India surpassed a grim milestone of 20 million coronavirus cases Tuesday after the country registered more than 357,000 infections in the last 24 hours, according to Health Ministry figures.  

There has been a slight drop in daily infections since Saturday, when the nation crossed 400,000 daily cases, a new global record. The country registered 392,488 cases on Sunday, while the number was less on Monday at 368,147. 

According to the Health Ministry, a total of 357,229 cases pushed India's total to 20.28 million Tuesday. There were also 3,449 fatalities in the last 24 hours, and the total virus-linked deaths reached 222,408. 

Amid an exponential rise in daily COVID-19 cases which has brought the country’s health system near to collapse, India is also facing an acute shortage of hospital beds, medical oxygen supplies and coronavirus treatment drugs like Remdesivir. Many countries have come forward and sent medical supplies to India. 

There have been a number of incidents across the country where patients have died due to a lack of medical oxygen. A number of hospitals in the capital New Delhi, which has been badly hit by the virus, continue to raise alarm over the shortage of medical oxygen supplies at hospitals. 

India last week began vaccinating everyone above the age of 18. But the world's largest immunization drive has slowed down as a number of Indian states are facing shortages of vaccine supplies. 

According to the figures available, 158 million vaccine doses have been administrated so far./aa

An hours-long standoff outside Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters in Langley, Virginia ended when FBI agents shot a man Monday night.  

Authorities say the man tried to drive into the facility around 6 p.m. local time but never made it past a series of gates; the facility sits far back from the gates. 

FBI agents tried negotiating with the man for hours and at some point decided to push the car out of the way. The driver then apparently got out of the car with a gun and was shot by the agents. His condition in the hospital is unknown. 

There are reports that the man announced he had explosives in the car, but there has been no confirmation of that. Law enforcement officials also say the man may be mentally disturbed and may have tried to get onto the CIA campus in the past. 

While there has been no motive offered for the standoff, the FBI released a statement that read in part: "The FBI takes all shooting incidents involving our agents or task force members seriously. The review process is thorough and objective and is conducted as expeditiously as possible under the circumstances."​​​​​​​ 

Security at government buildings around Washington has been extraordinarily tight this year since the riot at the US Capitol in January. In April, a Capitol police officer was killed and another injured when a man tried to ram his car into the barrier that surrounds the Capitol building. And in 1993, a Pakistani national killed two CIA employees as they sat in their cars near the entrance to the facility./aa

Turkish security forces in southern Osmaniye province seized a cache of ammunition belonging to the PKK terror group in a shelter in the Mt. Amanos region. 

As part of Operation Eren-8, the commando teams of Turkish gendarmerie forces seized 13 kilograms (around 29 pounds) of explosives, hand-made electric explosive firing devices, a rifle, 30 bullets and a mobile phone as well as life-sustaining materials in a shelter buried in the ground.

Some of the items were confiscated as evidence, said security sources.

Operation Eren, named after Eren Bulbul, a 15-year-old who was martyred by the terrorist PKK on Aug. 11, 2017, began in January with the aim of completely eliminating terrorism in the country.

In its more than 35-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the European Union – has been responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people, including women, children and infants./aa

French non-profit organizations on Monday demanded the UN Committee on Child Rights to launch an investigation into violations of the rights of unaccompanied minors in the country, most of whom are foreigners. 

The French Council of Associations for the Rights of the Child (Cofrade) alongside other civic and rights associations referred a proposal to the UN committee to make recommendations for the protection of the rights of these children, said a statement from Utopia 56, an association working to help migrants.

The statement added that as a signatory state to the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, France is obliged to care for the unaccompanied minors within its territory.

Legally, the term “unaccompanied minor” is not recognized. In 2016, France’s Ministry of Justice defined it as “either a minor who has entered France without being accompanied by an adult and who is temporarily or definitively deprived of the protection of their family, or a minor who has been left alone in France.”

Such cases fall under the scope of child welfare and the state is bound by law to protect them irrespective of their nationality, as they are minors and in dangerous situations. According to 2017 data from the French Justice Ministry’s unaccompanied minors department, there were 14,908 minors in the care of departmental councils, up from 4,000 in 2010.

Young unaccompanied foreign nationals arriving in France face tough problems in getting recognition for their minority status, and provincial level child protection services often refuse to shelter them, according to a 2019 report by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).

As a result, thousands of these minors, with no family and friends, are forced into homelessness or have to rely on the help of citizens' associations and NGOs. The majority of such minors, MSF said, are from Mali, Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire or Afghanistan.

The referral to the UN notes two major violations by authorities: denial of minority status depriving them of the national child protection system and their unequal treatment.

“Any minor present on French territory should be covered under the charge of child protection of the French public authorities,” the statement said./aa

A fragile border truce between longtime nuclear rivals Pakistan and India will not resolve the long-smoldering Kashmir dispute, the president of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Masood Khan, said Monday 

In an interview with local broadcaster News One, Khan observed that the
cease-fire at the Line of Control (LoC) -- a de facto border that divides the picturesque Himalayan valley between the two neighbors -- and de-escalation of tensions would "neither resolve the Kashmir issue nor would peace return to the region."

On Feb. 25 this year, India and Pakistan agreed to honor a border cease-fire the two countries had signed in 2003 but which both accused each other of violating countless times since then.

Since Aug. 5, 2019, when India scrapped the autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir,
dozens of people have been killed and scores have been injured in cross-border firings that have been the most intense in the past 17 years.

"To bring peace, India must stop the massacre of the Kashmiri people and take decisive steps to grant the fundamental right of self-determination to them," said Khan, who also served as Pakistan's Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 2012 to 2015.

"Kashmiris must be consulted and taken into confidence about whatever the decision is to be made about Kashmir because none other than the Kashmiri people can be sincerer to Pakistan," he went on to say.

He was apparently referring to reported United Arab Emirates-brokered backdoor diplomacy between New Delhi and Islamabad which aims to provide a roadmap for long-term peace and a possible solution to the 73-year-old Kashmir dispute. Officially, both countries have denied the contacts.

Citing New Delhi's August 2019 move, Khan said he does not see "any sincerity in the offer of the Indian leadership to resolve the Kashmir issue through talks."

Khan said that mounting pressure from the international community after the August 2019 actions has "temporarily" compelled India to talk about a negotiated solution to issues.

"The restoration of Article 35-A by India is not enough for confidence building. On the contrary, India would have to recognize the whole of Jammu and Kashmir as a disputed territory and would have to revive the pre-Aug. 5, 2019 position of the state in order to pave the way for talks," he maintained.

Kashmiris, he further said, will get relief only when India lifts the siege of "occupied" Kashmir, ceases the killing spree of Kashmiri people, gives up settling Indian Hindus in Kashmir and stops attempts to change the demography of the state. 

Disputed Region 

Kashmir is held by India and Pakistan in parts and claimed by both in full. A small sliver of Kashmir is also held by China.

Since they were partitioned in 1947, the two countries have fought three wars -- in 1948, 1965 and 1971 -- two of them over Kashmir.

Some Kashmiri groups in Jammu and Kashmir have been fighting against Indian rule for independence or unification with neighboring Pakistan.

According to several human rights organizations, thousands of people have reportedly been killed in the conflict in the region since 1989./aa

Kenya on Monday confirmed 18 new COVID-19-related deaths and 137 new infections after doing 1,641 COVID-19 tests across the country in last 24 hours.

While 2,871 fatalities from the virus have been confirmed by the Health Ministry so far, it confirmed a total of 160,559 infections from 1.68 million tests done since last year across the country of almost 55 million.

The ministry also confirmed 216 recoveries from the COVID-19 Monday, pushing the total to 109,077 including 79,443 from home-based care and isolation and 29,634 from various healthcare facilities.

On the ongoing COVID-19 vaccination campaign in the East African country, the ministry said that as of Monday, “a total of 887,034 persons have so far been vaccinated against COVID-19.”

The vaccinated include 516,616 age 58 and over, 158,168 healthcare workers, 137,701 teachers, and 74,554 security officers, according to the ministry’s latest daily update.

On Saturday, President Uhuru Kenyatta, praised healthcare workers for their role in the fight against COVID-19 as the rate of infections in the country falls.

He also announced the lifting of partial lockdown measures imposed last month to curb the spread of the virus.

Restaurants, bars, schools, and religious services will now reopen, Kenyatta said, encouraging employers and businesses to allow employees to work from home./aa