GUANGXI: An unidentified person staged a knife attack on a kindergarten in China’s southern Guangxi autonomous region, leaving 16 children and two nursery teachers injured, the China Central Television reported on Wednesday.

The incident took place in the city of Beiliu at around 2 pm local time. The condition of the two children is assessed as grave.

The police detained the suspected who was identified as a 24-year-old local resident

Extremely graphic videos circulating on social media show distressed and bloodied children crying on a playground. Some are seen lying motionless.Sina news agency cited police, saying the suspect suffered from mental illness. His identity has not been revealed.

China has seen a number of attacks on schools recent years. Last year, a school security guard stabbed 39 children and staff in a kindergarten in Guangxi region, and In 2018, a woman armed with a kitchen knife injured 14 children in the city of Chongqing.

Barely two weeks after the Biden administration announced the departure of the US troops from Afghanistan till September 11, the United States has now asked the non-essential embassy staff to leave Kabul, citing increased threats.

“On April 27, 2021, the Department ordered the departure from US Embassy Kabul of US government employees whose functions can be performed elsewhere,” the US advisory said.

The advisory further said that the US Embassy’s ability to provide emergency services to US citizens in Afghanistan is severely limited, particularly outside of Kabul.

“Evacuation options from Afghanistan are extremely limited due to the lack of infrastructure, geographic constraints, and the volatile security situation.”

The US government has also advised all Americans wishing to leave Afghanistan to leave as soon as possible. US and NATO ground forces are expected to be out of Afghanistan by September 11.

Meanwhile, US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad on Tuesday told the US lawmakers, “If the Taliban were to come back to power, the reality for Afghanistan’s women and girls, I think, would be devastating.”

Biden administration has said it intends to focus on the Indo-Pacific region amid increased Chinese activity that threatens United States’ interests in the region.

Japan’s Defense Ministry on Wednesday confirmed that a Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning after passing through waters between two Japanese islands returned to the East China Sea from the Pacific.

The ministry said the Maritime Self-Defense Force confirmed that during the period from Monday to Tuesday the Liaoning, accompanied by five other vessels, sailed northward between Okinawa’s main island and Miyakojima Island, and then entered the East China Sea, reported NHK World. Early in April, the fleet was seen sailing south in the same area and entering the Pacific.

This is the second time that the Chinese aircraft carrier has passed between the two Japanese islands on a round trip.

The Defense Ministry also said that, after entering the East China Sea, an early warning helicopter was viewed taking off from the Liaoning and coming around 50 to 100 kilometers to the northeast of Taisho Island, part of Japan’s Senkaku Islands. This prompted the Air Self-Defense Force’s aircraft to scramble.

Japan controls the Senkaku islands. The Japanese government maintains the islands are an inherent part of Japan’s territory. China and Taiwan claim them.

The Defense Ministry said that the helicopter did not violated Japan’s airspace. It added that the Chinese fleet did not violated Japan’s territorial waters, reported NHK World.

Meanwhile, Japan has welcomed the United Kingdom’s plan to deploy a fleet led by its new flagship HMS Queen Elizabeth, to the Indo-Pacific region.

Beijing announced earlier this month that the aircraft carrier group had conducted a naval exercise in the waters near Taiwan.

Indo-Pacific region is largely viewed as an area comprising the Indian Ocean and the western and central Pacific Ocean, including the South China Sea.

China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and its efforts to advance into the Indian Ocean are seen to have challenged the established rules-based system.

China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea and has overlapping territorial claims with Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan.

China has been increasing its maritime activities in both the South China Sea and the East China Sea over the past few months, partly in response to Beijing’s concerns over the increasing US military presence in the region because of escalating Sino-US tensions.

The Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) inquiry panel on Tuesday dismissed an application filed by the Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government to review the electoral body’s decision to allow estranged party leader Akbar S Babar access to the documents related to the ruling party’s foreign funding case.

It also barred auditors from using laptops while reviewing papers related to foreign funding case, reported The Express Tribune. The committee stopped Babar’s team of auditors from using laptops during the proceedings as it has been permitted to only review the documents in the presence of the members of the body and denied permission to take them in possession.

The estranged PTI leader then filed a petition with the ECP against the committee’s decision contending that how would the auditors write down such a massive amount of data if the use of laptops was not allowed, reported The Express Tribune.

“The scrutiny committee is itself an obstacle to the scrutiny process,” he added.

“It’s not possible to take down all the notes by hand and the laptops were for convenience.”

The commission was hearing PTI’s application for an investigation into the accounts of political parties.

Earlier this year, the PTI lawyer had submitted “complete details” of the party funding to the inquiry committee and expressed the hope that ruling party would be “honourably acquitted” in the case.

On the other hand, petitioner Babar raised objections over the investigation by the scrutiny committee saying the panel wanted to dispose of the matter in haste.

He alleged that the inquiry panel was trying to “protect” the ruling party and added that the ECP had also expressed no confidence in it in the past.

The petitioner also announced that he would write a book on the action taken by the scrutiny committee.

Earlier in September 2020, the ECP had rejected the scrutiny panel’s report against the PTI as “incomplete”.

The committee, headed by ECP director general (law), was formed in March 2018 to complete audit of PTI accounts for the period 2009-13 in a month’s time. Later, its term was extended. The ECP on June 2, 2020 gave a final deadline to the committee for report submission by August 17. Subsequently, the committee concluded scrutiny on August 13, reported The Express Tribune.

The foreign funding case against PTI continues to linger before the ECP since November 2014 when it was filed by the party’s founding member Akbar S Babar.

Babar alleged serious financial irregularities in the ruling party’s accounts including illegal sources of funding, concealment of bank accounts in the country and abroad, money laundering, and using private bank accounts of PTI employees.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla has said that an oral drug for treating coronavirus could be ready next year adding the company is working on two antivirals, an oral and an injectable.

“We are actually on two, one is injectable and the other one an oral (antiviral)… Particularly the attention is on the oral for the world and of us because provides several advantages and one of them is that you don’t need to go to the hospital to get the treatment of which is the case with all the injectables so far but you can get it home,” Bourla told CNBC in an interview on Tuesday, as cited by The Hill. “If all goes well, and we implement the same speed that we are, and if regulators do the same, and they are, I hope that by the end of the year,” Bourla added.

The only antiviral currently approved for use against the coronavirus is remdesivir, which is manufactured by Gilead Sciences. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave the drug full approval in October after it was granted emergency use authorization in May last year.

He also said the medication could be “way more effective against the multiple variants” of the virus than current options adding that the mechanism of action, of the antiviral, is not expected to be subject to mutations, “particularly because it’s not acting on the spike, as we all know, all the mutations that we are hearing right now are seeing this in the proteins of the spike.”

“This one doesn’t work there so that allows us to believe that will be way more effective against the multiple variants. So, all good news. We are now progressing the studies and we will have more news around summer,” the CEO added.

The Hill further reported that thus far, more than 121 million doses of the vaccine have been administered across the United States. (ANI)

Brazil’s death toll reached 395,022 on Tuesday after 3,086 more people died of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Health said.

The ministry said that tests detected 72,140 new cases, raising the national count to 14,441,563. Given current daily fatalities, the nationwide death toll is likely to reach 400,000 by the end of April.

Dimas Covas, the head of the Sao Paulo-based Butantan Institute, a state-run medical research facility, warned that May “will be very tough” in terms of COVID-19 deaths and infections despite progress in vaccination.

According to the ministry, pregnant women and those who have just given birth will be given priority by the National Immunization Program.

Media reports based on data from state health secretariats show 29,554,723 people have received at least one dose of a vaccine against COVID-19, while 13,127,599 have received both doses.