A provincial minister died of coronavirus in southern Sindh province as Pakistan's Covid -19 death toll crossed 2,0671-mark. Sindh Minister for Human Settlement Ghulam Murtaza Baloch had tested positive for the coronavirus on May 14. He had announced his diagnosis on Twitter and asked for prayers for a speedy recovery. On May 23, he was shifted to the ICU of a private hospital in Karachi after his health started to deteriorate. 'Baloch died due to the coronavirus. He was a brave and diligent member of the PPP. It will be a difficult task to replace him,' Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said in a statement. Earlier member of the National Assembly (MNA) Munir Khan Orakzai died, days after recovering from the coronavirus. Irfanullah Khan Orakzai, the deceased lawmaker's nephew, said his uncle had tested positive for the coronavirus in April but made a full recovery and last tested negative on May 8. Irfanullah said when the family tried to wake Munir up for morning prayers, he did not respond, upon which he was immediately taken to the hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead on arrival.
Pak couple beat 8-year-old to death over pet parrot
A Pakistani couple has been arrested for allegedly torturing and murdering an eight-year-old girl working as a maid at their Rawalpindi residence, for accidentally letting their caged parrots free, police said. The accused Hassan Siddiqui confessed during interrogation that he and his wife had beaten up the girl in a fit of anger. “Two expensive pet parrots escaped from the cage when the minor was cleaning it. Siddiqui and his wife got infuriated and brutally tortured the maid,” a police officer said. The child was unconscious when she was taken to a private hospital in Rawalpindi on May 31. She was kept on a ventilator in the ICU but succumbed to her wounds the next day.
14 Afghan security men killed in attacks
At least 14 Afghan security personnel were killed in two separate militant attacks in the northeastern Badakhshan province and the capital of Kabul, officials said. A roadside bomb killed 11 security force members in Badakhshan when it tore through a security vehicle responding to attacks on checkpoints in Khash district. A spokesman for Badakhshan's provincial police chief said that four militants were killed in the fighting. Another gunbattle also erupted in Kabul's Gul Dara district when insurgents attacked a police checkpoint, killing three police officers. Afghan officials said the Taliban had carried out the attacks, although no one immediately claimed responsibility. The Taliban claimed an attack a day earlier that killed 10 policemen in the southern Zabul province. US forces had also carried out two sets of airstrikes against the Taliban in western and southern Afghanistan. These were the first US strikes following a brief cease-fire declared by the insurgents last month.
39 injured after knife attack at China school
A knife-wielding security guard went on a rampage at an elementary school in China, leaving at least 39 people injured. The attack left 37 students slightly wounded and two adults with serious injuries, according to authorities in Cangwu county. None of the injuries were life-threatening. The guard, a man named Li Xiaomin who was said to be about 50 years old, was arrested. The adults injured were the principal and another guard. No detail was released about a possible motive.
Japan declines to join US, others in condemning China
Japan has decided not join the United States, Britain and others in issuing a statement scolding China for imposing a new security law in Kong Hong, Kyodo news agency reported, citing officials from countries involved. The UK, the US, Australia and Canada condemned China on May 28 for imposing a law that they said would threaten freedom and breach a 1984 Sino-British agreement on the autonomy of the former colony. There was no immediate response to inquiries to Japan's foreign ministry and the US. embassy in Tokyo. China's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Tokyo separately issued a statement May 28, the day China's parliament approved the national security legislation, saying the nation was "seriously concerned" about the move, which observers fear could endanger Hong Kong's special autonomy and freedoms.
New Zealand says coronavirus 'eliminated'
New Zealand has eliminated transmission of the coronavirus domestically and will lift all containment measures except for border controls, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, making it one of the first countries to do so. Public and private events, the retail and hospitality industries and all public transport could resume without social distancing norms still in place across much of the world, she said. "While the job is not done, there is no denying this is a milestone ... Thank you, New Zealand," Ardern told reporters. "We are confident we have eliminated transmission of the virus in New Zealand for now, but elimination is not a point in time, it is a sustained effort. Today, 75 days later, we are ready," Ardern told a news conference, announcing the government would drop social distancing restrictions from Monday and move to a level 1 national alert from Level 2. Border controls would remain and everyone entering the country would be tested, she said. There were no active cases in New Zealand for the first time since the virus arrived in late February, the health ministry said. New Zealand has reported 1,154 infections and 22 deaths from the disease.
Corona triggers 1st Oz recession in 29 years
The coronavirus pandemic pushed Australia’s economy into recession for the first time in 29 years in the first quarter of the year, and the situation is expected to get worse. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said that the current June quarter will be the second in a row in which the Australian economy has contracted. A recession is defined as at least two straight quarters of contraction. Data on showed the economy shrank 0.3% in the January-March quarter due to wildfires and early stages of virus lockdown. “The June quarter, the economic impact, will be severe. Far more severe than what we have seen today,” Frydenberg said.
Wuhan tests 10 mn people, finds only 300 positive cases
The Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus was first detected late last year, has tested nearly 10 million people in an unprecedented 19-day campaign to check an entire city. It identified just 300 positive cases, all of whom had no symptoms. The city found no infections among 1,174 close contacts of the people who tested positive, suggesting they were not spreading the virus easily to others. That is a potentially encouraging development because of widespread concern that infected people without symptoms could be silent spreaders of the disease. “It not only makes the people of Wuhan feel at ease, it also increases people’s confidence in all of China,” Feng Zijian, vice director of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said. There is no definitive answer yet on the level of risk posed by asymptomatic cases, with anecdotal evidence and studies to date producing conflicting answers. Wuhan was by far the hardest hit city in China, accounting for more than 80% of the country’s deaths, according to government figures. A city official said that the city completed 9.9 million tests from May 14 to June 1. If those tested previously are included, virtually everyone above the age of 5 in the city of 11 million people has been tested, said Li Lanjuan, a member of a National Health Commission expert team.
Madeleine, who went missing in 2007 at age of 3, assumed dead
German police said that they presume a British girl who went missing in Portugal 13 years ago is dead, but Madeleine McCann’s parents still nurture hope their daughter will be found alive. McCann was 3-years-old at the time of her disappearance from an apartment while her family vacationed in the seaside town of Praia da Luz in 2007. Police in Germany reported that they had identified a suspect, a 43-year-old German citizen imprisoned in his home country for a sexual crime. The suspect spent numerous years in Portugal, including in Praia da Luz around the time of McCann’s disappearance, and has two previous convictions for “sexual contact with girls”. A prosecutor said the man is being probed for murder. “You can infer from that we assume the girl is dead.”
WHO retracts order, allows HCQ trials to resume
A week after the World Health Organization (WHO) paused the hydroxychloroquine arm of a clinical trial of experimental Covid-19 drugs, its chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said experts had reviewed the safety data and were now recommending the trial continue as planned. "On the basis of the available mortality data... the executive group will communicate with the principal investigators in the trial about resuming the hydroxychloroquine arm," WHO chief told a virtual news briefing. Earlier, the WHO had said that in light of a paper published last week in the Lancet that showed people taking hydroxychloroquine were at higher risk of death and heart problems, there would be "a temporary pause" on the hydroxychloroquine arm of its global clinical trial.
Afghan peace talks may begin this month
Talks to end the 18-year-old conflict in Afghanistan may begin this month, sources said, a day after the US special envoy visited the capital of neighbouring Pakistan and met Taliban leaders in Qatar. The United States signed a troop withdrawal deal with the Taliban in February, but its attempts to usher the insurgent group towards peace talks with the Afghan government have been mired in setbacks and violence surged in March and April. The Taliban's spokesman Suhail Shaheen said on Twitter that US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad had discussed "the commencement of intra-Afghan negotiations" at the insurgent group's political capital, Doha, on Sunday. Khalilzad had earlier met Pakistan's army chief of staff, according to the US Embassy in Islamabad. "The two took note of recent progress created by the Eid ceasefire and accelerated prisoner releases as well as reduced violence ahead of intra-Afghan negotiations," the Embassy said. "(They) discussed steps required for the start of intra-Afghan negotiations."
