“We’re on track for the second year of this pandemic to be far more deadly than the first,” said the World Health Organisation’s director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The mood also darkened in Japan where the coronavirus state of emergency took in another three regions just 10 weeks before the Olympics, while campaigners submitted a petition with more than 350,000 signatures calling for the Games to be cancelled.

With Tokyo and other areas already under emergency orders until the end of May, Hiroshima, Okayama and northern Hokkaido, which will host the Olympic marathon, will now join them.

The move to combat a fourth wave putting Japan’s medical system under strain comes with public opinion firmly opposed to holding the Games this summer.

Kenji Utsunomiya, once candidate for Tokyo governor, urged Games organisers to “prioritise life” over ceremony as he submitted the petition to capital authorities.

The pandemic has killed at least 3,346,813 people worldwide since the virus first emerged in late 2019, according to an AFP tally of official data. 

There was bad news for Taiwan too with the capital indefinitely closing down entertainment venues, libraries and sports centres in the wake of an outbreak of infections first detected among pilots.

The island has been a global leader in containing the pandemic, with just 1,290 confirmed cases and 12 deaths.

Taipei’s decision, effective from Saturday, covers bars, dance clubs, karaoke lounges, nightclubs, saunas and Internet cafés as well as hostess clubs and teahouses.

Sputnik vaccines reach India

India meanwhile started deploying Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, the first foreign-made shot to be used in the country that has been reeling from an explosion in cases and deaths.

The first token batch of Sputnik vaccines — reportedly 150,000 doses — arrived on May 1 and a second delivery is expected in the next few days.

A number of leading India-based drugmakers have agreements for local production of Sputnik V with the aim to produce over 850 million doses of the jab per year.

India has been adding roughly as many new Covid cases daily as the rest of the world put together.

More than 260,000 Indians have died, according to official figures.

But in Europe, tourist hotspots are opening up. 

Greece kickstarted its tourism season today, hoping to reverse last year’s miserable summer.

“I hope to forget this damn Covid,” said Jil Wirries, a 28-year old student from Hanover, Germany, collecting luggage on the island of Crete.

“Everything is terrible in Germany... people are depressed... I’m so happy to be here.”

France and Spain launched tourism campaigns this week too while Italy said today it was scrapping a quarantine requirement for visitors from the EU, Britain and Israel who test negative for the coronavirus.

And in the US, the top health agency yesterday said it was lifting mask-wearing guidance for fully vaccinated people.

‘Milestone’

Biden declared a major victory in the battle against the virus that has seen more than 580,000 Americans die.

“I think it’s a great milestone, a great day,” he said.

Some, however, said they would continue to wear their masks out of caution.

“I’m still going to wear a mask inside,” said Mubarak Dahir, a 57-year-old tourist in the capital Washington, visiting from Florida. “I think it’s premature, it’s a little dangerous to believe that we are that far already.”

Almost 60 per cent of US adults have now received one or more doses, while cases are falling fast, down to a seven-day-average of 38,000 or 11 per 100,000.

And the US campaign to vaccinate adolescents aged 12-to-15 began Thursday in earnest following the authorisation of the Pfizer vaccine in this age group.

But today, the WHO urged wealthy countries to stop vaccinating children and instead donate doses to poorer nations.

“I understand why some countries want to vaccinate their children and adolescents, but right now I urge them to reconsider and to instead donate vaccines to Covax,” said WHO chief Tedros.

Portugal to let fans in

Covid continues to sow turmoil in the world of sport, with the May 29 Champions League Final between Manchester City and Chelsea shifted from Istanbul to Porto.

Portugal announced today that British tourists and football fans will be allowed in.

The Turkish Grand Prix, which was only drafted onto the Formula One calendar as a replacement for the cancelled Canada GP two weeks ago, was itself axed today.

Formula One chiefs announced they will instead return to the sport’s safe haven of Austria. — AFP

Among those killed was the imam, who was leading Friday prayers at the mosque for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr. More than a dozen people were injured.

No group has so far claimed the attack and the Taliban denied responsibility. 

Afghans have been cautiously enjoying a rare respite from violence following the start of a three-day truce between Taliban militants and Afghan forces which began yesterday, after weeks of intense fighting. 

“The death toll has jumped to 12 killed, including the imam of the mosque, and 15 others are wounded,” said Ferdaws Framurz, a spokesman for the Kabul police, updating an earlier toll.

A spokesman for the interior ministry said the explosives were placed in the mosque ahead of the prayers.

The governor of southern Uruzgan province, Fazel Ahmad Shirzad, meanwhile accused the Taliban of twice violating the ceasefire by attacking security forces today — a day after landmine blasts killed several civilians in Kunduz, according to officials there.

The blast comes after US and Afghan officials today said the United States had pulled out completely from a major southern air base in the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar.

US airstrikes were launched from the base just last week to help Afghan forces push back a major Taliban offensive in the south.

Washington, backed by Nato, has pledged to withdraw all foreign troops and end America’s longest war by September.

Concerns over transfer of base

Kandahar was the birthplace of the Taliban and has in recent months seen intense clashes between the resurgent militants and Afghan forces. 

The US embassy in Kabul confirmed on Twitter that US forces had “completed the transition of Kandahar Airfield to Afghan forces this week”.

Khoja Yaya Alawi, a spokesman for the Afghan army in Kandahar, said they were waiting for an official handover, but that the last US troops “left the base on Wednesday”.

An Afghan army officer at Kandahar Airfield, who asked not to be named, told AFP that government forces would be left exposed by the pullout.

“It is now going to be very difficult for us to conduct operations,” he said. “Our aircraft can’t fly at night so the night operations are going to be difficult.”

Afghan military analyst Kabir Darwish said the “Afghan air force does not have enough capacity to replace the US”.

A number of smaller bases have already been handed over to Afghan forces. 

The airfield was formerly the second largest base for US and international troops in Afghanistan and the first airfield where US forces were stationed after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.  

It was also the centre of the biggest drone operation by US special forces. At its peak, the base had about 26,000 US and Nato personnel.

The military has for years been steadily decreasing its presence there, accelerated after Washington struck a deal with the Taliban last year to completely withdraw from Afghanistan in return for security guarantees.

But the US missed the May 1 deadline, extending it to September 11 — a move which angered the Taliban.

Although fighting between the US forces and the Taliban has stopped since the landmark agreement last year, battles rage daily between Afghan government forces and the militants.

On Saturday, a series of blasts outside a girls’ school in Kabul killed more than 50 people, mostly teenage girls.

Ceasefires in the past have largely held, in what is widely thought to be an exercise by the Taliban leadership to prove it has control over the myriad factions across the country that make up the hardline movement. — AFP

The WHO is hoping more countries will follow France and Sweden in donating shots to Covax after inoculating their priority populations to help address a gulf in vaccination rates.

Canada and the United States are among countries that have authorised vaccines for use in adolescents in recent weeks. However, a WHO official said talks with Washington on sharing doses were under way.

“I understand why some countries want to vaccinate their children and adolescents, but right now I urge them to reconsider and to instead donate vaccines to #Covax,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual meeting in Geneva.

Covax, which has delivered around 60 million doses so far, has struggled to meet supply targets partly because of Indian export restrictions on the AstraZeneca vaccine due to its growing epidemic.

So far, around 1.26 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered globally.

Tedros also said the second year of the pandemic was set to be more deadly than the first, with India a huge concern.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi sounded the alarm over the rapid spread of the coronavirus through India’s vast countryside on Friday, as the country’s official tally of infections crossed 24 million and over 4,000 people died for the third straight day.

More than 160.71 million people have been reported to be infected by the coronavirus globally and nearly 3.5 million have died, according to a Reuters tally.

Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019.

WHO officials urged caution in lifting measures that contain transmission, such as mask wearing, and warned that more variants were bound to be detected.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised that fully vaccinated people did not need to wear masks outdoors and could avoid wearing them indoors in most places.

“Very few countries are at the point where they can drop these measures,” said Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan. — Reuters

The largest Israeli operation against a specific target since the conflict began included 160 aircraft as well as tanks and artillery firing from outside the Gaza Strip, Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus said.

Rocket barrages against southern Israel swiftly followed the 40-minute pre-dawn offensive on the fifth day of the most serious fighting between Israel and Gaza militants since 2014.

A woman and her three children were among 13 people killed in Gaza, health officials in the north of the enclave said, and their bodies were recovered from the rubble of their home.

An elderly woman in Israel died while on her way to a shelter to shield from the rocket attacks.

Gaza’s ruling Hamas group launched the rocket attacks at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in retaliation for Israeli police clashes with Palestinians near Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

At least 122 people have been killed in Gaza, including 31 children and 20 women, and 900 others wounded, Palestinian medical officials said.

Among eight dead in Israel were a soldier patrolling the Gaza border, six Israeli civilians — including two children — and an Indian worker, Israeli authorities said.

Security sources said Egypt was leading diplomacy aimed at securing a ceasefire but neither side appeared amenable so far.

The head of the International Criminal Court warned that individuals involved in the bloodshed may be targeted by its investigation into alleged war crimes in earlier bouts of the conflict.

In northern and eastern parts of Gaza, the sound of artillery fire and explosions echoed early on Friday.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said there were reports of more than 200 housing units destroyed or severely damaged and hundreds of people seeking shelter in schools in northern Gaza.

Israel says it makes every effort to preserve civilian life, including warning in advance of attacks.

“What we were targeting is an elaborate system of tunnels that spans underneath Gaza, mostly in the north but not limited to, and is a network that the operatives of Hamas use in order to move, in order to hide, for cover,” Conricus told foreign reporters.

“We refer to (it) as the Metro,” he said, adding that a final assessment on the outcome of the operation was pending.

Israeli warplanes on Friday bombed the houses of three senior Hamas military commanders in central Gaza, witnesses said. There were no reports of injuries as the dwellings had already been evacuated, local residents said.

Dozens of mourners took part in the funeral of six people — members of two families whose houses were hit by Israeli air strikes on Thursday — in the southern Gaza town of Rafah.

Holding the cloth-bound body of his 19-month-old nephew in his arms, Khamees al-Rantissi said their house was bombed without prior warning. “What was this child doing? What threat did he pose for the state of Israel?” Rantissi asked.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday the campaign “will take more time”. Israeli officials said Hamas, Gaza’s most powerful Islamist militant group, must be dealt a strong deterring blow before any ceasefire.

US President Joe Biden called on Thursday for a de-escalation of the violence, saying he wanted to see a significant reduction in rocket attacks.

Flurry of diplomacy

Egypt is pushing for both sides to cease fire from midnight on Friday, two Egyptian security sources said, expecting further negotiations due to the high number of casualties. They said Cairo was pushing with Hamas and has asked others, including the United States, to reach an agreement with Israel.

A diplomat said an earlier ceasefire bid had failed because the Israeli side said it wanted to finish what it started and Hamas said it would not stop fighting until the Israelis did.

The hostilities have fuelled tension between Israeli Jews and the country’s 21 per cent Arab minority. Violence continued in mixed communities overnight after street fighting and tit-for-tat attacks that prompted Israel’s president to warn of civil war.

“They say Gaza is spiralling out of control, but what is happening here scares me more,” said Majd Abado, an Arab resident of the mixed city of Acre, where people from both communities said they were afraid to leave their homes.

Israel’s military said a Palestinian tried to stab a soldier near the West Bank city of Ramallah. The soldier shot the attacker. Palestinian health officials said the man was killed.

The Israeli military’s build-up of forces on the Gaza border has raised speculation about a possible repeat of ground invasions during Israel-Gaza wars in 2014 and 2009. But an incursion looked unlikely, given Israel’s reluctance to risk a sharp increase in military casualties on Hamas turf.

At least two owners of tankers delivering crude oil to Israel asked to divert from Ashkelon to the port of Haifa, farther north of Gaza, because of the conflict, shipping sources said on Friday. An industrial zone near Ashkelon was hit by a rocket on Tuesday, damaging a fuel storage tank.

Germany’s flag carrier Lufthansa on Friday extended its suspension of flights to Tel Aviv until May 17, while Wizz Air cancelled all flights on Friday and Saturday, joining other airlines in avoiding Israel due to escalating conflict there.

The UN Security Council will publicly discuss the worsening violence on Sunday, diplomats said after the United States had objected to a meeting on Friday.

The Israeli military has put the number of militants killed in Israeli attacks at between 80 and 90. It said that so far, some 1,800 rockets have been fired at Israel, of which 430 fell short in Gaza or malfunctioned. — Reuters

The security bureau said it had issued an order to freeze Lai’s shares in Next Digital media group and “the property in the local bank accounts of three companies owned by him”.

A rags to riches billionaire, media tycoon Lai has long been a thorn in Beijing’s side thanks to his caustic tabloids and unapologetic support for democracy.

His Apple Daily newspaper has staunchly backed Hong Kong’s pro-democracy cause, including the huge and often violent protests that swept the international financial hub in 2019.

Lai, 73, was detained last year under a sweeping national security law that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in a bid to stamp out those protests.

He was charged with “colluding with foreign forces” for allegedly advocating for foreign sanctions against Hong Kong and China’s leaders.

He was also convicted and jailed last month for taking part in the 2019 protests. — AFP

On Sunday, Colombia, Uruguay, Costa Rica and Bahrein will join 12 countries already on the quarantine list, the prime minister’s office said.

Brazil, India, Argentina, Chile and South Africa, which last month became the first targets of French quarantine obligations, were joined last week by Turkey, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

While the pandemic situation was improving in France, the prime minister’s office said in a statement, the circulation elsewhere of the virus and some dangerous variants, made “stricter arrival controls necessary”.

Police are authorised to carry out random spot checks to ensure that quarantine rules are respected, with non-compliance punished with fines of up to €1,500 (RM7,425). — AFP

The decision by the Justice Ministry came less than a month after Meduza, a popular Russian-language news website based in Latvia, also received the controversial label, forcing it to launch a crowdfunding campaign to survive the loss of advertising revenue.

VTimes has been added to the list of “foreign agents” because it is registered in the Netherlands, the ministry said in a statement.

The news site was founded last year by the senior editors and journalists of Vedomosti business daily, who quit after the appointment of a pro-Kremlin editor-in-chief.

Groups or individuals identified as “foreign agents” in Russia must disclose their sources of funding and label publications with the relevant tag or face fines.

The label is also a deterrent for potential advertisers and the stigma also makes it hard for journalists to carry out their work. 

Kremlin critics say that during his two decades in power President Vladimir Putin has silenced most dissidents and muzzled the media. 

The few opposition and independent media that still operate in Russia are under huge pressure.

Legislation behind the term “foreign agent” was originally passed in 2012 to cover NGOs.

It was expanded to include media organisations in 2017 after Kremlin-funded RT (former Russia Today) was declared a foreign agent in the United States.

The US-funded Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe — designated a “foreign agent” in 2017 — has recently faced a flurry of huge fines over non-compliance with the law. — AFP

The talks will mark two years since the leaders launched the Christchurch Call, an initiative named after the New Zealand city where a far-right gunman massacred 51 people at two mosques on March 15, 2019 while broadcasting his rampage live on Facebook.

The campaign, which aims to bring together governments and top tech platforms, has been boosted by the decision of the administration of new US President Joe Biden to join the initiative after Donald Trump turned his back on the drive.

The aim of the talks, due to get underway at 1830 GMT, will be to “reaffirm strong, high-level political support, determine new goals for Christchurch Call signatories and maintain an open but demanding dialogue with digital platforms,” the French presidency said.

Participants in the Christchurch Call are asked to commit to pledges to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content on social media and other online platforms.

It was not immediately clear which tech chiefs and other leaders would be dialling into the virtual talks.

According to Macron’s office, this initiative now involves 52 states, the European Commission, 10 large companies and global internet platforms and as well as dozen civil society associations.

The drive was launched to counter a growing use of social media by extremists, after the Christchurch attacker broadcast live footage on Facebook from a head-mounted camera.

The New Zealand leader earned huge international prominence and respect after the attacks by reaching out to Muslim communities at home and vowing a widescale crackdown on extremist content.

“Among the priorities I would like to see progressed is a strengthened collective ability to manage crises related to terrorist and violent extremist content online,” Ardern said in a statement released by the French presidency ahead of the talks.

Macron added: “The work of the Call is ongoing and it remains as important as when it was launched two years ago.” — AFP

“Taking into account all the threats that are being created for us, we will have to respond to this properly and in a timely fashion,” Putin said at a meeting of his security council, apparently referring to the prosecution of Viktor Medvedchuk, a Kremlin-friendly Ukrainian lawmaker.

He added that Ukraine was clearly carrying out a “clean-up of the political landscape”. 

On Thursday, a court in Ukraine placed Medvedchuk on house arrest until July 9. He is accused of attempting to steal natural resources from Russia-annexed Crimea and of handing Ukrainian military secrets to Russia. 

The lawmaker said the charges against him were politically motivated and punishment for his stance.

“For political reasons some are selectively blamed for working with Russia in the economic sphere, although many, including those of the country’s top political leadership, have for many years been actively working in Russia,” Putin said. 

“The decisions are clearly political and selective,” he added.

Medvedchuk faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

The 66-year-old business tycoon, who counts Putin among his personal friends, is a controversial figure in Ukraine for his ties to Moscow, which has backed separatists in a years-long conflict with Kiev.

Medvedchuk is one of Ukraine’s richest people, with Forbes estimating his net worth at US$620 million. He has said Putin is godfather to his youngest daughter Darya. 

Ukraine has been fighting Russia-backed separatists in the eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions since 2014.

The fighting has claimed more than 13,000 lives, according to the United Nations.

Kiev and the West accuse Moscow of sending troops and arms across the border. The Kremlin has denied the charges. — AFP

Under new rules that come into force from Sunday, Italy will also extend so-called “Covid-free” flights, currently in place to and from the United States, to Canada, Japan and the United Arab Emirates.

Naples and Venice will also be served by such flights, in addition to Rome and Milan, a health ministry spokesman said.

At the same time, measures blocking arrivals from Brazil have been extended.

“Health Minister Roberto Speranza has signed a decree that provides for entry from countries in the EU and the Schengen area, as well as Britain and Israel, with a negative test, overcoming the current system of mini-quarantine,” the spokesman said.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi has said the return of tourists is crucial to the recovery of the eurozone’s third largest economy, which was one of the EU countries worst hit by coronavirus.

The economy shrank by a staggering 8.9 per cent last year and more than 120,000 people have died since Covid-19 swept across Italy in February 2020.

Outdoor eating in cafes and restaurants resumed last month and museums and cinemas reopened, although a 10:00pm curfew remains in place nationwide. 

Draghi is under pressure from the far-right League and other parties supporting his national unity government to allow further reopenings, and the issue is set to dominate scheduled coalition talks on Monday.

Italy’s rate of infections has slowed in recent weeks while the vaccination campaign has gained pace after a slow start, with some 26 million doses administeredin the country of 60 million people. — AFP

“These are terrorist attacks that have only one goal: to kill people indiscriminately and arbitrarily and to spread fear,” Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert told a government press conference.

Merkel’s government stressed “Israel’s right to self-defence against these attacks”, he added.

Palestinian militants have launched more than 1,800 rockets since Monday, according to Israel’s army, which has launched hundreds of air strikes on Hamas and other Islamist groups in the crowded costal enclave of Gaza.

The most intense hostilities in seven years were triggered by weekend unrest at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound, which is sacred to both Muslims and Jews.

Germany has seen scattered demonstrations this week over the escalating conflict, with protesters shouting anti-Semitic slogans and burning Israeli flags.

Flags were burned outside synagogues in Muenster and Bonn, with 16 people arrested. 

On Wednesday evening, around 180 people shouted anti-Jewish slogans at a march in Gelsenkirchen, also in the west.

On Thursday around 1,500 people gathered in the northern city of Bremen calling for “freedom for Palestine” in a protest which proceeded without incident, according to local police.

Seibert said Friday that Germany would not tolerate “anti-Semitic” demonstrations.

“Anyone who attacks a synagogue or defiles Jewish symbols shows that for them it is not about criticising a state or the policies of a government, but about aggression and hate towards a religion and the people who belong to it,” he said. 

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier had on Thursday also condemned the protests.

“Those who burn Star of David flags in our streets and shout anti-Semitic slogans not only abuse the freedom to demonstrate, but are committing crimes,” he told the popular Bild daily.

“Nothing justifies threats against Jews in Germany or attacks on synagogues in German towns,” he said. — AFP

The army said “the assailant arrived in his vehicle to a military post adjacent to the community of Ofra, north of Ramallah, and accelerated” towards a soldier before the attempted stabbing.

It said the alleged assailant had been “neutralised,” and that there were no Israelis injured in the attack.

The Palestinian health ministry confirmed the man’s death.

He is the fourth Palestinian killed by Israeli in the West Bank since Monday, when a conflict between Israel and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza escalated.

Violent protests have flared across the West Bank amid the Gaza hostilities, which has seen Gaza-based armed groups launch more than 1,800 rockets at Israel.

Israel has responded with heavy air strikes and artillery fire. Nine people have died in Israel from Gaza hostilities and 119 people have been killed in Gaza. — AFP

The UK has delivered one of the world’s fastest inoculation campaigns, giving a first shot to almost 70 per cent of the adult population and a second to 36 per cent, helping to reduce infection rates and deaths.

But the emergence of the highly infectious B.1.617.2 variant in parts of northern England and London has threatened a planned full reopening due to take place in June, prompting a rethink on ways to speed up the vaccination drive.

The next stage of relaxation of restrictions, where people will be formally permitted to hug again, meet in small groups indoors and travel internationally, is taking place on Monday.

While shots are now available nationally to anyone over the age of 38, vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said that in areas where the Indian variant of concern has been found they could be offered to younger people in multi-generational households.

Those receiving the Pfizer vaccine could also have the second dose more quickly, to boost protection, and surge testing will be used whereby all residents of a certain area are asked to get a PCR test to help assess how widespread the problem is.

“We will flex the vaccination deployment wherever possible to deal with this new variant,” Zahawi told Times Radio. “It is clearly more infectious because infections have gone up in a week from 520 to 1,313.”

Public Health England a week ago labelled the mutation a “variant of concern,” citing evidence that it spreads more quickly than the original version of the virus and could spread at least as quickly as the so-called “Kent” variant, which fuelled England’s second wave of infections.

Britain put India on a travel “red list” in April, meaning all arrivals from the South Asian country — now suffering the world’s worst wave of Covid-19 — would have to pay to quarantine in a government-approved hotel for 10 days.

Media reports at the time suggested that, because the quarantine requirement was announced four days in advance, many people sought to fly beforehand between the two countries, which have close cultural ties.

To help tackle the new variant, the Times newspaper said, the government was now considering bringing forward second doses for the most vulnerable groups from around the current 12-week gap if Britain does endure a third wave of infections.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has set out what he describes as a “cautious but irreversible” route out of lockdown for England, with the next step planned for next week.

Even with new variants, the government is likely to want to avoid pursuing a regional approach to curbs after it ultimately failed last year, leading to two further national lockdowns. — Reuters

Europe and the United States say that the Western Balkans, comprising Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, will ultimately join the EU, after the ethnic wars of the 1990s.

After meeting Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, Pahor said that the enlargement of the EU to the Western Balkans was a “geopolitical necessity”, but that the region must advance jointly toward membership of the bloc.

“The enlargement must be quicker... It would be great if more or less all the countries of the region could enter EU together,” Pahor said through an interpreter.

Pahor said that he hoped that the countries from the region would “send such a message to Brussels” from a regional summit in Slovenia set for next week.

“Only under condition of relatively quick entry of all countries from that region (the Western Balkans) into the EU... (the region) can preserve peace, security, stability.”

Out of six former Yugoslav republics, Slovenia and Croatia have joined the EU, Serbia and Montenegro are membership candidates, while Bosnia and Kosovo lag far behind.

Bulgaria refuses to allow North Macedonia, another ex-Yugoslav republic, to move ahead in its EU bid, citing language and cultural disputes.

Vucic, a former nationalist who has espoused European integration, said Serbia has “nothing against a holistic approach”.

“You will always have an approach based on progress ... but we have nothing against a more significant geopolitical approach to the Western Balkans,” he said.

Albania, which is also a part of the Western Balkans region became a candidate in 2014.

Its membership accession process slowed in 2019 after France and the Netherlands opposed it over the country’s lack of efforts on improving democracy and fighting corruption. — Reuters

“They have not officially handed over the base to us but I can confirm they left the base on Wednesday,” said Khoja Yaya Alawi, a spokesman for the Afghan army in Kandahar.

“They have handed over all the facilities to Afghan forces,” Massoud Pashtun, the director of Kandahar Airport, added.

An official handover is expected to take place after the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which ends on Saturday, both officials said.

At its height, the airfield was the second largest base for US and international troops.

Kandahar province was the birthplace of the Taliban and has in recent months seen intense clashes between militants and Afghan forces. 

The Taliban and Afghan forces are currently in the middle of a three-day ceasefire which has granted respite for Afghans across the country as they celebrate the Muslim holiday. 

The US military did not immediately comment. — AFP

Honduras, among a small number of Latin American countries to maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan, has said it was considering opening an office in China in a bid to acquire much needed Covid-19 shots, prompting Taipei to criticize Beijing for pushing a vaccine-for-recognition deal.

Several Latin American nations are receiving Chinese vaccines, but countries such as Honduras and Guatemala that have built ties with democratic Taiwan — which Beijing considers a breakaway province — are not.

“We condemn the cynical use of potentially life-saving medical assistance to advance the narrow political agendas of certain donors,” a State Department spokesman told Reuters without mentioning China when asked about the situation involving Honduras.

“Taiwan’s relationships with countries in the region, including Honduras, reinforce the hemisphere’s democratic values and support sustainable development,” the spokesman said, adding that the United States “stands with Honduras as it confronts these challenging times.”

China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying responded at a daily news conference in Beijing on Friday, accusing the United States of double standards and of hoarding vaccines while not assisting other countries.

Taiwan has complained that China is applying similar pressure to Paraguay, one of just 15 countries that formally recognize the self-governed island over Beijing.

China, Russia, and the United States have sought to deepen ties around the world and further their countries’ geopolitical clout through so-called “vaccine diplomacy”.

The Chinese government, which has been exporting millions of doses of Covid-19 vaccines mainly to developing countries, has repeatedly denied that it uses them to gain diplomatic advantage.

Beijing has been gradually whittling away at Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, which has alarmed Washington, nervous about an increased Chinese presence in Latin America and the Pacific where those allies are concentrated.

The United States earlier this month backed calls from emerging countries led by India and South Africa to temporarily lift patent protection for Covid-19 vaccines in the race to distribute more doses globally. — Reuters

Yuki Kitazumi, held in Yangon’s Insein prison since his arrest last month, was one of at least 80 reporters detained during the junta’s crackdown on anti-coup dissent.

Security forces have killed more than 780 people since protests erupted following the February 1 coup that ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, according to a local monitoring group.

Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi confirmed that the journalist left Myanmar for Japan on Friday afternoon.

Motegi said Japan had used “various channels” to press for his release and that it had been “tough work”.

“As a result of those efforts, yesterday the Myanmar authorities announced that they would withdraw the indictment,” he told reporters in Tokyo.

The journalist is expected to touch down in Japan on Friday night and he is in good health, Motegi said.

US$4 million food aid

The minister also announced that Japan has offered Myanmar US$4 million (RM16.5 million) in emergency food aid via the World Food Programme.

The support is expected to help 600,000 people.

“Food supply to the impoverished population in Yangon region is rapidly deteriorating amid this situation, and they are facing difficulties in even maintaining the most basic living conditions,” the Japanese Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

In late March, Japan had announced it was suspending new aid to Myanmar in response to the coup.

“We have continued our calls on Myanmar to immediately stop violence, release those who are detained (political prisoners) and return to the democratic political process,” Motegi said.

Myanmar state broadcaster MRTV announced Thursday that the charges against journalist Kitazumi were being dropped “in order to reconcile with Japan and improve our relationship”.

State media said an earlier investigation found that Kitazumi “supported the protests”.

He was charged under a newly revised provision in the penal code which criminalises spreading fake news, criticising the coup or encouraging disobedience among soldiers and civil servants. 

Those convicted can face up to three years in jail.

Kitazumi, who had previously been arrested in February but released soon afterwards, was the first foreign journalist to be charged since the coup.

A Polish photographer arrested while covering a protest in March was freed and deported after nearly two weeks in custody.

As well as arresting reporters and photographers, the junta has also revoked broadcasting licences and ordered regular internet outages as it seeks to suppress news of the anti-coup protest movement.

On Wednesday, a reporter for independent media outlet DVB, Min Nyo, was sentenced to three years in jail for criminal mutiny.

Ko Aung Kyaw Oo, a former reporter for Tomorrow Journal, was arrested on Thursday afternoon, his son confirmed to AFP.

Forty-five journalists and photographers remain in custody across Myanmar, according to monitoring group Reporting Asean. — AFP

The Indian B.1.617 variant has been found in eight nations in the Americas, including Canada and the United States, said Jairo Mendez, an infectious diseases expert with the World Health Organisation (WHO).

“These variants have a greater capacity for transmission, but so far we have not found any collateral consequences,” Mendez said. “The only worry is that they spread faster.”

Among the infected were travellers in Panama and Argentina who had arrived from India or Europe, while in the Caribbean, the variant was found in Aruba, Dutch St Maarten and the French department of Guadeloupe.

It has spread to the Himalayan nation of Nepal and also been detected in Britain and tiny Singapore.

Public Health England said the total number of infections due to the variant had more than doubled in the past week, to 1,313 across Britain.

“We are anxious about it — it has been spreading,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, adding that meetings would be held to discuss measures. “We’re ruling nothing out.”

Singapore said it was limiting social gatherings to two people and putting a halt to dining in restaurants.

About half of the nearly 150 passengers booked to return on Australia’s first repatriation flight from India were denied boarding because of positive test results, an Australian government official said.

“The human catastrophe that is unfolding in India and Nepal should be a warning to other countries in the region to invest heavily in surge capacity for an emergency response,” said Yamini Mishra, of rights group Amnesty International.

“The virus is spreading and transcending borders at a frightening speed and will continue to hit the region’s most marginalized populations hardest of all,” the group’s Asia-Pacific director said in a statement.

Indian health ministry data show 4,000 deaths and 343,144 infections over the last 24 hours. It was the third consecutive day of 4,000 deaths, or more, but daily infections have kept below last week’s peak of 414,188.

While the tally of infections crossed 24 million, the death toll stood at 262,317, since the pandemic first struck India more than a year ago.

But a lack of testing in many places meant the official count omits many deaths and infections, prompting experts to estimate the real figures could be five to ten times higher.

The situation is particularly bad in rural areas of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, home to more than 240 million.

Television has broadcast images of families weeping over the dead in rural hospitals or camping in wards to tend the sick.

Bodies have washed up in the Ganges, the river that flows through the state, as crematoriums are overwhelmed and wood for funeral pyres is in short supply.

Clamour for vaccines

The second wave of infections, which erupted in February, has been accompanied by a slowdown in vaccinations, although Prime Minister Narendra Modi threw open inoculations for all adults from May 1.

Although India is the world’s largest vaccine producer, the huge demand has left it low on stocks. By Thursday, it had fully vaccinated just over 38.2 million people, or about 2.8 per cent of a population of about 1.35 billion, government figures show.

More than 2 billion doses of vaccine are likely to be available between August to December this year, top government adviser V.K. Paul told reporters amid criticism that the government had mishandled the vaccine plan.

Those would include 750 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, as well as 550 million of Covaxin, made by domestic producer Bharat Biotech.

“We are going through a phase of finite supply,” Paul said. “The entire world is going through this. It takes time to come out of this phase.” — Reuters

“We have taken the precaution of shutting down all our IT systems in order to protect them from this attack and to allow us (to) fully assess the situation with our own security partners,” the Health Service Executive said on Twitter.

“We apologise for inconvenience caused to patients and to the public and will give further information as it becomes available,” it added, stressing Ireland’s coronavirus vaccination programme was unaffected and “going ahead as planned”.

Another ransomware attack last Friday forced the shutdown of the United States’ largest fuel pipeline network, leading to some panic buying at gasoline stations along the east coast.

Moscow has rejected US accusations that a Russia-based group was behind the cyber attack.

HSE chief executive Paul Reid told state broadcaster RTE the attack was “quite a significant one”, and the body was working with its major IT security providers.

“We are at the very early stages of fully understanding the threat,” he said, adding it was trying to “contain” the issue.

The Rotunda maternity hospital in Dublin said all outpatient visits were cancelled other than for women who were at least 36 weeks pregnant “due to a serious IT issue”. — AFP

The UK has delivered one of the fastest inoculation campaigns in the world, giving a first shot to almost 70 per cent of the adult population and a second to 36 per cent, helping to reduce infection rates and deaths.

As a result, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has set out what he describes as a “cautious but irreversible” route out of lockdown for England, with the next step planned for next week. He has warned, however, that new variants, such as the B.1.617.2 found in India, could derail that.

Government agency Public Health England (PHE) said on Thursday that the total number of confirmed cases of the new variant had more than doubled in the past week to 1,313 across the United Kingdom.

Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said in areas where the new variant had emerged, the government would step up enhanced testing, whereby all residents of an area are asked to get a PCR test given that virus variants are circulating in the community, with authorities seeking to assess how widespread they are.

He said vaccines could also be offered to younger people if they live in multi-generational households. Shots are currently available to everyone over the age of 38.

In addition, the tweaked plan could narrow the gap between the time someone takes the first and second dose of the Pfizer shot.

“We will do whatever it takes in the vaccination programme...to deliver additional enhanced protection,” Zahawi told BBC TV.

The highly transmissible coronavirus variant first detected in India has now surfaced in countries around the world.

Zahawi said there were concerns about the presence of the variant in some parts of northern England and London but that there was no evidence that it had a more severe impact on people or was able to escape the vaccines. ― Reuters

Covid-19, which emerged in China in late 2019, has killed 3.34 million people, cost the world trillions of dollars in lost income and upended normal life for billions of people.

“More investigation is still needed to determine the origin of the pandemic,” said the 18 scientists, including Ravindra Gupta, a clinical microbiologist at the University of Cambridge, and Jesse Bloom, who studies the evolution of viruses at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

“Theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable,” the scientists including David Relman, professor of microbiology at Stanford, said in a letter to the journal Science.

The authors of the letter said the World Health Organization's investigation into the origins of the virus had not made a “balanced consideration” of the theory that it may have come from a laboratory incident.

In its final report, written jointly with Chinese scientists, a WHO-led team that spent four weeks in and around Wuhan in January and February said the virus had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal, and that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely” as a cause.

But there are myriad different ideas about the origin of the virus including a series of conspiracy theories.

“We must take hypotheses about both natural and laboratory spillovers seriously until we have sufficient data,” the scientists said, adding that an intellectually rigorous and dispassionate investigation needed to take place.

“In this time of unfortunate anti-Asian sentiment in some countries, we note that at the beginning of the pandemic, it was Chinese doctors, scientists, journalists, and citizens who shared with the world crucial information about the spread of the virus — often at great personal cost.” ― Reuters

JAKARTA, May 14 ― An earthquake of magnitude 6.6 struck off the northwest coast of Indonesia's Sumatra island today, the GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ) said.

The quake was at a depth of 10km (6.21 miles), GFZ said.

Indonesia's weather and geophysics agency, BMKG, put the quake at 7.2 magnitude and at a depth of 19km but said it had no potential to trigger a tsunami wave.

On December 26, 2004, a 9.1 magnitude quake off the coast of northwest Sumatra triggered a tsunami that killed more than 230,000 people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and nine other countries.

A Twitter user, Siska Sasmita, said today's quake was felt strongly in Padang city on Sumatra's west coast.

"We ran outside the house because the quake was felt for a pretty long time," said Goris Tukan, a resident of Nias island, off Sumatra. He said no damage were seen in his neighbourhood.

Disaster mitigation agency official Filifo Daili said the quake was felt for 20 seconds and authorities were still collecting information about its impact. ― Reuters

While Taiwan has reported just 1,291 cases, mostly imported from abroad, out of a population of some 24 million, a recent small rise in domestic infections has spooked Taiwan's people and the stock market, long used to the island's relative safety.

Health Minister Chen Shih-chung told a news conference that of the 29 new domestic infections many were connected with an outbreak in Taipei's Wanhua district, an often gritty area that mixes old temples with trendy shops and hostess bars.

Chen called on people who think they may have had contact with the infected patients or symptoms to come to rapid testing stations the government is setting up around Wanhua.

“The sooner testing happens the sooner the chain of transmission can be broken,” he added.

The cluster of the current infections has been linked by DNA sequencing to an earlier outbreak at an airport hotel and pilots at Taiwan's largest carrier, China Airlines Ltd.

Taiwan Premier Su Tseng-chang, writing on his Facebook page earlier today, said that there is no need to raise the island's Covid-19 alert level for the time being and that compared with last year it has more experience and resources to fight the pandemic.

“With the cooperation of the central and local governments, the command centre has successively found the transmission chain between the confirmed cases, and there is no need to upgrade (the alert level) for the time being.”

Comments by Chen on Wednesday that the alert level could soon be raised, which would potentially close all non-essential businesses, prompted a steep fall on the stock market, and officials have since downplayed the chances of that happening.

Taiwan has never gone into a full lockdown.

The benchmark stock index rebounded today, rising as much as 2 per cent in the morning before closing up 1 per cent. ― Reuters

In the face of widespread opposition, the junta has struggled to retain order amid daily protests in cities and fighting in border states since overthrowing elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi to end tentative steps towards democracy.

The unrest in the town of Mindat on Wednesday and yesterday involved about 100 people using homemade guns to attack a police station and about 50 targeting the Myanmar Economic Bank, the state Myanmar News Agency reported.

It said that the security forces had repelled the attack without suffering any casualties.

A document declaring the imposition of martial law in the town in Chin State, which borders India, was posted in The Global New Light of Myanmar, a state newspaper.

Reuters could not independently confirm the state media reports on the situation in Mindat.

But a document posted on social media by local media claiming to be from a rival anti-junta administration in the Mindat area said the declaration of martial law was invalid.

It also said that the fighting was triggered by the army breaking a promise to release seven civilians detained during recent protests.

A spokesman for the Chinland Defence Force, a newly formed militia, said it was behind the latest fighting and confirmed the authenticity of the document.

“They (the junta) can no longer rule the city except in some areas where they have bases. They have no control in the rural areas,” said the spokesman, who said that one fighter from the force was killed and that clashes were continuing with the army bringing in reinforcements.

A spokesman for the junta could not immediately be reached for comment.

In a further sign of continuing defiance of military rule, video on social media showed pro-democracy supporters chanting “We believe that we gonna win, we must win, we must win” as they marched in Myanmar's commercial hub of Yangon today.

With 788 people killed in a brutal suppression of protests by security forces, according to an advocacy group, some supporters of the ousted government have sought military training with insurgents that have battled the military for decades in border regions.

Reuters is unable to independently verify casualties and the military has imposed restrictions on the media, internet services and satellite broadcasts.

Fighting has intensified in some border areas since the February 1 coup, with ethnic militias stepping up attacks, overrunning military posts and downing a military helicopter.

Formed a week ago by the National Unity Government opposed to the generals, a group called the People's Defence Forces has enlisted support from ethnic armed groups that have long regarded Mynamar's military as their greatest foe.

Called to arms since the coup, their fighters have ambushed security forces and assassinated junta-appointed administrators. ― Reuters

The number of new cases reported rose by 11,336, bringing the total to 3,577,040, while the death toll increased by 190 to 85,848. The seven-day incidence fell to 96.5, down from 103.6 on Thursday and almost 126 a week ago.

An incidence rate of 100 new infections per 100,000 people is used as the threshold for imposing a nationwide emergency brake, which includes night-time curfews and limits on private gatherings, as well as the closure of shops. Should the virus incidence fall below this level consistently, restrictions can be relaxed.

With infection levels dropping and Germany's vaccination campaign picking up speed, Health Minister Jens Spahn last week declared the third wave of the pandemic to finally be broken.

Several German states, including the capital city Berlin, announced plans on Tuesday to loosen coronavirus restrictions in coming days. ― Reuters

The travel advisory level, which had been lowered in recent weeks due to improvement in the country's Covid-19 situation, was stepped up to Level 3, out of a maximum of four.

“Reconsider travel to Israel due to armed conflict and civil unrest,” the department said in a statement.

“Rockets continue to impact the Gaza periphery and areas across Southern and Central Israel, including Jerusalem,” it said.

“There has been a marked increase in protests and violence throughout Israel.”

Washington was also advising that Americans “do not travel” to Gaza due to “Covid-19, terrorism, civil unrest, and armed conflict,” as well as avoiding the West Bank due to pandemic-related travel restrictions.

The travel advisory came as Israel pounded Gaza and deployed extra troops to the border Thursday as Palestinians fired barrages of rockets back, with the death toll in the enclave on the fourth day of conflict climbing to over 100. ― AFP

Shwe Yamin Htet, 17, and her mother were arrested on April 14 in Yangon, Myanmar's commercial capital, which has been blanketed with heavy security since the military seized power in a coup.

As they were walking to a friend's house from a morning protest, she said, they were stopped by two security trucks.

“They forced us to crouch face-down on the ground,” Shwe Yamin Htet told AFP.

The high school student then faced six days of fear and anxiety, held with women who alleged torture and abuse by police behind closed doors.

Shwe Yamin Htet said she herself had to endure a police officer molesting her during an interrogation session.

The teenager was released on April 20, but her mother was not as fortunate ― Sandar Win was instead taken to Yangon's Insein prison.

“My mother is my only family,” she said. “I'm very worried for her safety and life.”

To secure her release, she said, she had to sign documents saying she suffered “no torture” behind bars.

“It's the opposite of what they have done,” Shwe Yamin Htet said. “It is totally unacceptable and unfair.”

Molested, slapped, beaten

Her mother is among more than 3,800 civilians arrested and still languishing behind bars since the February 1 coup, according to local monitoring group the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

Little is known about the conditions of detainees across Myanmar, as those released rarely speak out about it.

Shwe Yamin Htet said she and her mother were taken first to a local police station where they were questioned separately.

“I was touched by a police officer, who told me he could kill me and make me disappear,” she said.

“If I didn't push his hand away, I'm sure he would have continued.”

She added that her mother was slapped twice during her interrogation.

The following day, they were taken to a detention centre on Yangon's northern outskirts where they met other women, some of whom had bruises all over their bodies.

One of them ― a woman who had been in a relationship with a foreigner ― was beaten so badly she could barely talk or eat, Shwe Yamin Htet said.

“We had to feed her fried egg and rice,” she said. “She told us she couldn't urinate because her women parts had been kicked during the interrogation.”

The National Unity Government ― an underground group of ousted lawmakers opposing the junta ― has announced it is investigating the “allegations of sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls in unlawful detention”.

“These cases are indicative of the wider pattern of sexual and gender-based violence committed by Myanmar's military that has persisted for years with impunity, particularly against ethnic minority women and girls in armed conflict areas,” it said in a statement.

Threatened disappearances

Another woman held in the same detention centre as Shwe Yamin Htet recalled similar experiences.

Ngwe Thanzin ― a pseudonym to protect her identity ― told AFP she and four others were protesting in Yangon's South Okkalapa township when they were arrested.

“I was kicked in my face for having a black mask in my bag,” she said, adding that security forces also yelled misogynistic abuse at them.

The women were then taken to the same detention centre as Shwe Yamin Htet, where Ngwe Thanzin said she was handcuffed so tightly it left marks on her wrists.

“They also threatened us saying they could kill us and make us disappear without anyone knowing it,” she told AFP.

During her three-night detention, she said she saw a 19-year-old girl bruised so badly she could barely stand.

“They don't beat or torture in front of other people. But when people were individually interrogated, they came out with bruises.”

AFP was unable to independently verify the allegations made by Shwe Yamin Htet and Ngwe Thanzin.

Repeated attempts to contact the junta spokesman for a response went unanswered.

And junta-appointed Minister of Social Welfare Thet Thet Khine ― who chairs a National Committee on Prevention and Response to Sexual Violence in Conflict ― could not be reached for comment.

Ngwe Thanzin said the least the junta could do was have female security personnel available to interrogate them, instead of men.

“All our rights and dignity were violated and abused,” she said.

“Since we have no rights, I felt we were like water in their hands.” ― AFP

The Chosun Ilbo reported that the biotech arm of Samsung Group has agreed to produce the Moderna vaccine in its plant in Songdo, part of which will be used for domestic vaccination, citing unnamed government and pharmaceutical industry sources.

Samsung BioLogics said in a filing to the stock exchange that it could confirm the report as no decision has been finalised. The decision will be made within a one-month time frame, a company official told Reuters by phone.

Moderna was not immediately available for comment.

Samsung BioLogics' shares today rose as much as 4.9 per cent to 908,000 won (RM3,317.58) in morning trade, versus the broader market KOSPI's 0.7 per cent rise.

The statement follows a denial by Samsung and Pfizer Inc earlier this week of another media report that the two companies were working together to produce a Covid-19 vaccine developed by the US firm and its German partner BioNTech .

The Moderna shot has yet to be approved in South Korea, but the second of three expert panels recommended approval for emergency use of the vaccine yesterday, based on its safety and efficacy in Phase 3 late-stage trials in the United States.

South Korea has reported 747 new Covid-19 cases yesterday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 130,380, with death toll of 1,893.

Just over 7 per cent of the country's population have received at least one dose of AstraZeneca Plc or Pfizer vaccine, as it aims to vaccinate over 70 per cent of the residents by September and attain herd immunity by November. ― Reuters

Tests have returned positive results for at least 40 passengers, or about 26 per cent of the total, said the source, who sought anonymity as he was not allowed to speak to media, a figure much higher than the 3.5 per cent seen in March.

By late afternoon, Australian media said that number was rising, with 9News and Sky reporting 48 infections and about 25 close contacts. Reuters was unable to verify that information.

Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) did not immediately respond to request for comment from Reuters. Qantas , which is operating the flights on behalf of DFAT, directed queries to the government.

It is not yet clear if authorities had a stand-by list of passengers for the rest of the nearly 9,000 Australians and permanent residents looking to get home from Covid-ravaged India.

Media said DFAT was trying to accommodate other passengers but the requirement of two negative test results in order to board was making that difficult.

Over the past three weeks, India has reported more than 300,000 infections each day, overwhelming its health system.

By contrast, Australia's efforts to curb the pandemic have ranked among the most successful in the world, with just over 29,950 infections and 910 deaths since March 2020.

A military plane left Australia today carrying aid to India, the source added. It will return with the stranded citizens, who must all test negative before boarding.

The passengers will then head to a converted mining camp in Howard Springs for quarantine, a spokeswoman for the Northern Territory health department said.

The government aims to more than double the capacity of the Howard Springs facility, 25 km (16 miles) southeast of the city of Darwin, to handle 2,000 people every two weeks from June.

Two more Royal Australian Air Force repatriation flights to the Northern Territory are scheduled this month, with about 1,000 people planned to return by the end of June.

Australia shut its international borders in March 2020 to all but citizens and permanent residents.

Most returning travellers, except those from New Zealand, have had to quarantine in hotels for two weeks at their own expense, a measure that has helped keep infections low. ― Reuters

Col. Hugh Clements of the Providence Police Department said officers responded to emergency calls shortly before 7pm eastern standard time.

“Upon arrival we found evidence of a large amount of gunfire,” Clements said, adding that as many as five guns may have been involved and that police were “familiar with two groups involved.”

No arrests had been made in the shooting as of about 10pm local time. ― Reuters