'Epic' winter storm wallops US, leaving 1.5 million without power - CNA

The biting cold is an immediate concern for some 1.5 million electricity customers, mainly in the US south and east, who were without power, according to tracker poweroutage.us.

Transportation departments in North and South Dakota, Oklahoma, Iowa and elsewhere reported near-zero visibility whiteouts, ice-covered roads and blizzard conditions, and strongly urged residents to stay home.

At least two traffic fatalities were reported in Oklahoma Thursday, Andy Beshear, governor of Kentucky, confirmed three in his state.

"This is an epic, statewide hazard," New York Governor Kathy Hochul said at a press briefing.

"The roads are going to be like an ice skating rink and your tires cannot handle this."

AIR TRAVEL CHAOS

In El Paso, Texas, desperate migrants who had crossed from Mexico huddled for warmth in churches, schools and a civic center, Rosa Falcon, a school teacher and volunteer told AFP.

But some still chose to stay outside in -9 degrees Celsius temperatures because they feared attention from immigration authorities, she added.

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2022-12-23 15:54:00Z
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Charles 'The Serpent' Sobhraj: Serial killer and conman - CNA

KATHAMANDU: Notorious French serial killer Charles Sobhraj, the titular "Serpent" of the hit Netflix drama series, was responsible for a string of murders throughout Asia.

The charismatic conman, 78, was for nearly two decades serving a life sentence for killing two tourists in Kathmandu in the 1970s, before Nepal's top court ordered his release on Wednesday (Dec 22).

After a troubled childhood and several prison terms in France for petty crimes, he began travelling the world in the early 1970s, befriending and robbing young backpackers as he made his way along the drug-fuelled Hippie Trail from Europe to Southeast Asia.

He eventually arrived in Thailand, where he was implicated in his first murder, that of a young American woman whose body was found on a beach in Pattaya in 1975.

"He was cultured, courteous," said Nadine Gires, who befriended Sobhraj when he moved into her Bangkok apartment building that year.

But she soon began to fear her fast-talking neighbour, who masqueraded as a gemstone trader to lure cash-strapped travellers before drugging, robbing and killing them.

"Many people were getting sick in his home," she told AFP last year. "He was not only a swindler, a seducer, a robber of tourists, but an evil murderer."

Sobhraj - a French citizen of Vietnamese and Indian parentage, who spoke several languages - was linked to more than 20 killings in total.

His victims were strangled, beaten or burned, and he often used the passports of his male victims to travel to his next destination.

Sobhraj's sobriquet, "The Serpent", came from his ability to assume other identities in order to evade justice.

His exploits were dramatised in a TV series by the same name, a BBC and Netflix joint production that was watched by millions around the world.

"CRIMINAL HERO"

The law caught up with Sobhraj in 1976 in India, where was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

From his jail cell, Sobhraj sold his story to a publishing house and was interviewed by Australian journalist Julie Clarke, recounting the murders in chilling detail and holding nothing back.

"He despised backpackers, he saw them as poor young drug addicts," Clarke told AFP in 2021.

"He considered himself a criminal hero."

Sobhraj ultimately spent 21 years in jail with a brief 22-day break in 1986, when he managed to slip out of his cell after feeding the guards cakes, cookies and grapes laced with sleeping pills.

He was caught in a restaurant in the Indian coastal state of Goa, where he had reportedly been riding around on a pink motorbike in outlandish disguises.

Later, he would claim the escape was a well-crafted plan to have his sentence extended to avoid extradition to Thailand, where he was wanted for multiple murders and could have faced the death penalty.

The two countries' extradition treaty expired in 1995 and he was released two years later.

"SIR CHARLES" BEHIND BARS

By then in his fifties, Sobhraj retired to Paris, where he led a mostly quiet life - though if journalists came knocking, he would charge thousands of dollars for an interview about his notorious years in Asia.

He resurfaced in 2003 in Nepal, where he was spotted in Kathmandu's tourist district and arrested a few days later in an all-night casino.

A court there handed him a life sentence the following year for killing US tourist Connie Jo Bronzich in 1975. Her body was found with multiple stab wounds and having been severely burned.

It took Nepal's glacial legal system another decade to also sentence Sobhraj for the murder of her Canadian travelling companion, Laurent Carriere, whose passport he had used to escape Nepal after killing the pair.

In prison, Sobhraj reportedly lived in relative comfort, provided with a foam pillow, mineral water and meals from a Kathmandu restaurant.

He had also managed to extract similar perks from jail officials in India, earning him the nickname "Sir Charles" among other inmates.

In 2008, Sobhraj married Nihita Biswas - 44 years his junior and the daughter of his Nepalese lawyer - in a secret prison ceremony.

On the back of the notoriety brought by the wedding, Biswas starred in India's hugely popular version of the television show "Big Brother" in 2011.

Sobhraj has at least one daughter from a previous relationship who lives in France.

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2022-12-23 09:39:34Z
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Morgues overwhelmed: why China’s new Covid crisis is all of its own making - South China Morning Post

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1. Morgues overwhelmed: why China’s new Covid crisis is all of its own making  South China Morning Post
2. Shanghai hospital warns of "tragic battle" as COVID cases surge across China  CNA
3. Shanghai hospital readies for 'tragic battle' with Covid-19  The Straits Times
4. Inside an overcrowded Beijing hospital struggling with Covid surge in China  South China Morning Post
5. Shanghai hospital warns of 'tragic battle' as COVID-19 spreads  CNA
6. View Full coverage on Google News

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2022-12-23 04:00:18Z
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Elderly COVID-19 patients fill hospital beds in China's Chongqing - CNA

CHONGQING: Attached to a breathing tube under a pile of blankets, an old man racked with COVID-19 lay groaning on a stretcher in the emergency department of a hospital in central China on Thursday (Dec 22).

In Chongqing, and across the country, the virus is surging. Authorities say the number of cases is impossible to keep track of after the abrupt abandonment of years of mass testing, lockdowns and travel restrictions.

A paramedic at Chongqing Medical University First Affiliated Hospital who confirmed the old man was a COVID-19 patient said he had picked up more than 10 people a day, 80 to 90 per cent of whom were infected with coronavirus.

"Most of them are elderly people," he said.

"A lot of hospital staff are positive as well, but we have no choice but to carry on working."

The old man waited half an hour to be treated, while in a nearby treatment room, AFP saw six other people in sick beds, surrounded by harried doctors and relatives.

They too were mostly elderly, and when asked if they were all COVID-19 patients, a doctor said: "Basically."

Five were strapped to respirators and had obvious breathing difficulties.

Millions of elderly across China are still not fully vaccinated, raising concerns that the virus will kill the country's most vulnerable citizens in huge numbers.

But under new government guidelines, many of those deaths would not be blamed on COVID-19.

Previously, people who died of an illness while infected with the virus were counted as a COVID-19 death, but now only those who directly die of respiratory failure caused by the virus will be counted.

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2022-12-22 09:32:00Z
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How accurate are China's COVID-19 death numbers? - CNA

China's National Health Commission did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the country's COVID statistics and excess mortality.

Even if China were to continue defining COVID deaths more broadly, the official data is still unlikely to reflect the situation on the ground, given how quickly infections are now spreading, said Chen Jiming, a medical researcher at China's Foshan University.

"The reported counts of cases and deaths are only a very small portion of the true values," he said.

Ben Cowling, an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong's School of Public Health, said the official death tally would be very low even if a broader definition were in use, "because so little testing is being done" now that China has discontinued mass surveillance.

On the other hand, Cowling said, labeling every person who died while positive for COVID as having died from the disease could lead to an over-count. Such an approach "can also be criticised because it can, and has, included coincidental deaths such as in people hit by a bus while having mild COVID."

Dr Mai He, a pathologist at Washington University in St. Louis who was involved in the Wuhan study published in 2020, said there was still a lack of faith in the integrity of China's numbers.

"The persistent critical issue is a lack of transparency; people cannot use their data to do research and analysis, (or) provide guidance for the next step," he told Reuters. 

The lack of trust in China's statistics is also causing panic among members of the public, said Victoria Fan, senior fellow in global health at the Center for Global Development.

"It's in the best interest of the government to be more transparent,  because a lot of the behaviors that the public is exhibiting is because they don't have information," she said.

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2022-12-22 06:33:00Z
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Biden tells Zelenskyy at White House: 'You will never stand alone' - CNA

Zelenskyy presented Biden with an award that he said was handed to him on the ground by a "real hero" - a captain on the ground of a HIMARS rocket system that has been a game-changer on the field.

"He's very brave and he said, give it to very brave president," Zelenskyy said in the Oval Office.

As Zelenskyy arrived, the United States announced another US$1.85 billion from previously budgeted funds for Ukraine, including for the first time the advanced Patriot air defence system, which is capable of shooting down cruise missiles and short-range ballistic missiles.

Zelenskyy voiced appreciation for the "very important step," saying the Patriot systems "will strengthen our air defence significantly".

Ukraine fears a rising onslaught of missiles and has faced a slew of attacks from drones, many bought by Russia from Iran, as Moscow pummels power plants and other civilian infrastructure just as the country shivers in the winter cold.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is "trying to use winter as a weapon, but the Ukrainian people continue to inspire the world," Biden said.

"I mean that sincerely - not just inspire us but inspire the world with their courage and how they have chosen their resilience and resolve for their future," Biden said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that new weapons deliveries would lead to an "aggravation of the conflict" and do not "bode well for Ukraine".

Speaking with senior military officials during a televised address, Putin contended that Moscow was not to blame for the invasion and agreed with an assessment that Russia needed a larger army.

"The combat capabilities of our armed forces are increasing constantly," Putin said, adding that Russia will also "improve the combat readiness of our nuclear triad."

"What is happening is, of course, a tragedy - our shared tragedy. But it is not the result of our policy. It is the result of the policy of third countries," he added.

"JUST PEACE"

The United States and Ukraine scoff at suggestions that the invasion was caused by anything other than Putin and say he is not serious about any negotiated settlement.

Both Biden and Zelenskyy said they supported a "just peace" - with the Ukrainian leader standing firm that he will not be any territorial compromise with Russia, which also seized the Crimean peninsula in 2014.
 

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2022-12-21 20:27:00Z
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China says no new COVID-19 deaths after changing criteria - CNA

"PARTICULARLY BUSY"

From the country's northeast to its southwest, crematorium workers have told AFP they are struggling to keep up with a surge in deaths.

Beijing last week admitted the scale of the outbreak has become "impossible" to track following the end of mandatory mass testing.

But authorities are determined to push ahead with re-opening, with the central city of Xi'an Tuesday joining several other major population centres in calling for infected people with no symptoms to go to work as normal.

Crematoriums in multiple Chinese cities declined AFP interview requests on Wednesday, with one in the northwestern city of Xi'an saying they were "particularly busy".

In the central city of Changsha, two companies specialising in burial clothing said they had seen an uptick in customers.

One proprietor said a COVID-19 outbreak was having "a slight effect" on his business, adding that he had been taking more orders for deceased "older people" than normal.

Others presented a more varied picture, with a staff member at a funeral services firm in the southern city of Guangzhou telling AFP that the number of customers "was always a little higher in winter".

And some were cagey when asked about the impact of COVID-19, with another such employee in the megacity of Chongqing saying it was "not easy to talk too much about this" at present.

"WE MUST ACT QUICKLY"

A leading Chinese health expert warned Tuesday that the capital will face a surge in cases over the next two weeks, which will continue until the end of January.

"We must act quickly and prepare fever clinics, emergency and severe treatment resources," Wang Guangfa, a respiratory expert from Peking University First Hospital, told the state-run Global Times.

The US has said the surge of infections in China has become a matter of international concern - and offered to share vaccines to stem the soaring COVID-19 cases.

"We know that any time the virus is spreading, that it is in the wild, that it has the potential to mutate and to pose a threat to people everywhere," State Department spokesman Ned Price said Monday.

Beijing has rebuffed the offer, insisting that the virus is under control and that "China is continuously optimizing its prevention and control measures".

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2022-12-21 09:53:57Z
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