Washington, FBI: Covid-19 stems from accident in Chinese lab

Today's headlines: Hundreds of cases of poisoned schoolgirls in Iran; Clashes between Indian army and Kashmiri militants; Japanese foreign minister skips G20 meeting in India; Burmese military junta continues to demolish civilian homes; For Orthodox Patriarch Kirill the Donbass is an 'outpost of the Russian world'.

UNITED STATES-CHINA

According to the FBI, the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic can most likely be traced back to an accident in a government laboratory in China. Beijing denies that the disease spread from a bacteriological centre in Wuhan - where the disease first appeared - and accuses the US of circulating defamatory news.

IRAN

In recent months, hundreds of Iranian schoolgirls have suffered mild attacks of poisoning. The illnesses emerged to coincide with protests over the death of the young Kurdish girl Mahsa Amini while she was in the custody of the Morality Police. The poisonings are suspected to be the work of religious groups opposed to female education.

INDIA

Indian soldiers killed two Kashmiri militants yesterday in a 12-hour clash in a village south of Srinagar. The manhunt was triggered after the killing of a Hindu security guard in another within the region. Kashmir has been the scene of conflict between the central government and pro-Pakistani separatist and Islamist groups for decades.

JAPAN

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi will skip the G20 meeting in Delhi today and tomorrow, and will be replaced by his deputy. Conflicts over Russia's war on Ukraine risk scuppering the meeting. Instead, Hayashi will attend a meeting of the Quad, the dialogue forum between the US, Japan, India and Australia, on 3 March.

MYANMAR

The Burmese junta demolished more than 100 homes in Mandalay, the country's second largest city, in recent days. The military justified the eviction of the residents by claiming that the houses were on state land. Since the coup in February 2021, the UN estimated that the army has evicted 50,000 people, destroyed 38,000 homes and created 1.1 million displaced people.

RUSSIA

Patriarch Kirill met in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow with a group of young sportspeople from the Donbass, a region he called the 'outpost of the Russian world', thanks to the sponsorship of the Orthodox foundation 'Save Childhood'. He has been working in the Donbass since last June to organise Church hospitality for children and young people from Ukraine.

UZBEKISTAN

President Mirziyoyev promised 'not to close down the media', despite the fact that 'they have proposed it to me', as he said while visiting a new school in the Kaškadar region. He assured that 'we like the breath of freedom, even if it is sometimes difficult, but I have not heard any protests from the people about being a closed country'.

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