Islamabad, May 21 (IANS/DPA) Pakistan ordered school closures, postponed exams and put hospitals on alert as a severe heatwave swept the climate-vulnerable country with daytime temperatures likely to cross 50 degrees Celsius in some areas, officials said on Tuesday.

They see temperatures rising up to 8 degrees Celsius above normal levels.

The heatwave – the first for the South Asian nation this summer – follows heavy rains and flash floods that killed more than 100 people a couple of weeks ago, highlighting erratic weather patterns.

The daytime temperatures in some southern and south-western parts were likely to cross 50 degrees Celsius during the weeklong heatwave, Pakistan’s chief meteorologist Sardar Sarfraz said.

It would be the third consecutive year when temperatures breach the 50-degree benchmark – a level that poses immense risk to humans and livestock, Sarfraz said.

Schools in the central province of Punjab will remain closed until May 31 to protect children from a direct exposure to sunshine, Provincial Education Minister Rana Sikander said.

Hospitals in the province of more than 100 million people had been ordered to prepare for the influx, Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz said.

In the southern province of Sindh, all exams due this week have been postponed to next week, when the heatwave is expected to subside, regional minister Sharjeel Memon said.

In the mountainous north, authorities were preparing for an evacuation after warnings that the heatwave might trigger Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOF) in the Himalayas, Karakoram and Hindukush regions.

Hundreds of people are killed in Pakistan every year in climate-induced incidents while thousands lose their homes and livelihoods in a country that contributes hardly anything to global carbon emissions, according to official stats.

–IANS/DPA

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Astana, May 21 (IANS) Foreign Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) grouping met in Astana on Tuesday to discuss regional security issues and also finalise preparations for the upcoming Summit of the SCO Council of Heads of State, slated to be held in the Kazakh capital in July.

India’s delegation at the meeting, which was opened by Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, is led by Dammu Ravi, Secretary, Economic Relations, at the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

“The cooperation programme agreed with you on the fight against terrorism, separatism, and extremism is a concrete step in this direction. In turn, the completion of work on the SCO’s anti-narcotics strategy will strengthen mutual measures to combat the drug threat, including the blocking of terrorist financing channels,” Tokayev said in his opening remarks.

Foreign Ministers from Russia (Sergei Lavrov), China (Wang Yi), Kazakhstan (Murat Nurtileu), Kyrgyzstan (Jeenbek Kulubayev), Uzbekistan (Bakhtiyor Saidov), Belarus (Sergey Aleynik), Tajikistan (Sirojiddin Muhriddin), Pakistan (Ishaq Dar) along with Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran (Mehdi Safari), Secretary General of the SCO Zhang Ming, Director of the Executive Committee of the SCO Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure Ruslan Mirzayev also participated in the meeting.

Meanwhile, Ravi has held a series of meetings, including with Russia’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Rudenko and senior officials of the Kazakhstan government since he arrived in the country on Monday.

“An exchange of views took place on a wide range of bilateral and international issues, with an emphasis on interaction in the UN, BRICS and SCO. The focus on further strengthening the versatile India-Russia Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership was confirmed,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement after the Astana meeting.

–IANS

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Taipei, May 21 (IANS/DPA) Thousands of people, on Tuesday, gathered outside the main building of Taiwan’s Parliament to voice their worries about what they see as a dysfunctional legislature and the erosion of democracy by China-friendly parties.

Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lost its majority in the Parliament in the January elections and has faced major challenges in the current session, which started in February.

On Friday, ruling and opposition lawmakers engaged in brawls over several controversial bills, including the expansion of the legislature’s investigative powers. Several injured lawmakers required hospital treatment.

The fear is that the power of the legislature is being expanded without the appropriate dialogue and procedures.

The main reason behind the chaos is that the opposition parties – including the Chinese Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang (KMT), and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) – voted last month in committee, where bills are usually reviewed and discussed, to take their versions of the bills directly to a floor vote without clause-by-clause deliberation, and left out bills proposed by the independence-leaning DPP.

On Tuesday, when lawmakers continued their meeting to vote on the contentious legislation, huge banners reading “Democracy is dead” and “Hong Kong-ization in Taiwan” were hung at the podiums in the conference hall.

Ordinary people and activists from NGOs gathered outside the legislature to express their dissatisfaction, displaying banners reading “No discussion, No democracy,” “I defy the parliament,” and “Democracy overturns.”

“Are such bills (proposed by the opposition lawmakers) designed to expand their power or to let our sovereignty be asserted?” Citizen Congress Watch chairman Tseng Chien-yuan said at a news conference at the protest scene.

“Taiwan is not a normal country. So I’m afraid that Taiwan’s democracy could be easily taken away, just like that in Hong Kong,” Amy Yang, a 45-year-old obstetrician, told dpa on the sideline of the protest.

Yang, also a mother of an 11-year-old son, said she is worried about the erosion of democracy, which would leave a dim future for the next generations.

–IANS/DPA

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Damascus, May 21 (IANS/DPA) Syria’s first lady, Asma al-Assad, has been diagnosed with leukaemia, the Syrian presidency said on Tuesday.

“After the appearance of several clinical symptoms and signs, followed by a series of medical examinations and tests, First Lady Asma al-Assad was diagnosed with acute leukaemia,” the presidential office said in a statement.

The statement said she will undergo a specialised treatment protocol that requires her to isolate.

Asma al-Assad, 48, said in 2019 that she had fully recovered from breast cancer.

Last year, she accompanied her husband on an official trip to the United Arab Emirates – her first known trip of this kind since 2011.

The mother of three children and former investment banker was born in London in 1975 to Syrian parents.

The question had arisen several times in the media as to why she did not leave Syria because of the civil war that began in 2011.

Her husband, Bashar al-Assad, is accused of war crimes such as the use of poison gas and torture.

–IANS/DPA

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London, May 21 (IANS/DPA) One person has died and more than 30 others have been injured in severe turbulence during a flight from London to Singapore, Singapore Airlines said.

The Boeing 777-300ER departed from London on Monday and encountered severe turbulence en route. It had to be diverted to Bangkok, where it landed on Tuesday, the airline said in a post on Facebook.

There were 211 passengers and 18 crew on board. The airline extended “its deepest condolences” to the deceased’s family.

The airline said it is working with the local authorities in Thailand to provide medical assistance. A team is also on its way to Bangkok.

Details are awaited.

–IANS/DPA

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