Author: News Desk

The death toll from a massive explosion in a fireworks factory in Turkey has increased to six. The governor of Sakarya in northwest Turkey announced two new deaths and said rescue teams were still searching for one more person after Friday’s explosion. The governor, Cetin Oktay Kaldirim, was quoted by Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency. Earlier Sunday, the governor said six people were still hospitalized from the explosion, including one person in critical condition. Some 114 people workers been treated and released. The cause of the blast at the factory, which is away from residential areas, was under investigation. A…

Bali conducted mass prayers on Sunday as the Indonesian resort island prepares to reopen to tourists shut out due to the COVID-19 pandemic. More than a thousand people attended a prayer at Besakih Hindu temple in the town of Karangasem, expressing gratitude for the handling of the new coronavirus on the island and seeking blessings for the start of a “new normal”. Bali has reported 1,849 coronavirus infections and 20 deaths so far, while Indonesia as a whole has recorded 63,749 cases and 3,171 deaths since early March. The idyllic Southeast Asian island will gradually reopen this month for domestic…

Saudi Arabia has reported 3,580 new cases and 58 deaths from coronavirus, taking the total cases to 209,509. Saudi Arabia is holding the 13th position for most coronavirus cases worldwide. The death toll raised to 1,916 after reporting the new deaths. Meanwhile, 1,980 patients fully recovered from the virus, bringing the total recoveries to 145,236. In line with recent trends, the majority of the new cases are in Riyadh (332), followed by Taif (271) and Khamis Mushait (242). https://twitter.com/media_ksa/status/1279758469910888448?s=20

The commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration on Sunday declined to defend President Donald Trump’s unfounded claim that 99% of coronavirus cases are “totally harmless” and repeatedly refused to say whether Trump’s remark is true or false. “I’m not going to get into who is right and who is wrong,” Dr. Stephen Hahn, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.” During his remarks Saturday at the White House Independence Day event, Trump claimed without evidence that 99% of coronavirus cases “are totally harmless.” The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…

The northwestern Spanish region of Galicia imposed restrictions on about 70,000 people on Sunday following a COVID-19 outbreak, a day after Catalonia also introduced a local lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus. People living in A Marina along Spain’s northern coast in the region of Lugo will not be able to leave the area from midnight on Sunday until Friday, two days before regional elections in Galicia on July 12. The regional government said people will be allowed to move around A Marina but only those who need to travel for work will be allowed to leave or…

The number of people killed in protests in Ethiopia following the slaying of a popular singer has jumped to 156 from the initial tally of 80, a senior regional security official told on Sunday. The protests were sparked by the assassination of musician Haacaaluu Hundeessaa on Monday night and spread from Addis Ababa to the surrounding Oromia region. Jibril Mohammed, head of the Oromia Security and Peace Bureau, said the 156 are those who died just in the Oromia region, which was the worst hit by the protests. He said more deaths might be reported due to the number of…

Saudi government initiatives to support the financing of the private sector to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus oubreak have exceeded 51 billion riyals ($13.60 billion), the central bank said on Sunday.

Iran recorded its highest number of deaths from COVID-19 within a 24-hour period, official health ministry figures showed on Sunday. The 163 deaths reported on Sunday exceed the previous record from last Monday, when the health ministry reported 162 deaths in a day. The Islamic Republic has recorded a total of 11,571 deaths and 240,438 infections from the coronavirus, health ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari said in a statement on state TV. There have been 201,330 recoveries, she said. The number of new daily infections and deaths has increased sharply in the last week following the gradual lifting of restrictions…

Ireland will ease quarantine restrictions on people travelling from abroad on July 20, with people arriving from a “green list” of countries with low COVID-19 rates to be exempt from isolating themselves for 14 days, transport minister Eamon Ryan said. The government had said in June that the restrictions would be eased from July 9, but Ryan said this had been delayed due to concern about travel-related infections. “A so-called green list… will be published on July 20, or prior to that,” Ryan said in an interview with Newstalk radio station on Sunday. “The green list will be operating after…

UAE records 683 cases, and 2 fatalities from coronavirus in the past 24 hours, taking the total cases in the country to 51,540. The new death takes the total fatalities to 323. ♦ UAE restructures government, as it deals with coronavirus impact The new cases were found after conducting more than 47,000 coronavirus tests across the country. Meanwhile, 440 new recoveries were also announced, bringing the total recoveries to 40,297. This means that over 78 percent of the confirmed cases have fully recovered from the virus.