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SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Two Australians evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship have tested positive for coronavirus on their return home, despite being cleared in Japan, authorities said Friday. “We have two people who are positive for the COVID-19 virus. Those two people have mild illness,” said Dianne Stephens, acting chief health officer for the Northern Territories. Health officials in Canberra told AFP all 164 Australians who returned home earlier this week “were tested […]
by Sunghee Hwang SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korea’s self-imposed isolation in the face of the coronavirus epidemic raging in neighboring China is its only method of protection from an outbreak that would wreak havoc given its crumbling health system, analysts say. The country was among the first to seal its border with China — its main provider of trade and aid — and has since suspended flights and train services, banned tourists, and […]
by Issam AHMED Agence France Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) US President Donald Trump’s longtime ally Roger Stone was sentenced Thursday to 40 months in prison for impeding a congressional investigation, in a case that ignited a firestorm over the US president’s political interference in the justice system. Stone, a veteran Republican operative and one of the president’s oldest confidants, was convicted in November of lying to Congress, tampering with a witness and obstructing […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korea confirmed 52 more cases of novel coronavirus on Friday, taking its overall figure to 156 and making it the worst-infected country outside China. Altogether 39 of the new cases were linked to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in the southern city of Daegu, the Korean Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said. More than 80 members of Shincheonji have now been infected, starting with a 61-year-old woman who […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Two Australians evacuated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship have tested positive for coronavirus, authorities said Friday, raising questions about Japan’s policy of allowing evacuees to return home after testing negative. “We have two people who are positive for the COVID-19 virus. Those two people have a mild illness,” said Dianne Stephens, acting chief health officer for the Northern Territories. Hundreds of people have been allowed to leave the ship after […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — The death toll in China from the coronavirus epidemic rose to 2,233 on Friday after 115 more people died in Hubei province, the hard-hit epicenter of the outbreak. The vast majority of the deaths were in the provincial capital of Wuhan, where the virus first emerged in December, according to a daily update from the Hubei health commission. Around 75,000 people have been infected by the new coronavirus in China, and […]
by Laurent Thomet, with Miwa Suzuki in Tokyo BEIJING, China (AFP) — China on Thursday touted a big drop in new virus infections as proof it’s epidemic control efforts are working, but the toll grew abroad with deaths in Japan and South Korea. Fatalities in China hit 2,118 as 114 more people died, but health officials reported the lowest number of new cases in nearly a month, including in hardest-hit Hubei province. More than 74,000 […]
TEHRAN, Iran (AFP) — Iran has confirmed three new coronavirus cases following the deaths of two elderly men, the health ministry told AFP on Thursday, as Iraq banned travel to and from its neighbor. The pair who died were elderly Iranian citizens and residents of the city of Qom. They were the first confirmed deaths from the COVID-19 virus in the Middle East. Health ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpour said two of the new cases were […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korea reported its first death Thursday from coronavirus as the number of infections nearly doubled to over 100 — almost half of them from a cluster centred on a religious sect. The sharp rise came as the mayor of Daegu — South Korea’s fourth biggest city, with a population of over 2.5 million — advised residents to stay indoors, and commanders at a major US base in the […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — A cluster of novel coronavirus infections centred on a sect in the South Korean city of Daegu leaped to 39 cases Thursday, with its mayor advising residents to stay indoors as the country’s total spiked for the second successive day. Almost half the country’s patients are linked to a 61-year-old woman who is a member of the Daegu branch of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, an entity often accused of […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australia set up a national inquiry Thursday into its month-long bushfire crisis that affected three in four Australians and prompted widespread criticism of the government for its sluggish response to the blazes. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the vast scale of the fires — which killed more than 30 people and destroyed thousands of homes — required a new response from the bushfire-prone nation. The Royal Commission inquiry will be […]
by Miwa Suzuki Agence France Presse TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Two former passengers of the coronavirus-wracked Diamond Princess have died, local media reported Thursday, as fears mount about those who have left the ship after testing negative for the virus. A man and a woman in their 80s who had been infected have died, public broadcaster NHK and others reported, which would be the first fatal cases among the more than 600 on board […]
