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11 die in India hospital due to disruption in oxygen supply
India continues to reel under the twin burdens of a huge surge in Covid-19 cases and an acute shortage of medical oxygen.
At least 11 Covid-19 patients on life support died at a private hospital in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh late on Monday night due to a sudden disruption in oxygen supply, officials said on Tuesday.
The deaths occurred at Ruia Hospital in Andhra Pradesh's temple town of Tirupati in Chittoor district. As many as 700 Covid patients are being treated at the hospital.
Chittoor District Collector M Hari Narayanan attributed the deaths to a delay in reloading the hospital's main oxygen cylinder.
"The delay in arrival of oxygen tankers from Tamil Nadu had triggered the crisis. The temporary disruption led the oxygen pressure to drop, resulting in the deaths. The oxygen supply was restored within five minutes. Because of this we could prevent more casualties," Narayanan told the media.
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government failing miserably to stem the oxygen crisis, the country's Supreme Court on Saturday set up a 12-member National Task Force to assess the availability of the life-saving gas across the country and help resolve the crisis at the earliest.
Read Also: India launches effort to inoculate all adults against COVID
"The rationale for constituting a Task Force at a national level is to facilitate public health response to the pandemic based on scientific and specialised domain knowledge. We expect leading experts in the country shall associate with the Task Force, as members and resource persons," the court had said.
In fact, several hospitals in India are facing an acute shortage of oxygen as the country witnesses a ferocious second wave of Covid. In the past one month, at least 100 patients have died at different hospitals in the country due to a shortage of oxygen.
Last week, 24 patients on life support lost their lives at a government medical facility in the southern state of Karnataka after it allegedly ran out of the life-saving gas.
Also read: 24 die in southern India hospital due to oxygen shortage
The deaths occurred at the general hospital in Karnataka's Chamarajanagar district, some 200km from state capital Bengaluru. Hospital officials had said that many Covid patients on life support were among the deceased.
On May 1, some 12 people, including a Covid-positive doctor, lost their lives at Batra Hospital in the national capital after it ran out of the life-saving gas.
"Supply came at 1.30pm (a second tanker reached at around 4pm). But we were out of oxygen for 1 hour and 20 mins. By the time supplies came, 12 people, including a doctor, were dead. Most of them were Covid patients on life support," the hospital had said in a statement.
On April 24, Jaipur Golden Hospital, a dedicated Covid medical facility in Delhi, announced the death of 25 Covid patients in 24 hours due to "low-supply oxygen" to critical patients on ventilator.
And a day before, another leading hospital in Delhi also said in a statement that 25 patients lost their lives in 24 hours due to an acute shortage of oxygen. "25 sickest patients have died in the last 24 hours. Oxygen will last another two hours. Major crisis likely. Lives of 60 sickest patients at risk, need urgent intervention," Sir Ganga Ram Hospital had said.
It may also be mentioned here that as many as 24 Covid patients on ventilator at a government hospital in the western state of Maharashtra had earlier died after their oxygen supply ran out following leakage of the life-supporting gas from a tanker. The tanker was brought to Zakir Hussain Municipal Hospital in Nashik district to replenish the cylinders.
In India’s northeast there’s fear of a virus surge to come
With experts saying the coronavirus is likely spreading in India’s northeastern state of Assam faster than anywhere else in the country, authorities were preparing Monday for a surge in infections by converting a massive stadium and a university into hospitals.
Cases in Assam started ticking upward a month ago and the official seven-day weekly average in the state on May 9 stood at more than 4,700 cases. But a model run by the University of Michigan — which predicts the current spread of cases before they are actually detected — says infections in Assam are likely occurring as fast as any other place in the country.
Add to that recent elections in the state — and the huge political rallies that accompanied them — and experts fear a uncontrolled surge is on the horizon.
Worryingly, along with cities in India’s northeastern frontier — which is closer to Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan than it is New Delhi — cases have also started to spike in some remote Himalayan villages in the region.
Nationwide, India’s Health Ministry reported 360,000 new cases in the past 24 hours Monday, with more than 3,700 deaths. Since the pandemic began, India has seen more than 22.6 million infections and more than 246,000 deaths —- both, experts say, almost certainly undercounts.
Officials in Assam were racing to prepare for a virus surge because similar onslaughts in infections have overwhelmed hospitals in much richer Indian states.
“We are adding 1,000 beds a week to prepare ourselves in the event of cases spiraling,” said Dr Lakshmanan S, the director of the National Health Mission in Assam.
The state’s largest government-run hospital, the Guwahati Medical College Hospital has more than doubled its number of intensive care beds to 220 and health officials are building another 200 in the hospital’s parking lot.
A football and cricket stadium is being converted into a hospital for COVID-19 patients with 430 beds. The private Royal Global University in the state capital, Gauhati, has been converted into a hospital with 1,000 beds.
The state is sending doctors, paramedics and medicine to these facilities and the university said it would provide books and newspapers for patients to read.
“This is the least we thought we could do in this time of huge crisis for our country,” said Dr AK Pansari, the university chairman.
There are 2,100 beds reserved in government centers for COVID-19 patients in Gauhati, with hundreds more planned. That’s in addition to the existing 750 beds for patients at private hospitals in the state.
Even as infections have increased, the rates of vaccination have fallen in Assam and the other states in the region since India expanded its coverage to include all adults on May 1.
Adding to concerns is confirmation the virus has started spreading into more remote Himalayan villages with poor health infrastructure. These areas are home to indigenous tribes, whose are already face some of the lowest access to health care in the nation.
The region had largely been untouched by the virus earlier and many people behaved like COVID-19 didn’t exist. But it now appears the virus was spreading in even remote villages without people knowing until it was too late.
The lack of awareness about the virus, lack or resources and the remoteness is complicating contact tracing in such areas, said Dr. Mite Linggi, the medical superintendent at the district hospital at Roing in Arunachal Pradesh state.
Despite the limited medical infrastructure and even more limited medical supplies, Linggi said what they really feared were power cuts.
“Power is crucial for running oxygen supply. We have patients gasping for air when the power comes and goes out,” he said.
Hamas fires rockets at Jerusalem after clashes at mosque
Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip fired rockets toward Jerusalem on Monday, setting off air raid sirens throughout the city, after hundreds of Palestinians were hurt in clashes with Israeli police at a flashpoint religious site in the contested holy city.
The early-evening attack drastically escalated what already are heightened tensions throughout the region following weeks of clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters in Jerusalem.
Shortly after the sirens sounded, explosions could be heard in Jerusalem. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage. The Israeli Army said there was an initial burst of seven rockets, one was intercepted, and rocket fire was continuing.
Also read: Israeli police, Palestinians clash at Jerusalem holy site
Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas’ military wing, said the rocket attack was a response to what he called Israeli “crimes and aggression” in Jerusalem. “This is a message the enemy has to understand well,” he said.
He threatened more attacks if Israel again invades the sacred Al-Aqsa compound or carries out evictions of Palestinian families in a neighborhood of east Jerusalem.
Earlier, Israeli police firing tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets clashed with stone-throwing Palestinians at the iconic compound.
More than a dozen tear gas canisters and stun grenades landed in the Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam’s holiest sites, as police and protesters faced off inside the walled compound that surrounds it, said an Associated Press photographer at the scene. Smoke rose in front of the mosque and the iconic golden-domed shrine on the site, and rocks littered the nearby plaza. Inside one area of the compound, shoes and debris lay scattered over ornate carpets.
In an apparent attempt to avoid further confrontation, Israeli authorities changed the planned route of a march by ultranationalist Jews through the Muslim Quarter of the Old City. The marchers were ordered to avoid the area and sent on a different route circumventing the Muslim Quarter on their way to the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can pray.
But tensions remained high.
More than 305 Palestinians were hurt, including 228 who went to hospitals and clinics for treatment, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. Seven of the injured were in serious condition. Police said 21 officers were hurt, including three who were hospitalized. Israeli paramedics said seven Israeli civilians were also hurt.
The confrontation was the latest after weeks of mounting tensions between Palestinians and Israeli troops in the Old City of Jerusalem, the emotional center of their conflict. There have been almost nightly clashes during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, already a time of heightened religious sensitivities.
Most recently, the tensions have been fueled by the planned eviction of dozens of Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of east Jerusalem where Israeli settlers have waged a lengthy legal battle to take over properties. Monday was expected to be particularly tense since Israelis mark it as Jerusalem Day to celebrate their capture of east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war.
On Monday, two anti-Arab members of Israel’s parliament, surrounded by an entourage and police, pushed through a line of protesters in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. Several Arab members of parliament were among those trying to stop Betzalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, amid shouting and jostling. Smotrich and Ben Gvir eventually got to the other side of a police barricade and entered a house already inhabited by settlers.
Over the past few days, hundreds of Palestinians and several dozen police officers have been hurt in clashes in and around the Old City, including the sacred compound, which is known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. The compound which has been the trigger for rounds of Israel-Palestinian violence in the past, is Islam’s third-holiest site and considered Judaism’s holiest.
An AP photographer at the scene said that early Monday morning, protesters had barricaded gates to the walled compound with wooden boards and scrap metal. Sometime after 7. a.m., clashes erupted, with those inside throwing stones at police deployed outside. Police entered the compound, firing tear gas, rubber-coated steel pellets and stun grenades.
At some point during the morning about 400 people, both young protesters and older worshippers, were inside the carpeted Al-Aqsa Mosque. Police fired tear gas and stun grenades into the mosque.
Police said protesters hurled stones at officers and onto an adjoining roadway near the Western Wall, where thousands of Israeli Jews had gathered to pray.
The tensions in Jerusalem have threatened to reverberate throughout the region.
Also read: Israeli police beef up presence in Jerusalem, fearing unrest
Before Monday’s rocket attack on Jerusalem, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Gaza, Palestinian militants had fired several barrages of rockets into southern Israel. Protesters allied with the ruling Hamas militant group have launched dozens of incendiary balloons into Israel, setting off fires across the southern part of the country.
The rare strike on Jerusalem came moments after Hamas had set a deadline for Israel to remove its forces from the mosque compound and Sheikh Jarrah and release Palestinians detained in the latest clashes.
Hamas, an Islamic militant group that seeks Israel’s destruction, has fought three wars with Israel since it seized power in Gaza in 2007. The group possesses a vast arsenal of missiles and rockets capable of striking virtually anywhere in Israel.
The rocket strike on Jerusalem was a significant escalation and raised the likelihood of a tough Israeli response.
After several days of Jerusalem confrontations, Israel has come under growing international criticism for its heavy-handed actions at the site, particularly during Ramadan.
The U.N. Security Council scheduled closed consultations on the situation Monday.
Late Sunday, the U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan spoke to his Israeli counterpart, Meir Ben-Shabbat. A White House statement said that Sullivan called on Israel to “pursue appropriate measures to ensure calm” and expressed the U.S.’s “serious concerns” about the ongoing violence and planned evictions.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back against the criticism Monday, saying Israel is determined to ensure the rights of worship for all and that this “requires from time to time stand up and stand strong as Israeli police and our security forces are doing now.”
In other violence, Palestinian protesters hurled rocks at an Israeli vehicle driving just outside the Old City walls. CCTV footage released by the police showed a crowd surrounding the car and pelting it with rocks when it swerved off the road and into a stone barrier and a bystander.
Police said two passengers were injured.
The day began with police announcing that Jews would be barred from visiting the holy site on Jerusalem Day, which is marked with a flag-waving parade through the Old City that is widely perceived by Palestinians as a provocative display in the contested city.
But just as the parade was about to begin, police said they were altering the route at the instruction of political leaders. Several thousand people, many of them from Jewish settlements in the West Bank, were participating.
In the 1967 war in which Israel captured east Jerusalem, it also took the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It later annexed east Jerusalem and considers the entire city its capital. The Palestinians seek all three areas for a future state, with east Jerusalem as their capital.
Also read: More Jerusalem clashes on eve of contentious Israeli parade
The recent round of violence began when Israel blocked off a popular spot where Muslims traditionally gather each night during Ramadan at the end of their daylong fast. Israel later removed the restrictions, but clashes quickly resumed amid tensions over the planned eviction of Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah.
Israel’s Supreme Court postponed a key ruling Monday that could have forced dozens of Palestinians from their homes, citing the “circumstances.”
BioNTech to set up Asia-Pacific hub, vaccine plant in Singapore
German biotechnology company BioNTech SE said Monday it has chosen Singapore for its first regional hub in the Asia-Pacific region and will also set up a manufacturing facility in the city-state to produce mRNA-based vaccines.
The new mRNA plant will produce a range of novel mRNA vaccines and therapeutics for infectious diseases and cancer.
Also Read: UN health agency clears Pfizer and BioNTech vaccines
BioNTech plans to open its Singapore office and start construction of the manufacturing facility this year, with the plant expected to be operational as early as 2023.
The manufacturing facility, coming on the heels of the establishment of its U.S. headquarters last year, will help Southeast Asia speed up its response to future pandemic threats in the region.
"Having multiple nodes in our production network is an important strategic step in building out our global footprint and capabilities," said Ugur Sahin, chief executive office and co-founder of BioNTech.
"Singapore provides an excellent business climate, growing biotechnology industry and rich talent base," he said.
Singapore Trade and Industry Minister Chan Chun Sing said on his Facebook page that BioNTech's choice will "strengthen Singapore's position as a leading hub for biopharmaceutical manufacturing" and its position as a critical node within the global vaccine value chain.
Also Read:Mexico starts giving first shots of Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine
This is the third major investment in Singapore by a global pharmaceutical company following announcements by U.S. firm Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. and French pharmaceutical firm Sanofi in recent months.
In October last year, Thermo Fisher announced plans to develop a US$130 million facility in Singapore for the development and manufacture of therapies and vaccines.
Sanofi said in April this year that it plans to invest 400 million euros (US$487 million) over five years to set up a vaccine production center in Singapore to mainly supply the Asian region and complement existing manufacturing capacities in Europe and North America.
India reports 366,161 new COVID-19 cases
India's COVID-19 tally rose to 22,662,575 on Monday, as 366,161 new cases were registered across the country in the past 24 hours, said the health ministry.
Besides, as many as 3,754 deaths have taken place in the country since Sunday morning, taking the total death toll to 246,116, added the ministry.
This is the first time after four consecutive days when the number of cases fell below 400,000 in 24 hours, and first time after two consecutive days when the number of deaths in a day fell below the 4,000-mark.
Also Read:As cases grow, India’s vaccination campaign falters
There are still 3,745,237 active cases in the country, with an increase of 8,589 active cases through Sunday. A total of 18,671,222 people have been cured and discharged from hospitals so far across the country.
The COVID-19 figures continue to peak in the country, as the federal government has ruled out a complete lockdown to contain the worsening situation though some states have imposed night curfews or partial lockdowns.
Delhi has been put under a third successive lockdown till May 17. Some school exams have been cancelled or postponed in the wake of COVID-19 situation.
The number of daily active cases has been on the rise over the past few weeks. In January the number of daily cases in the country had come down to below-10,000.
Over 170 million vaccination doses (170,176,603) have been administered across the country since India kicked off a nationwide vaccination drive on Jan. 16.
Also Read:India's surge hits southern states, prompts more lockdowns
Online registration began last Wednesday for vaccinating people aged above 18. This is the third phase of COVID-19 vaccination, which began on May 1.
Meanwhile, the Indian government has ramped up COVID-19 testing facilities across the country, as over 303 million tests have been conducted so far.
As many as 303,750,077 tests have been conducted till Sunday, out of which 1,474,606 tests were conducted on Sunday alone, said the latest data issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Monday.
As cases grow, India’s vaccination campaign falters
Since India opened vaccinations to all adults this month, hoping to tame a disastrous coronavirus surge sweeping across the country, the pace of administering the shots has dropped with states saying they only have limited stock to give out.
Cases meanwhile are still rising at record pace in the world’s second-most populous nation. Alongside a slowdown in vaccination, states have gone to court over oxygen shortages as hospitals struggle to treat a running line of COVID-19 patients.
On Sunday, India reported 403,738 confirmed cases, including 4,092 deaths. Overall, India has over 22 million confirmed infections and 240,000 deaths. Experts say both figures are undercounts.
India’s Supreme Court said Saturday it would set up a national task force consisting of top experts and doctors to conduct an “oxygen audit” to determine whether supplies from the federal government were reaching states.
Also Read: India's disaster hangs over countries facing COVID-19 surges
Complaints of oxygen shortages have dominated the top court recently, which stepped in earlier this week to make sure the federal government provided more medical oxygen to hospitals in capital New Delhi.
The country’s massive vaccination drive kicked off sluggishly in January when cases were low and exports of vaccines were high, with 64 million doses going overseas. But as infections started to rise in March and April, India’s exports drastically slowed down so doses went to its own population, reaching daily record highs. So far, around 10% of India’s population have received one shot while just under 2.5% have got both.
At its peak in early April, India was administering a record high of 3.5 million shots a day on average. But this number has consistently shrunk since, reaching an average of 1.3 million shots a day over the past week. Between April 6 and May 6, daily doses have dropped by 38%, even as cases have tripled and deaths have jumped sixfold, according to Bhramar Mukherjee, a biostatistician at the University of Michigan who has been tracking India’s epidemic.
One reason for the drop in shots is that there are just not enough available, experts say. Currently, India’s two vaccine makers produce an estimated 70 million doses each month of the two approved shots — AstraZeneca, made by the Serum Institute of India, and another by Bharat Biotech.
Vaccine supply has remained nearly the same throughout, but the target population eligible has increased by threefold, said Chandrakant Lahariya, a health policy expert. “In the beginning, India had far more assured supply available than the demand, but now the situation has reversed,” he added.
In Kerala state, the drive to inoculate all adults is crawling along because “our single biggest problem is the very slow arrival of supplies,” said the state’s COVID-19 officer, Amar Fetle.
Also Read: India's virus surge pressures Modi to impose strict lockdown
In New Delhi, many are waiting for hours outside vaccination centers - but only after they’ve been able to book a slot.
For Gurmukh Singh, a marketing professional in the city, this has been impossible. “It gets really frustrating, having so many hospitals and vaccine centers around but not being able to get access because they are all pre-booked,” he said.
Experts also point to a new policy change by the government, which has upended how doses are being distributed.
Previously, all of the stock was bought by the federal government and then administered to the population through both public and private health facilities.
But from May 1, all available stock has been divided into two, with 50% purchased by the government going to public health centers to inoculate those above 45. The remaining half is being purchased by states and the private sector directly from manufacturers at set prices to give adults below 45.
This has led to lags as states and private hospitals, still adjusting to new rules, struggle to procure supplies on their own.
“You have now taken it out of a fairly efficient system where every dose was still centrally-controlled,” said Jacob John, a professor of community medicine at Christian Medical College, Vellore. “But with market forces at play and unprepared states burdened with such a daunting task, the efficiency of the system has fallen.”
Also Read: India's govt eases hospital oxygen shortage as demand jumps
Things could change in the coming months as the government last month gave an advance to Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech, which could help boost manufacturing. And last week, India received its first batch of Sputnik V vaccines. Russia has signed a deal with an Indian pharmaceutical company to distribute 125 million doses.
But with vaccines currently in short supply, there are worries that those most in need are missing out. The goal should be to prioritize preventing deaths, which means fully vaccinating the elderly and vulnerable first, said Dr. Gagandeep Kang, a microbiologist at Christian Medical College, Vellore.
“You need to give it (earlier) to people who are more likely to die first,” Kang said.
Death toll soars to 50 in school bombing in Afghan capital
The death toll in a horrific bombing at a girls’ school in the Afghan capital has soared to 50, many of them pupils between 11 and 15 years old, the Interior Ministry said Sunday.
The number of wounded in Saturday’s attack has also climbed to more than 100, said Interior Ministry spokesman Tariq Arian.
Three explosions outside the school entrance struck as students were leaving for the day, he said. The blasts occurred in a mostly Shiite neighborhood in the west of the capital. The Taliban denied responsibility, condemning the attack.
Also Read:Bomb kills at least 30 near girls’ school in Afghan capital
The first explosion came from a vehicle packed with explosives, followed by two others, said Arian, adding that the casualty figures could still rise.
In the capital rattled by relentless bombings, Saturday’s attack was among the worst. Criticism has mounted over lack of security and growing fears of even more violence as the U.S. and NATO complete their final military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The attack targeted Afghanistan’s ethnic Hazaras who dominate the western Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood, where the bombings occurred. Most Hazaras are Shiite Muslims
The area has been hit by violence against minority Shiites and most often claimed by the Islamic State affiliate operating in the country. No one has yet claimed Saturday’s bombings.
Bomb kills at least 30 near girls’ school in Afghan capital
A bomb exploded near a girls’ school in a majority Shiite district of west Kabul on Saturday, killing at least 30 people, many of them young pupils between 11 and 15 years old. The Taliban condemned the attack and denied any responsibility.
Ambulances evacuated the wounded as relatives and residents screamed at authorities near the scene of the blast at Syed Al-Shahda school, in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood, Interior Ministry spokesman Tariq Arian said. The death toll was expected to rise further.
The bombing, apparently aimed to cause maximum civilian carnage, adds to fears that violence in the war-wrecked country could escalate as the U.S. and NATO end nearly 20 years of military engagement.
Residents in the area said the explosion was deafening. One, Naser Rahimi, told The Associated Press he heard three separate explosions, although there was no official confirmation of multiple blasts. Rahimi also said he believed that the sheer power of the explosion meant the death toll would almost certainly climb.
Rahimi said the explosion went off as the girls were streaming out of the school at around 4:30 p.m. local time. Authorities were investigating the attack but have yet to confirm any details.
One of the students fleeing the school recalled the attack. the screaming of the girls, the blood.
“I was with my classmate, we were leaving the school, when suddenly an explosion happened, “ said 15-year-old Zahra, whose arm had been broken by a piece of shrapnel.
“Ten minutes later there was another explosion and just a couple of minutes later another explosion,” she said. “Everyone was yelling and there was blood everywhere, and I couldn’t see anything clearly.” Her friend died.
While no one has claimed responsibility for the bombing, the Afghan Islamic State affiliate has targeted the Shiite neighborhood before.
The radical Sunni Muslim group has declared war on Afghanistan’s minority Shiite Muslims. Washington blamed IS for a vicious attack last year in a maternity hospital in the same area that killed pregnant women and newborn babies.
In Dasht-e-Barchi, angry crowds attacked the ambulances and even beat health workers as they tried to evacuate the wounded, Health Ministry spokesman Ghulam Dastigar Nazari said. He implored residents to cooperate and allow ambulances free access to the site.
Images circulating on social media purportedly showed bloodied school backpacks and books strewn across the street in front if the school, and smoke rising above the neighborhood.
At one nearby hospital, Associated Press journalists saw at least 20 dead bodies lined up in hallways and rooms, with dozens of wounded people and families of victims pressing through the facility.
Outside the Muhammad Ali Jinnah Hospital, dozens of people lined up to donate blood, while family members checked casualty posted lists on the walls.
Both Arian and Nazari said that at least 50 people were also wounded, and that the casualty toll could rise. The attack occurred just as the fasting day came to an end.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, and Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters in a message that only the Islamic State group could be responsible for such a heinous crime. Mujahid also accused Afghanistan’s intelligence agency of being complicit with IS, although he offered no evidence.
The Taliban and the Afghan government have traded accusations over a series of targeted killings of civil society workers, journalists and Afghan professionals. While IS has taken responsibility for some of those killings, many have gone unclaimed.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani issued a statement condemning the attack, blaming the Taliban even as they denied it. He offered no proof.
IS has previously claimed attacks against minority Shiites in the same area, last year claiming two brutal attacks on education facilities that killed 50 people, most of them students.
Even as the IS has been degraded in Afghanistan, according to government and US officials, it has stepped-up its attacks particularly against Shiite Muslims and women workers.
Earlier the group took responsibility for the targeted killing of three women media personnel in eastern Afghanistan.
The attack comes days after the remaining 2,500 to 3,500 American troops officially began leaving the country. They will be out by Sept. 11 at the latest. The pullout comes amid a resurgent Taliban, who control or hold sway over half of Afghanistan.
The top U.S. military officer said Sunday that Afghan government forces face an uncertain future and possibly some “bad possible outcomes” against Taliban insurgents as the withdrawal accelerates in the coming weeks.
Supreme Court steps in to resolve India's oxygen crisis
The inability of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government to stem the severe medical oxygen crisis in India has forced the country's top court to apparently step into the shoes of the executive.
The Supreme Court on Saturday set up a 12-member National Task Force to assess the availability of oxygen across India and help resolve the crisis at the earliest amid a huge surge in Covid-19 cases in the country.
"The rationale for constituting a Task Force at a national level is to facilitate public health response to the pandemic based on scientific and specialised domain knowledge. We expect leading experts in the country shall associate with the Task Force, as members and resource persons," the court said.
Also read: India's surge hits southern states, prompts more lockdowns
"This will facilitate a meeting of minds and the formulation of scientific strategies to deal with an unprecedented human crisis," a two-judge bench said.
In fact, several hospitals in India are currently facing an acute shortage of oxygen as the country witnesses a ferocious second wave of Covid. In the past one month, at least 100 patients have died at different hospitals in the country due to an acute shortage of oxygen.
Last week, 24 patients on life support lost their lives at a government medical facility in the southern state of Karnataka after it allegedly ran out of the life-saving gas.
Also read: 24 die in southern India hospital due to oxygen shortage The deaths occurred at the general hospital in Karnataka's Chamarajanagar district, some 200km from state capital Bengaluru. Officials had said that several Covid patients on life support were among the deceased at the hospital.
On May 1, some 12 people, including a Covid-positive doctor, lost their lives at Batra Hospital in the national capital after it ran out of the life-saving gas.
"Supply came at 1.30pm (a second tanker reached at around 4pm). But we were out of oxygen for 1 hour and 20 mins. By the time supplies came, 12 people, including a doctor, were dead. Most of them were Covid patients on life support," the hospital had said in a statement.
Also read: 12 die as Delhi hospital runs out of oxygen
On April 24, Jaipur Golden Hospital, a dedicated Covid medical facility in Delhi, announced the death of 25 Covid patients in 24 hours due to "low-supply oxygen" to critical patients on ventilator.
And a day before, another leading hospital in Delhi also said in a statement that 25 patients lost their lives in 24 hours due to an acute shortage of oxygen. "25 sickest patients have died in the last 24 hours. Oxygen will last another two hours. Major crisis likely. Lives of 60 sickest patients at risk, need urgent intervention," Sir Ganga Ram Hospital had said.
It may also be mentioned here that as many as 24 Covid patients on ventilator at a government hospital in the western state of Maharashtra had earlier died after their oxygen supply ran out following leakage of the life-supporting gas from a tanker. The tanker was brought to Zakir Hussain Municipal Hospital in Nashik district to replenish the cylinders.
South Korea, US discuss joint responses to falling Chinese rocket debris
South Korea and the United States on Friday discussed ways to jointly respond to remnants of a Chinese rocket expected to crash into Earth this weekend, the Air Force said.
According to Yonhap news agency, the Long March 5B rocket was launched last week carrying a module of China's first permanent space station into orbit. But a large piece of debris is expected to plunge back in an uncontrolled re-entry on around Saturday (U.S. time), according to the U.S. Space Command.
To explore ways to jointly deal with the case, South Korea's Air Force and the US-led Combined Space Operations Centre (CSPOC) held a video conference and shared their surveillance data and analysis.
The conference was also attended by military members from Germany and Japan, according to the Air Force
"We cannot completely rule out the possibility of rocket pieces falling onto the Korean Peninsula," Lt Col Choi Seong Hwan of the Korea Space Operations Centre said.
"We maintain a staunch readiness by maximising our space surveillance capabilities and working closely with the SpoC and other related agencies to be fully prepared for any scenarios," he added.
The US command said that the rocket's exact point of descent cannot be pinpointed until within hours of its re-entry." Experts said debris would fall into the sea but they might reach populated areas.