Minggu, 09 Februari 2020
China death toll passes that of SARS outbreak - Al Jazeera English
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2020-02-09 19:10:27Z
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Coronavirus Death Toll Surpasses SARS Amid Hints Spread May Be Slowing - Slate
A man wearing a protective mask walks through the old city gate on February 9, 2020 in Wuhan, China.
Stringer/Getty Images
The number of people killed by the new coronavirus oubreak increased by 89, bringing the total death toll to 811, which is higher than the 774 who died during the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic. There are also hints that the spread of the virus may be slowing, although experts warned it was too early to say anything for certain yet. There were 2,656 new cases reported on Saturday, bringing the total number to 37,198 in China. The number of new cases declined 20 percent from the previous 24-hour period, marking the first drop since Feb. 1.
The vast majority of the new cases were reported in Hubei province, where the outbreak started, which is “a reflection of strict quarantine measures taking effect nationwide,” notes the Washington Post. Although the World Health Organization said there had been “some stabilizing” in the number of new cases in Hubei over the last few days, it also warned the figures could still “shoot up.” Experts say that if all the containment efforts are effective there should soon start to be a sharp decline in new infections. But there is also concern there might be an increase in new cases as people return to work after the Lunar New Year.
Inside China, some citizens are expressing uncertainty about returning to work as posts on social media made clear many do not trust official numbers. Some doctors have said they believe China undercounts the number of new deaths and infections. There might be more clarity on the situation once an international team of experts led by the WHO leaves for China on Monday or Tuesday to investigate the outbreak. For now at least, the disease, which is now going by the official name of “novel coronavirus pneumonia” or NCP, appears to be more contagious than SARS but less deadly.
Around the world cases continued increasing, including six among the 3,700 passengers on a quarantined cruise ship anchored off the coast of Japan. The new cases brought the number of confirmed infections onboard the cruise liner Diamond Princess to 70, making it the largest center of infections outside China. Spain, South Korea, Vietnam, and Malaysia were among the countries that reported new cases of the virus. For now, though, there have been only two confirmed deaths from the new coronavirus outside mainland China, one in Hong Kong and another one in the Philippines.
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2020-02-09 16:33:00Z
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British Airways may have set record for fastest subsonic flight from New York to London - Fox News
If only all flights across the Atlantic could go this fast.
Favorable weather conditions may have helped British Airways set a new world record. One of their flights flew from New York to London in under five hours, possibly making it the fastest flight of its kind.
British Airways confirmed to Fox News that their flight BA112, which was scheduled to land in London at 6:25 a.m., actually landed at 4:43 a.m. They also confirmed the total flight was estimated to be 4-hours-and-56-minutes long.
If this is accurate, it could make the trip a world record for the fast subsonic flight from New York to London.
BRITISH AIRWAYS SUSPENDS ALL FLIGHTS TO CHINA AMID CORONAVIRUS FEARS
Weather conditions likely played a role in the flight’s increased speed. According to Weather.com, the jet stream saw winds greater than 200 mph. this weekend. As the flights travel at the same level as the jet stream (about 30,000 feet in the air), this could have helped shave time off the flight, which typically takes 6 hours and 13 minutes to complete.
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The news outlet reports that some commercial flights were recorded as traveling at speeds of over 800 m.p.h. through the jet stream this weekend.
In a statement obtained by Fox News, a spokesperson for British Airways said, “We always prioritize safety over speed records, but our highly trained pilots made the most of the conditions to get customers back to London well ahead of time.”
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According to Weather.com, the overall fastest flight from New York to London was achieved by the Concorde, which made the trip in two hours and 52 minutes in 1996, although that plane was a supersonic aircraft.
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2020-02-09 17:39:49Z
CBMiVWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmZveG5ld3MuY29tL3RyYXZlbC9icml0aXNoLWFpcndheXMtc3Vic29uaWMtZmxpZ2h0LW5ldy15b3JrLWxvbmRvbi1yZWNvcmTSAVlodHRwczovL3d3dy5mb3huZXdzLmNvbS90cmF2ZWwvYnJpdGlzaC1haXJ3YXlzLXN1YnNvbmljLWZsaWdodC1uZXcteW9yay1sb25kb24tcmVjb3JkLmFtcA
‘Do Not Make Any Loud Noises’: A Thai Soldier’s 18-Hour Shooting Rampage - The New York Times
KORAT, Thailand — The authorities killed the gunman near the cold storage refrigerators of the Foodland supermarket in the mall he terrorized during Thailand’s deadliest mass shooting.
It was just before 9 local time on Sunday morning — 18 hours after he fired the first shots in a relentless spree that left at least 29 people dead and 58 injured in the city of Korat, north of Bangkok.
Thailand’s prime minister said the rampage started with a real estate dispute. The gunman was bitter and lugging weapons stolen from a military base. It ended with hundreds of shoppers fleeing for their lives, their shoes slapping on the mall’s white tile floors as gunshots cracked, leading to a failed police raid, a follow-up — and finally, the lifeless body of the 32-year-old gunman, dressed in military gear and surrounded by red plastic grocery bins.
“My two children are at home with their grandma now,” said Viparat Wansaboiy, who was watching a movie at the mall with her husband when the shooting broke out. “Luckily they didn’t come today.”
The mix of bloodshed and the banal has become all too common in the United States, even as it bursts into lands less accustomed to violence like New Zealand and Norway. In a sign of what some psychologists call a contagion, the gunman mimicked other perpetrators of mass shootings by posting messages and video to Facebook, which shut down his account within minutes.
But in a nation where mass killings are still rare despite high levels of gun ownership, the sudden appearance of such grisly horror in a seven-story complex of consumerism has already prompted deeper questions about what happened, the government’s response and the underlying forces that led a young man to kill so many who were so innocent.
“This will be seen as not just an individual case, but as a sign of underlying tensions,” said Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division. “It’s about the fact that people are really getting desperate — the economic situation is really not going well. A lot of people are very unhappy.”
Thai officials initially said the man, Sgt. Jakkrapanth Thomma, simply “went mad.” Later, on Sunday morning, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha suggested that the gunman was enraged over a “land problem,” citing a dispute about selling a house. It was a conflict, he said, that had been simmering for days and could have been resolved without violence.
Korat, a bustling city of 166,000 between the central plains and Thailand’s underdeveloped northeast, is supposed to be where people come together. Sitting on the so-called Friendship Highway originally built by the United States in the 1950s, the unassuming city is a strategic hub for both the Thai military, which has several bases in the area, and regional agriculture, with processing plants for rice, sugar cane, sesame and fruit.
Sergeant Jakkrapanth believed he was owed money. On Saturday, he arrived for a meeting about a payment from a deal with Anong Mitrchan, who was well known for selling real estate to military officers in Korat.
It is unclear whether she was the target of his ire, or whether she did anything wrong. But she was at the center of a long-running dispute, the authorities said, and she was not alone. Her son-in-law, a superior officer from the sergeant’s command — Col. Anantharot Krasae — was there at her house, along with her business partner, according to Mrs. Anong’s husband.
The soldier shot all three of them. Only the partner survived, with serious wounds.
After the initial surge of violence, a photo of bullets appeared on the soldier’s Facebook page. “Nobody can escape death,” he wrote. “Rich from cheating and taking advantage of people … Do they think they can take money to spend in hell?”
Sergeant Jakkrapanth fled, speeding toward a military base where the authorities said he shot and killed a third person before stealing a military Humvee and an arsenal of weapons. Firing out the window, he reached the parking lot of the Terminal 21 shopping center some time after 3 p.m., around the time the police received their first call about the shooting at Mrs. Anong’s house.
The mall — a tower of exuberance, with floors dedicated to different parts of the world, from the Caribbean to London, Paris and Hollywood — pulsed with the rhythm of a busy Saturday. Movie theaters were filled. Families, couples, teenagers were all oblivious, crammed into cellphone stores, Toys “R” Us and the food court.
Then, they heard gunshots. Video taken outside showed people diving for cover as bullets carried across the area. Several people were killed outside the mall, some while walking, others in cars.
It wasn’t clear to everyone what was going on. Kul Kaemthong, 53, a cleaner, said she was on a break around 5 p.m. when she first heard people had been shot. Looking out the windows of the fourth floor food court, she saw a body next to motorcycle, another by a car.
She started running. Then she heard more gunfire.
The sound — one, two, three, then a dozen in rapid succession, also heard in at least one video from the scene — suggested heavy firepower and more than one gun.
Mike Picard, the research director for GunPolicy.org, which tracks firearm use around the world, said the images and sounds captured by people at the scene pointed to at least six weapons: one or two handguns, including the shooter’s personal firearm, three HK33 assault rifles and two larger M60 machine guns.
The gunman, he said, also appears to have been carrying about 1,000 rounds of ammunition. Local news media reported Sergeant Jakkrapanth was a specialist in long-range sniper fire.
Ms. Viparat, 39, and her husband, Somwang Kwangchaithale, 39, were sitting in a movie theater on the fifth floor of the mall when the lights came on and an emergency announcement came over the loudspeaker t around 5:30 p.m. Initially, they stayed in the theater. Then the mall’s staff moved them to an office with a locked door. They huddled together there, 100 of them all together, until around 10 p.m., when the message from the authorities landed: They were about to be evacuated.
“They told us they’re going to turn the lights off, said Mr. Somwang. “‘Stay low and do not make any loud noises.’”
When they reached the basement, the gunman heard them. He started shooting.
“All of the people who gathered at the parking lot started screaming and running for their lives,” said Ms. Viparat. “Rescuers helped us out. Police, rescuers, military, different officers.”
By that time, the authorities had launched into full operation mode. Shortly after 8 p.m., the police declared the gunman a most-wanted person and urged the public to call in tips, presenting a photo that showed him looking bored, with indifferent eyes.
They also started moving large numbers of people out. They urged evacuees to “raise their hands” and identify themselves. They were wary that the gunman was hiding in the crowd.
Outside, dozens of orange-clad emergency workers set up triage areas, helping victims and the rescued. Relatives and friends of those believed to be trapped in the mall anxiously awaited word of their fate. The stalemate lingered for hours. The entire city seemed to be awake.
At 3 a.m., the authorities staged what appeared to be an attempt to capture or kill the gunman. A barrage of gunfire pounded and ricocheted, but the authorities had to retreat. An officer had been hit. He later died. One official said he was the last one killed — shy of the gunman.
The final raid occurred as officials seemed to be in lockdown, tense, refusing to answer questions from reporters. Details eventually came out through a video posted to Twitter, with officials confirming what people inside had witnessed. The gunman was dead, his body lying outside a cooler with an open door, near two other bodies — one of them a police officer; another a woman who seemed to be a supermarket employee.
Prime Minister Prayuth sounded defensive when asked about the operation and why it had taken so long for the siege to end.
“Don’t you guys understand when there are civilians in the mall,” he said. Without evidence, he suggested that the gunman had been troubled for a long time.
“We have to look at mental health,” he added. “I was an army chief before. And we have to acknowledge if they have problems.”
But for those who experienced the attack, his mental health mattered far less than the lives of his victims. In the elevator at the Maharaj hospital, a young woman sobbed as she spoke on the phone about a relative on life support.
On Sunday evening, hundreds gathered near the mall for a vigil, lining up to write tributes to the dead and to express support for peace and the living — a ritual as familiar, sadly, as the mass shootings.
“The society nowadays has turned into this?” said Thusanee Witchartorntakul, 53, a university lecturer, who came to the vigil on Sunday night, shedding tears after a night without sleep. “It’s devastating. My heart can’t handle it.”
Muktita Suhartono reported from Korat, Thailand, and Damien Cave from Sydney, Australia. Ryn Jirenuwat contributed reporting from Bangkok, and Richard C. Paddock from Denpasar, Indonesia.
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2020-02-09 16:18:00Z
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Thailand shooting: Survivors recall ordeal of gun rampage - BBC News
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Terrified residents of the Thai city of Nakhon Ratchasima have been reliving their ordeal after a gunman roamed around a shopping centre on a shooting spree that killed 29 people.
Some barricaded themselves in toilets or hid under tables, frantically searching for information on mobiles.
Jakraphanth Thomma began his rampage on Saturday afternoon, but it only ended with his death 16 hours later.
A vigil for victims has been held on Sunday, with monks chanting prayers.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said the 32-year-old soldier, who had posted images during his attack on social media, appeared to have been motivated by a land dispute.
Another 57 people were injured in the incident, an "unprecedented number in Thailand", the PM said.
What have the survivors been saying?
Jakraphanth began his attack at about 15:30 local time on Saturday (08:30 GMT) at a military camp, but it was his arrival at the Terminal 21 shopping complex that led to an indiscriminate shooting spree.
Many of the victims were killed as he arrived, some in their cars, others outside the complex. Graphic images appeared on social media.
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Inside Terminal 21, a seven-floor complex designed on an airport theme, terrified shoppers were unsure whether to flee or hide.
Nattaya Nganiem was leaving the complex by car when she heard gunfire and saw one woman "run out from the mall hysterically". She saw a motorcyclist dump his motorcycle and run.
One who saw the gunman, Diaw, told Amarin TV the attacker "was shooting everywhere and his shots were very precise". He aimed at the heads of victims, Diaw said, adding that one of his colleagues was killed.
Up on the fourth floor, Chanathip Somsakul, 33, barricaded himself into the women's toilets with dozens of others, using cubicle doors to wedge the entrance shut. They all scoured mobile devices to get information. But he said there was so much information, no-one knew what to believe.
"Everyone was terrified. A friend who works at the mall was talking to a guy in the CCTV control room... he gave us updates on the location of the gunman," he told AFP news agency.
When police arrived at about 21:00, they left in an orderly fashion, but started running when shots rang out.
Charlie Crowson, a teacher of English who lives in Nakhon Ratchasima, told the BBC there were "bodies on the streets" of the normally peaceful city.
He said one of his girlfriend's former students was among those killed in the attack. Jakraphanth was eventually shot dead by the security forces.
At the city morgue on Sunday, Natthawut Karnchanamethee was mourning the loss of his 13-year-old son, Ratchanon Karnchanamethee.
"He's my only son. I allowed him to do anything he wanted to. I never set expectations for him. I only wanted him to be a good person," Mr Natthawut said.
At the vigil on Sunday, 13-year-old Lapasrada Khumpeepong said she and her mother had been cornered in a bathroom at the complex for five hours.
She wrote on a condolence board: "Thank you to those who sacrificed themselves to keep others alive. Without you, we would not be here today."
What have the authorities said about the attack?
Mr Prayuth travelled to Nakhon Ratchasima, also known as Korat, to meet wounded survivors.
The PM said he believed the gunman was involved in a "personal conflict... over a house deal" that involved a relative of his commanding officer, both of whom Jakraphanth shot dead at the military base at the start of his rampage.
Mr Prayuth said: "I hope this is the only one and the last incident, and that it never happens again. No-one wants this to happen. It could be because of this person's mental health in this particular moment."
Forensic experts continue to work at the shopping complex.
Jakraphanth served at Suatham Phithak military camp, about 250km (155 miles) from the capital, Bangkok.
Army sources said he was a sharpshooter and had taken courses on attacks, including the planning of ambushes.
He used social media heavily, including posting pictures of himself with weapons.
Jakraphanth killed another soldier as he stole a military vehicle and weapons - two rifles, one M60 machine gun and 770 rounds of ammunition - from the base.
A Facebook post before the attack read: "Rich from cheating. Taking advantage of other people. Do they think they can spend the money in hell?"
During the attack - and before his Facebook account was taken down - he wrote: "Death is inevitable for everyone."
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2020-02-09 15:13:40Z
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2 US soldiers killed, 6 injured in Afghanistan 'insider attack' - New York Post
Two US soldiers were killed and six others wounded in Afghanistan in a so-called insider attack by a local soldier firing a machine gun, military officials said Sunday.
The Afghan soldier in full military uniform had argued with the US troops before launching his deadly attack in eastern Afghanistan’s province late Saturday, officials said.
The “individual in an Afghan uniform opened fire on the combined U.S. and Afghan force with a machine gun,” Sonny Leggett, the spokesman for US Forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement on Sunday.
“We are still collecting information and the cause or motive behind the attack is unknown at this time,” the statement added.
The shooter is believed to be dead, according to the reports. Up to three Afghan National Army members were also injured in the attack.
The wounded service members are receiving medical treatment at a US facility. The names of the service members killed in action will be withheld until 24 hours after notification of next of kin is complete, in accordance with US Department of Defense policy.
The Taliban has not claimed responsibility, and senior officials were investigating if it was an insider attack — often known as “green-on-blue” attacks that have been a regular feature of the conflict in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan’s defense ministry set up an investigations team headed by the country’s chief of army staff to investigate the attack.
“Attacks such as this by our enemies fail to have negative effects on the friendship and spirit of cooperation and between the Afghan National Security Forces and the US military,” the ministry insisted.
Nangarhar is among the volatile provinces where the Taliban and Islamic State militants have a foothold.
Six US service members have been killed in Afghanistan since the start of 2020, including Saturday’s casualties. Last year, 22 US service personnel died in combat there.
With Post wires
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2020-02-09 15:02:00Z
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Storm Ciara helps plane beat transatlantic flight record - BBC News
Experts are hailing a British Airways flight as the fastest subsonic New York to London journey.
The Boeing 747-436 reached speeds of 825 mph (1,327 km/h) as it rode a jet stream accelerated by Storm Ciara.
The four hours and 56 minutes flight arrived at Heathrow Airport 80 minutes ahead of schedule on Sunday morning.
According to Flightradar24, an online flight tracking service, it beat a previous five hours 13 minutes record held by Norwegian.
The BBC has been unable to independently verify the record as no complete database of flight times was available.
Aviation consultant and former BA pilot Alastair Rosenschein said the aeroplane reached a "phenomenal speed".
'Prioritise safety'
"The pilot will have sat their aircraft in the core of the jet stream and at this time of year it's quite strong.
"Turbulence in those jet streams can be quite severe, but you can also find it can be a very smooth journey."
The jet stream reached speeds of 260 mph (418 km/h) on Sunday morning, according to BBC Weather.
Despite travelling faster than the speed of sound the plane would not have broken the sonic barrier as it was helped along by fast-moving air.
Relative to the air, the plane was travelling slower than 801mph.
Modern passenger planes usually travel at about 85% the speed of sound, according to Mr Rosenschein.
British Airways said: "We always prioritise safety over speed records.
"Our highly-trained pilots made the most of the conditions to get customers back to London well ahead of time."
The fastest transatlantic crossing belongs to BA Concorde, which flew from New York to London in two hours 52 minutes and 59 seconds in 1996 - hitting a top speed of 1,350 mph.
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2020-02-09 13:58:03Z
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