SEOUL: South Korea has reported its lowest daily virus tally in about a month as it began easing its tough social distancing rules in the greater Seoul area.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said on Monday that the 109 new cases added in the past 24 hours took the country’s total to 22,285 with 363 deaths.

It’s the 12th consecutive day for South Korea’s daily jump to stay in the 100s. The 109 additional cases are also the lowest daily tally since mid-August.

The government on Sunday relaxed its physical distancing guidelines in the Seoul metropolitan area, citing a downward trend in new infections and worries about public livelihoods.

Under new distancing rules that are formally effective from Monday for two-weeks, franchise cafes and bakeries are allowed to have customers drink and eat inside their shops while indoor gyms and after-school academics can reopen. A ban on dining at restaurants after 9 p.m. was also lifted.

These facilities are still required to impose some distancing rules like having visitors sit at least one seat apart from each other or wear masks.

Fire officials suspect accumulated gas from a leaked pipeline triggered a spark and all six air conditioners on the ground floor of the mosque exploded.

DHAKA: The death toll from an explosion of air conditioners in a mosque on the outskirts of Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka rose to 24, with three more victims succumbing to their injuries on Sunday, doctors said.

A gas leak in an underground pipeline caused six air conditioners to explode almost simultaneously during Friday evening prayers at the Baitul Salat mosque in the central district of Narayanganj.

Twenty-one victims of the blasts died until 11 pm Saturday.

Three more victims died on Sunday during their treatment, the Daily Star reported, quoting doctors of the Dhaka-based Sheikh Hasina National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery.

A seven-year-old boy was among the 24 dead. Another 13 people are battling for their lives at the hospital, according to bdnews24.com.

Fire officials suspect accumulated gas from a leaked pipeline triggered a spark and all six air conditioners on the ground floor of the mosque exploded.

“A gas pipeline passes beneath the mosque. We are suspecting that gas leaked from the pipeline and accumulated inside as the windows were closed. The explosion was probably triggered due to sparks when someone tried to switch on or off the ACs or fans,” Narayanganj Fire Service’s Deputy Assistant Director Abdullah Al Arefin said on Saturday.

According to reports, the mosque committee had recently filed a complaint over leakage of the gas pipeline of the Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company Limited.

The members of the committee said the Titas Gas authorities asked for a Tk50,000 bribe.

As the bribe was not paid, the authorities neglected the matter which resulted into this catastrophe, the Dhaka Tribune reported.

Four separate probe committees — by Narayanganj district administration, Fire Service, Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company Ltd, and Dhaka Power Distribution Company (DPDC) — have been formed to investigate the incident, it said.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has expressed concern over the incident and issued directions to ensure all possible medical care for the victims.

Witnesses said they found five to six people coming out of the mosque as soon as the blast occurred. Worshippers, most of them severely burnt, were found lying on the floor, they said.

“He was a true friend of Bangladesh since our 1971 Liberation War,” Hasina told the maiden session of Parliament called for the second time since the outbreak of pandemic.

NEW DELHI:  Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday paid rich tributes to former president Pranab Mukherjee and said he was a true friend of Bangladesh, as the country’s Parliament adopted a condolence motion over his death. 

“He was a true friend of Bangladesh since our 1971 Liberation War,” Hasina told the maiden session of Parliament called for the second time since the outbreak of pandemic.

Mukherjee died on Monday in New Delhi. The Bangladesh government on Tuesday announced that it will observe a one-day state mourning at the death of the country’s ‘real friend’.

Hasina recalled Mukherjee’s personal support for her and her family particularly during her life in exile in India after the August 15, 1975 coup in Bangladesh.

The putsch killed her father and Bangladesh’s founder Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman along with most of his family members and toppled his post-independence government.

Sharif’s younger brother and Leader of the Opposition Shahbaz Sharif has also made it clear that Nawaz cannot return till he is medically fit.

LAHORE:Nawaz Sharif will return to Pakistan “only after getting well’, his party announced on Friday, indicating that the former prime minister may not meet the judicial deadline of September 10 to appear for a hearing in a corruption case against him.

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) early this week had directed the three-time prime minister and the supremo of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), currently in London, to appear before it and surrender to the authorities by September 10 or face legal proceedings for absconsion.

A division bench of the high court — comprising Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani and Justice Aamer Farooq — had also directed the Deputy Attorney General to verify the medical condition of 70-year-old Sharif through the Pakistani High Commission in London.

The bench had issued the directives while hearing appeals filed by Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law Captain (retd) Mohammad Safdar against conviction in the Avenfield and Al-Azizia Steel Mills cases.

“It is not possible that Nawaz Sharif returns to Pakistan by September 10 and faces cases against him, before getting well.

“His heart- related surgery is scheduled in London in a couple of weeks and he has to undergo the treatment,” a senior PML-N leader told PTI on Friday.

“Today we also had a conference call of the main party leadership that was unanimous on one point that ‘Mian Sahib’ should not return to the country till he gets well,” the leader said, adding that on the next hearing of the case in IHC on September 10 the court will be apprised of Sharif’s ‘serious condition’ with his fresh reports from London doctors and his treatment schedule.

He said Sharif was keen to return but his family and party leaders were against it.

The PML-N leader further said it will be difficult for Prime Minister Imran Khan to face Sharif in Pakistan.

(Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf) government is only doing politics on the health of Nawaz Sharif, otherwise it is not interested in bringing him back because of his ‘massive political clout’ in the country,” he said.

Sharif’s younger brother and Leader of the Opposition Shahbaz Sharif has also made it clear that Nawaz cannot return till he is medically fit.

“Nawaz Sharif will return to the country if doctors in London allow him. Nawaz Sharif’s health is serious and once he gets well he will appear before courts,” Shahbaz said, who now holds the position of PML-N president.

Shahbaz asked Imran Khan and the PTI leaders to stop doing politics on someone’s health.

“His condition is serious and his treatment is scheduled in London shortly,” he added.

The last time the Sharif family had submitted Nawaz’s medical report to the Lahore High Court was over a month ago.

Signed by Dr David Lawrence, a London-based consultant cardiothoracic surgeon, the report said medical investigations and opinions are indicative of significantly reduced blood supply to Nawaz’s heart and its impaired functionality.

“Nawaz must undergo coronary catheterisation as a significant part of his heart is at risk.

A multidisciplinary approach was warranted for his safety while undergoing an invasive procedure due to underlying ITP (unstable platelet count) and co-morbidities (hypertension, diabetes and kidney disease) which carry a significant risk of bleeding and possibility of a procedural or peri-procedural adverse cardiac event,” the report said.

The report said Nawaz will be scheduled for an invasive cardiac procedure once the hospital starts planning elective procedures amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

Further, at the time of the procedure Nawaz must be in stable condition as he is in the high-risk category.

Sharif has been in London since November last year after the Lahore High Court granted him permission to go abroad for four weeks for treating the heart disease and an immune system disorder.

The three-time premier was sentenced to seven years in the Al-Azizia Steel Mills case.

In fact, Prude’s death has raised questions about how authorities respond to mental health emergencies.

NEW YORK: Not five minutes after police slipped a “spit hood” over Daniel Prude’s head, the 41-year-old Black man went limp. A week later, he was taken off life support.

Prude’s suffocation in Rochester, New York, in March has drawn new attention to the hoods — mesh bags that have been linked to other deaths — and the frequent reliance on police to respond to mental health emergencies.

His death has underscored one of the top demands of the police reform movement: that certain duties should not be handled by law enforcement but by social workers or mental health experts. Seven officers involved in the encounter were suspended with pay Thursday.

While many in law enforcement defend the hoods as vital to prevent officers from being spit on or even bitten — a concern that has taken on new importance during the coronavirus pandemic — critics have denounced them as dangerous and inhumane. For some, they evoke hoods used on prisoners at U.S. government overseas detention sites or “black sites.”

Amnesty International condemned the use of spit hoods Thursday, a day after Prude’s family made public body camera video, and police reports it obtained from the Rochester department. The organization said the hoods are particularly dangerous when a person is already in distress, as Prude appeared to be.

Police use of spit hoods often “looks like something out of Abu Ghraib,” said Adanté Pointer, an Oakland civil rights lawyer who has handled several cases involving the devices. “They’re often used in a punitive way.”

Prude, in Rochester to visit his brother, was taken by police for a mental health evaluation just hours before the fatal encounter after he was said to have expressed suicidal thoughts. Prude’s brother told police he was calm when he returned to his house but later got high on PCP and ran away, prompting the brother to call 911.

Police found Prude wandering the street naked after allegedly smashing a storefront window, and he could be seen on body camera footage spitting in the direction of officers and heard claiming to be infected with coronavirus. Officers said that led them to employ the hood.

Prude, handcuffed by this point, can be seen continuing to spit through the mesh and saying that he wanted an officer’s gun. The officers then pinned him to the ground, one of them keeping a knee on his back and another pressing his face into the pavement for two minutes. Both appeared white.

Minutes later, an officer could be heard saying, “Ugh, he’s puking.” After realizing Prude had stopped breathing, paramedics who had arrived at some point, began CPR.

“They put a bag over his head, and they squeezed the air out of him,” said Nicolette Ward, a lawyer for one of Prude’s daughters. “He spent the last moments of his life breathing in his own vomit.”

At a news conference Thursday announcing the officers’ suspensions, Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren said: “Mr. Daniel Prude was failed by the police department, our mental healthcare system, our society and he was failed by me.”

In fact, Prude’s death has raised questions about how authorities respond to mental health emergencies. Many other deaths at the hands of police have resulted from an encounter that began with a call about someone’s mental health and then devolved.

In many departments — New York City for example — there has been a push to better train police on how to manage the mentally ill or to bring in experts who do, but it remains a major issue.

Spit hoods vary in design, but Park City, Utah, police chief Wade Carpenter said the ones he’s seen are made to be breathable and held in place with an elastic around the neck that can easily be broken.

“It wouldn’t put any pressure on the carotid arteries in the neck. It wouldn’t restrict blood flow to the brain and certainly wouldn’t block the mouth or nose,” said Carpenter, adding that officers in the ski town have used the devices for years without issues.

University of South Carolina criminal justice professor Geoffrey Alpert said the hoods have reduced the risk of officers and bystanders getting spit on for decades.

“Take away COVID, it’s just a nasty thing anyway,” Alpert said.

But Prude’s death is the second one involving spit hoods to surface since the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police sparked a national reckoning on racism and policing. Floyd’s death did not involve a spit hood.

Just three weeks after Prude’s deadly encounter, a similar one happened in Tucson, Arizona. Police handcuffed and placed a spit hood on the head of a naked man also in distress. Carlos Ingram Lopez died after gasping for air and pleading for water.

In both cases, details about that death didn’t emerge until weeks after.

In another similar episode, a 45-year-old man died in 2015 after police in Bernalillo, New Mexico, placed him in a spit hood, possibly incorrectly.

A responding sergeant from a neighboring community told investigators a thick cotton part of the hood was covering Ben C de Baca’s face, nose and mouth and that he hadn’t seen the device “used in that fashion before.”

A medical investigator’s report concluded that improperly placed spit hoods have the potential to cause suffocation and that in this case, the possibility of asphyxia from use of the hood could not be ruled out. Bernalillo settled a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the man’s family for an undisclosed sum.

Prison guards have also used spit hoods, sometimes to deadly effect. Their use varies by jurisdiction — police in Minneapolis deploy them but those in New York City don’t. The NYPD, the nation’s largest police force, said a team of police EMTs has only recently started testing their effectiveness in the wake of the pandemic.

When British police started using the hoods in recent years, civil liberties advocate Martha Spurrier slammed them as “primitive, cruel and degrading.” Even some senior police officers have agreed.

Colombo: The Sri Lankan Navy with assistance from Indian ships was battling for a second day on Friday to douse a major fire raging on an oil tanker carrying crude from Kuwait to India that left one of its 23 crew members dead.

The Sri Lankan Navy on Friday confirmed that a Filipino sailor died in a boiler explosion in the engine room of the Panama registered tanker MT New Diamond that caught fire on Thursday.

The Navy said that 22 of the 23 member crew had been safely rescued off the tanker.

The tanker was carrying 270,000 metric tonnes of crude oil from Kuwait to India when its engine room caught fire off the coast of Sangamankanda in the eastern district of Ampara.

The Navy said that so far the 270,000 metric tonnes of crude oil it was carrying had not been affected by the fire. Steps are currently being taken to stop the spread of fire to the cargo,” it said in a statement.

The Sri Lankan Navy is also taking steps to ensure that there will be no seepage of oil to the sea from the tanker.

The distressed vessel is in the waters 23 nautical miles off the eastern coast where the sea depth is measured at 3100 metres. The operation to douse the fire resumed early this morning under the supervision of the Greek national captain of the tanker.

The Indian Naval Frigate INS Sahyadri joined the operations by 0200 hours on Friday. The Navy said two more Indian Coast guard vessels are to join the rescue operations.

The Indian Coast Guard on Thursday said that it pressed into action three of its ships and a Dornier aircraft after the Sri Lankan Navy sought assistance to control the fire onboard the oil tanker.

In a swift sea and air coordinated Search and Rescue (SAR) operation, the Coast Guard said it immediately diverted ICG Ships Shaurya, Sarang and Samudra Paheredar, besides a Dornier aircraft for the firefight on the oil tanker.

The Sri Lankan Navy said that the two Russian vessels which were docked at the Hambantota port since August 31 and dispatched to the area to join the rescue operations departed Sri Lankan waters this morning.

On Thursday night, MV Helen, a vessel sailing in the area, rescued 3 Greeks and 16 Filipino crew members from the distressed vessel.

The Navy spokesman said that at least four ships had been dispatched to carry out the rescue operation. The naval ships were dispatched from the eastern port of Trincomalee and the southern port of Hambantota.

At the time the fire broke out, the Panamanian-registered ship was about 38 nautical miles (70 kilometres) east of Sri Lanka.