KABUL (AFP) -- The death toll from Pakistani military airstrikes in the eastern Afghanistan provinces of Khost and Kunar has jumped to at least 47, officials said, as Islamabad urged Kabul to act against militants launching attacks from Afghan soil. Border tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan have risen since the Taliban seized power last year, with Islamabad claiming militant groups are carrying out regular attacks from the neighboring country. The Taliban deny harboring Pakistani militants, but are also infuriated by a fence Islamabad is erecting along their 2,700-kilometre (1,600-mile) border. Tensions between the two neighbors deepened after Saturday’s pre-dawn air assault which Afghan officials now claim was carried out by Pakistani military helicopters. The airstrikes hit residential houses in Khost and Kunar along the border, Afghan officials said. Earlier officials had said Pakistani forces had fired rockets.

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SEOUL (Reuters) -- The U.S. envoy for North Korea arrived in Seoul on Monday for talks with his South Korean counterparts on ways to address Pyongyang’s increased missile launches and concerns over the possible resumption of nuclear testing. U.S. Special Representative Sung Kim and his deputy, Jung Pak, will meet with South Korean officials, including nuclear envoy Noh Kyu-duk, during a five-day visit. Their arrival coincided with the start of a nine-day annual joint military drill by U.S. and South Korean troops. The exercise is a “defensive command post training using computer simulation” and will not involve field maneuvers by troops, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Sunday. North Korea has condemned the joint drills as rehearsals for war, and they have been scaled back in recent years amid efforts to engage Pyongyang in diplomacy, and because of COVID-19 restrictions. On Saturday North Korea test fired what state media said were missiles involved in delivering tactical nuclear weapons.

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NEW DELHI (AFP) -- India has sharply criticized a forthcoming World Health Organization study which reportedly claims coronavirus killed four million people nationally, the latest analysis suggesting a significant undercount of the pandemic’s death toll. The New York Times reported last week that New Delhi had stalled the study’s release after disputing that India’s true fatality count was eight times higher than official figures. The conclusion matches similar figures by the Lancet last month and a February study in the journal Science that calculated a Covid death toll of at least 3.2 million. But India’s health ministry said in a weekend statement that the WHO’s mathematical modelling of the pandemic was “questionable” and “statistically unproven”. Indian officials have previously disputed the methodology behind the Lancet and Science studies that also found vastly higher death tolls. Its official figures show 520,000 Covid deaths nationally, which still accounts for the world’s largest single-country toll after the United States and Brazil.

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BRASÍLIA (AFP) – Brazil announced that it will “in the coming days” lift public health emergency measures in place for over two years, citing a drop in the number of deaths and infections. More than 660,000 people died of the virus in Brazil, one of the hardest-hit countries second only to the United States. But the number of infections and deaths has fallen dramatically as authorities ramped up immunization, with about 75 percent of its 212 million people now fully vaccinated. Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga said Sunday the public health emergency declared on February 3, 2020 -- when the virus started spreading globally after it first emerged in Wuhan, China -- will soon end.

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LIMA (AFP) -- Former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, who has been serving a prison term for crimes against humanity committed during his presidency, was hospitalized for the second time in a month, prison authorities announced. The 83-year-old, who has served 15 years of a 25-year term, suffered a drop in blood pressure and an irregular heartbeat and was urgently transported to a hospital, where his condition was stabilized, the National Penitentiary Institute said on Twitter. He was later transferred to a clinic for continued monitoring. Fujimori, who suffers recurrent respiratory, neurological and hypertension problems -- he had heart surgery in October -- was hospitalized on March 3 after suffering a strong arrhythmia. After an 11-day stay, he was returned to the police base where he is the only prisoner.

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SYDNEY (AFP) -- A cruise ship docked in Sydney Harbour on Monday for the first time in more than two years, after a 2020 ban sparked by a mass Covid-19 outbreak was lifted. On a bright morning, the Pacific Explorer made a dramatic entrance, flanked by tugboats spraying plumes of water and with a large banner that read “We’re home” draped across its bow. Crowds gathered at the base of the Sydney Harbour Bridge to watch the arrival of the ship, which began its 18,000-kilometre (11,000-mile) journey back to Australia nearly a month ago. International cruise ships were banned from Australian waters in March 2020 after a Covid-19 outbreak that spread from the Ruby Princess ship, which was linked to hundreds of cases of the virus and 28 deaths, many in aged care homes.