CANBERRA — Australia’s State of Victoria has recorded its fewest number of new coronavirus cases in a month.
As of Tuesday afternoon there had been 23,773 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia, and the number of new cases in last 24 hours is 226, according to an update from Michael Kidd, Australia’s deputy chief medical officer.
“We have seen numbers going up and down recently, but by and large what we are seeing is a continuing downward trend in the numbers in Victoria,” he told reporters on Tuesday afternoon in Canberra.
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ISLAMABAD — The Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of police foiled a major terror bid on Tuesday in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province and arrested a suicide bomber during an operation, local media and officials said.
“We have launched a search operation in the city to arrest the militant’s accomplice as well,” said an official of the CTD, adding that according to the preliminary investigation, the suspect at large was also a suicide bomber.
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WINDHOEK — Namibia’s annual international Windhoek Jazz Festival scheduled for November has been canceled due to the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, organizers announced Tuesday.
Communications manager at the city of Windhoek municipality Harold Akwenye in an announcement said stakeholders jointly agreed to cancel the event because of national and international concern regarding the COVID-19.
“The decision was endorsed at the most recent, monthly Windhoek municipal council meeting. We are committed to doing our part to help protect our employees, residents, fellow Namibians, and visitors,” he added.
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ACCRA — Ghana must emulate China’s model of solid waste management to protect people, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Ernest Kwabena Anorson Agyawan, a Ghanaian expert.
Speaking with Xinhua, Agyawan, landfill manager for the Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA) said China has deployed the source segregation model which enables them to treat several tons of solid waste at any given time.
“In fact, having also traveled to learn or to see what is practiced in other countries such as China, Denmark, and Japan, I think it is ideal that policies are put in place for source segregation to start because we have industries that are doing re-manufacturing of products,” he said.
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LAGOS — Nigerian Transport Minister Rotimi Amaechi said that over 20,000 workers had participated in the construction of the 156-km-long Lagos-Ibadan rail project.
The minister made the remarks at a public hearing in Abuja on Monday. He noted as well the railway contract agreement, between Nigerian government and China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation, was compliant with the local content law, addressing concerns raised by a government committee.
“We have over 150 Nigerians being trained as engineers in China. The Chinese have also built two training institutions for us, one at Idu and the other one is the Transportation University in Daura, Katsina State,” he added.