leave comes a day after officials in the northeastern Kharkiv region announced the evacuation of 267 children from several settlements there under threat of Russian attack.

Trump to visit disaster zones in North Carolina, California on first trip of second term

Updated 9 min 20 sec ago
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Trump to visit disaster zones in North Carolina, California on first trip of second term

  • The president is also heading to hurricane-battered western North Carolina

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump is heading into the fifth day of his second term in office, striving to remake the traditional boundaries of Washington by asserting unprecedented executive power.
The president is also heading to hurricane-battered western North Carolina and wildfire-ravaged Los Angeles, using the first trip of his second administration to tour areas where politics has clouded the response to deadly disasters.


Kyiv says received bodies of 757 killed Ukrainian troops

Updated 57 min 55 sec ago
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Kyiv says received bodies of 757 killed Ukrainian troops

  • The exchange of prisoners and return of their remains is one of the few areas of cooperation between Moscow and Kyiv

KYIV: Kyiv said Friday it had received the bodies of hundreds of Ukrainian troops killed in battle with Russian forces, in one of the largest repatriations since Russia invaded.
The exchange of prisoners and return of their remains is one of the few areas of cooperation between Moscow and Kyiv since the Kremlin mobilized its army in Ukraine in February 2022.
The repatriation announced by the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, a Ukrainian state agency, is the largest in months and underscores the high cost and intensity of fighting ahead of the war’s three-year anniversary.
“The bodies of 757 fallen defenders were returned to Ukraine,” the Coordination Headquarters said in a post on social media.
It specified that 451 of the bodies were returned from the “Donetsk direction,” probably a reference to the battle for the mining and transport hub of Pokrovsk.
The city that once had around 60,000 residents has been devastated by months of Russian bombardments and is the Kremlin’s top military priority at the moment.
The statement also said 34 dead were returned from morgues inside Russia, where Kyiv last August mounted a shock offensive into Russia’s western Kursk region.
Friday’s repatriation is at least the fifth involving 500 or more Ukrainian bodies since October.
Military death tolls are state secrets both in Russia and Ukraine but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky revealed last December that 43,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed and 370,000 had been wounded since 2022.
The total number is likely to be significantly higher.
Russia does not announce the return of its bodies or give up-to-date information on the numbers of its troops killed fighting in Ukraine.


EU says it is ready to ease sanctions on Syria

Updated 24 January 2025
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EU says it is ready to ease sanctions on Syria

  • The top EU diplomat said the EU would start by easing sanctions that are necessary to rebuild the country

ANKARA: The European Union’s foreign policy chief said the 27-member bloc is ready to ease sanctions on Syria, but added the move would be a gradual one contingent on the transitional Syrian government’s actions.
Speaking during a joint news conference in Ankara with Turkiye’s foreign minister on Friday, Kaja Kallas also said the EU was considering introducing a “fallback mechanism” that would allow it to reimpose sanctions if the situation in Syria worsens.
“If we see the steps of the Syrian leadership going to the right direction, then we are also willing to ease next level of sanctions,” she said. “We also want to have a fallback mechanism. If we see that the developments are going to the wrong direction, we are also putting the sanctions back.”
The top EU diplomat said the EU would start by easing sanctions that are necessary to rebuild the country that has been battered by more than a decade of civil war.
The plan to ease sanctions on Syria would be discussed at a EU foreign ministers meeting on Monday, Kallas said.


Taliban reject ICC arrest warrant as ‘politically motivated’

Updated 24 January 2025
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Taliban reject ICC arrest warrant as ‘politically motivated’

  • The Taliban swept back to power in 2021 after ousting US-backed government in Afghanistan
  • The Afghan rulers say the court should ‘not ignore the religious and national values of people’

KABUL: Afghanistan’s Taliban government said on Friday an arrest warrant sought by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for its leaders was “politically motivated.”
It comes a day after the ICC chief prosecutor said he was seeking warrants against senior Taliban leaders in Afghanistan over the persecution of women — a crime against humanity.
“Like many other decisions of the (ICC), it is devoid of a fair legal basis, is a matter of double standards and is politically motivated,” said a statement from the Foreign Ministry posted on social media platform X.
“It is regrettable that this institution has turned a blind eye to war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by foreign forces and their domestic allies during the twenty-year occupation of Afghanistan.”
It said the court should “not attempt to impose a particular interpretation of human rights on the entire world and ignore the religious and national values of people of the rest of the world.”
The Taliban swept back to power in 2021 after ousting the American-backed government in a rapid but largely bloodless military takeover, imposing a severe interpretation of Islamic law, or sharia, on the population and heavily restricting all aspects of women’s lives.
Afghanistan’s deputy interior minister Mohammad Nabi Omari, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, said the ICC “can’t scare us.”
“If these were fair and true courts, they should have brought America to the court, because it is America that has caused wars, the issues of the world are caused by America,” he said at an event in eastern Khost city attended by an AFP journalist.
He said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should also be brought before the court over the country’s war in Gaza, which was sparked by Hamas’ attacks in October 2023.
The ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, his former defense minister and three top Hamas leaders in November last year.
Afghanistan’s government claims it secures Afghan women’s rights under sharia, but many of its edicts are not followed in the rest of the Islamic world and have been condemned by Muslim leaders.
It is the only country in the world where girls and women are banned from education.
Women have been ordered to cover their hair and faces and wear all-covering Islamic dress, have been barred from parks and stopped from working in government offices.
ICC chief Karim Khan said there were reasonable grounds to suspect that Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani “bear criminal responsibility for the crime against humanity of persecution on gender grounds.”
Khan said Afghan women and girls, as well as the LGBTQ community, were facing “an unprecedented, unconscionable and ongoing persecution by the Taliban.”
“Our action signals that the status quo for women and girls in Afghanistan is not acceptable,” Khan said.
ICC judges will now consider Khan’s application before deciding whether to issue the warrants, a process that could take weeks or even months.
The court, based in The Hague, was set up to rule on the world’s worst crimes, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity.
It has no police force of its own and relies on its 125 member states to carry out its warrants — with mixed results.
In theory, this means that anyone subject to an ICC arrest warrant cannot travel to a member state for fear of being detained.
Khan warned he would soon be seeking additional arrest warrant applications for other Taliban officials.