ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s foreign minister called on Saturday (Dec 4) for a fresh effort to stop neighbouring Afghanistan sliding further into crisis as he announced an extraordinary meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) later this month.

The meeting of foreign ministers from Islamic countries will be held in Islamabad on Dec 19, with delegations from the European Union and the so-called P5 group of the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China also invited.

“To abandon Afghanistan at this stage would be a historic mistake,” Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Hussain Qureshi told a news conference in Islamabad, warning that half the country was facing the risk of starvation that could trigger further chaos.

“Instability could give way to renewed conflict, it could trigger an exodus of refugees,” he said.

There have been growing warnings of the humanitarian crisis facing Afghanistan since international aid was abruptly cut following the Taliban takeover on Aug 15 and fears of disaster if the situation is not brought under control.

However, getting help in has been hindered by sanctions on dealing with the Taliban, the US decision to freeze billions of dollars of central bank reserves held outside Afghanistan and the collapse of much of the country’s banking system.

Pakistan recently agreed to allow 50,000 tonnes of wheat to transit through its territory from India to help Afghanistan but aid agencies have warned that much more help is urgently needed.

AHMEDABAD: India reported its third case of the Omicron coronavirus variant on Saturday (Dec 4), government officials said, as total COVID-19 cases inched closer to the 35 million mark.

Officials in the western state of Gujarat said the patient who tested positive for Omicron was a 72-year old man of Indian origin who had lived in Zimbabwe for decades, and returned on Nov 28.

India reported 8,603 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, taking the total to 34.6 million. Deaths rose by 415 to 470,530.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month asked officials to focus on countries identified at risk, after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the new variant to be “of concern”.

The WHO said Omicron, initially detected in South Africa, may spread more quickly than other forms of the virus.

India expects the Omicron variant to cause less severe illness, due to rising vaccination rates and high prior exposure to the Delta variant that infected nearly 70 per cent of the population by July.

The federal health ministry said on Thursday that India had identified two male patients, aged 66 and 46, who had the new strain in the southern state of Karnataka. The first person was a South African national while the second one, an Indian physician, had no recent travel history.

India, which suffered a record surge in infections and deaths in April and May due to the Delta variant, has fully vaccinated just half of its 944 million adults despite having ample supplies of domestically made shots.

Up to 84 per cent have received at least one dose, with more than 125 million people due for a second shot.

SEOUL: South Korea reported a record daily 5,352 new COVID-19 infections and 70 deaths, while a nationwide total of nine cases of the Omicron variant have been confirmed, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said on Saturday (Dec 4).

The government on Friday announced that people visiting restaurants, cinemas and other public spaces will have to show vaccine passes. It is also reducing the limit on private gatherings to six people in the greater Seoul area, from 10 currently, and to eight from 12 for those residing outside of the capital, starting next Monday.

The hospitalisation rate was rising rapidly led by severe cases of COVID-19, with the number of serious and critical patients at 752 as of Friday, KDCA said.

South Korea has also confirmed three additional Omicron cases, bringing the total to nine after a fully vaccinated couple tested positive for the variant after travelling from Nigeria last week.

To fend off the new variant, authorities on Friday announced a 10-day mandatory quarantine requirement for all inbound travellers for two weeks, halting exemptions given earlier to fully vaccinated people.

South Korea has been battling the worst wave of infections since July, when the daily cases stood below 2,000 until the government switched to “living with COVID-19”. The cases hit 5,000s for the first time this week, putting a strain on the healthcare system.

The country, which has fully inoculated 91.7 per cent of its adult population, has so far reported a total of 467,907 COVID-19 infections, with 3,809 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

LAHORE, Pakistan: A mob of factory employees in eastern Pakistan tortured and burned a Sri Lankan manager on Friday (Dec 3) over apparent blasphemy in a “horrific” attack that Prime Minister Imran Khan said brought shame on the country.

A police official in the eastern town of Sialkot, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case, said investigators believed the attackers had accused the manager of blasphemy for tearing down a poster with Islamic holy verses.

“The factory workers tortured the manager,” said provincial government spokesman Hassan Khawar. “A total of 50 people so far have been identified and arrested.”

Khan condemned the killing and said he was personally overseeing the investigations and that those guilty would be punished.

“The horrific vigilante attack on a factory in Sialkot and the burning alive of Sri Lankan manager is a day of shame for Pakistan,” he said in a message on Twitter.

Television footage showed crowds of hundreds of people in the streets of Sialkot, in the heart of Pakistan’s most heavily industrialised region where much of the country’s export industry is based.

Underlining the shock caused across the political establishment, Pakistan’s powerful military also issued a statement condemning the “cold blooded murder.”

“Such extra judicial vigilantism cannot be condoned at any cost,” the military’s press wing said, adding that the chief of the army staff had ordered full support to the civil administration to bring those responsible to justice.

A Punjab police spokesman said more than 100 arrests had been made including the prime suspect, who he said was seen in videos torturing the Sri Lankan manager and instigating the people against him.

Mob killings over accusations of blasphemy – a crime that can carry the death sentence – have been frequent in Muslim-majority Pakistan.

Friday’s killing came only weeks after days of violent protests by the radical Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan movement, a Sunni Muslim group founded in 2015 to address actions it considers blasphemous to Islam.

Tahir Ashrafi, Khan’s adviser for Interfaith Harmony, condemned the killers in a recorded video statement shared on social media.

“It is a barbaric act and against Islam’s teaching,” he said.