The fire on a giant oil tanker off Sri Lanka's coast has been delivered beneath manipulate however is nonetheless not extinguished, the navy stated Saturday.

Four tug boats, three Sri Lankan navy ships and 4 Indian ships have been struggling with the fire the MT New Diamond considering that Thursday.

The tanker, carrying almost two million barrels of crude oil, used to be drifting about 20 nautical miles (37 kilometers) from Sri Lanka's jap coast and on Friday nighttime a tug boat towed it to the deep sea away from land, stated navy spokesman Capt. Indika de Silva.

One of the crew was killed and the other one was injured because of fire. Both are Filipino.

The injured 1/3 engineer has been hospitalized in secure condition.

The fire started out in an engine room boiler however had now not unfold to the tanker’s oil storage region and no leak has been reported, the navy said. Sri Lankan officers have warned of viable large environmental harm to Sri Lanka’ if the ship leaks or explodes.

The head of Sri Lanka’s Marine Environment Protection Authority, Darshani Lahandapur, stated Sri Lanka does no longer have the sources or potential to fight such a huge catastrophe and had appealed for assist from regional countries.

She stated her agency plans to take prison motion over the fire.

The tanker had 23 crew individuals — 18 Filipinos and 5 Greeks. Twenty-one crew left the tanker unhurt as the hearth burned.

The tanker used to be transporting crude oil from the port of Mina Al Ahmadi in Kuwait to the Indian port of Paradip, the place the state-owned Indian Oil Corp. has a refinery. 

 India's whole corona-virus instances surged past four million with a record upward push on Saturday, making it the 3rd country in the world to surpass that mark, following the U.S and Brazil.

India brought 86,432 instances of the new virus on Saturday, a world each day record, in accordance to statistics from the federal fitness ministry.

Infections rose throughout the country, consisting of in the capital New Delhi and the massive states of Maharashtra and Karnataka.

The soar to extra than four million instances comes solely thirteen days after India reached three million cases, accelerating sharply from the extra than a hundred days it took to make bigger through the preceding 1 million.

India has logged the world's greatest each day coronavirus caseload for nearly a month, as its authorities pushes the opening up of companies to revive a sharply contracting economy.

The quantity of deaths in India from the COVID-19 rose by way of extra than 1,000 to 69,561 on Saturday. 

The North Korean authorities has vowed to punish officers who failed to guard residents from Typhoon Maysak that wreaked havoc in components of the country, in accordance to Rodong Sinmun, a state-run newspaper.

The storm delivered heavy downpours throughout North Korea before this week, with reputable photos displaying streets inundated in the jap city of Wonsan in Kangwon province.

Rodong Sinmun suggested Saturday that the country's pinnacle officers would take an motion towards "irresponsible" town and provincial officers for inflicting "a serious incident involving dozens of casualties."

"Dozens of deaths have been reported due to the fact of purple tapes and gestures between city and provincial officials who have no longer been given party guidelines," the newspaper said.

The officers failed to "immediately prepare a undertaking to totally discover residences at threat and evacuate all residents" no matter being ordered through the ruling Workers' Party of Korea headed through chief Kim Jong Un, it added.

"Those responsible for these killings were once chosen to be extremely party, administrative, and severely punished."

But Ahn Chan-il, a defector became researcher based totally in Seoul, informed AFP information organisation that punishing neighborhood officers is a "way for the North Korean management to keep away from blame" for the casualties.

"They are sending a message that there is nothing wrong with Kim Jong Un, but the losses are only due to the fact that those who work for him fail to comply with his orders."

On Wednesday, nation tv confirmed stay photos of storm surge and torrential rains in Wonsan, with a broken bridge and flooded streets and buildings.

There have been reviews of destroyed farms in the central county of Unpa, the country's breadbasket.

Concerns are developing about in addition crop injury and meals resources as the remoted united states braces for another, probably greater effective typhoon, Haishen, which is on tune to hit the peninsula's east coast on Monday.

Typhoon Maysak killed at least two humans in South Korea, with greater than 2,200 human beings evacuated to brief shelters in the southern metropolis of Busan. 

 China says it has effectively launched a "reusable experimental spacecraft" beneath extended tiers of secrecy. Space enterprise watchers accept as true with it to be some type of unmanned area aircraft comparable to the X-37B operated via the US Air Force and Space Force in current years.

A quick announcement from China's state-run Xinhua media outlet introduced the launch from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Friday.

" It will take a look at reusable applied sciences at some point of its flight, imparting technological assist for the peaceable use of space," the assertion reads.

The mission used to be performed beneath a veil of greater secrecy, with no authentic launch photographs or even the time of launch made public.

"That leads one to assume this is no longer solely a house plane, it is a army house plane," stated Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics astronomer Jonathan McDowell on a European Space Agency backed Zoom convention Friday.

China earlier introduced its intentions to take a look at a area plane, in 2017, and there've been reviews out of the united states of america for months now that preparations have been underway.

The American X-37B has made self reliant flights lasting over two years. It's no longer clear how lengthy this new Chinese spacecraft will remain in orbit.

Satellite watcher Michael Thompson cited that if it is intended to be a quick mission, it may want to come again to Earth in much less than 24 hours:

We'll replace this story as soon as we have extra facts about the craft or its flight.  

President Donald Trump declared Friday that the U.S is "rounding the turn" on the  corona-virus, projecting optimism about the growth on a vaccine and the financial recuperation even as fitness specialists warn of the practicable for any other wave of the disorder in the fall at some point of flu season.

At a information conference, Trump touted the jobs file launched Friday displaying that the U.S. financial system introduced 1.4 million jobs in August and the unemployment charge dropped to 8.4 percent. He referred to as the monetary recuperation "unprecedented" and described it as taking the form of a "super V."

"Were sincerely rounding the turn. The vaccines are coming. The therapeutics have already come however they're persevering with to come," Trump stated of the corona-virus.

Trump implored Americans to "remain vigilant" over the upcoming Labor Day weekend, urging them to socially distance, put on masks, exercise right hygiene and hold gatherings to "a crew that you know."

The president's remarks got here roughly a week after he delivered his acceptance speech to the Republican National Convention from the South Lawn of the White House earlier than a crowd of 1,500 attendees, most of whom have been now not carrying masks or social distancing, in a ruin with his personal administration's guidelines.

Trump on Friday additionally touted the decline in instances over the remaining month, after states like Florida and Arizona skilled a substantial spike in instances at some point of the month of July upon taking steps to loosen virus-related restrictions and reopen businesses.

The president advised newshounds he believed a vaccine would be developed via the stop of the yr and possibly throughout the month of October, which would be earlier than the presidential election.

Trump was once pressed later at some stage in the information convention on his declaration that the u . s . a . used to be rounding a corner, when the University of Washington mannequin tracked by using the White House indicates the U.S. recording extra than 410,000 deaths due to COVID-19 with the aid of January of subsequent year.

The president insisted that his response to the virus, and mainly his selections to avoid journey from China in February and Europe in March, saved many lives.

  "If I had gone in a certain direction we would probably have 1.5 or 20 There could be a million deaths, ”Trump said, referring to recent economic losses, which are more than 180,000.

Trump additionally repeated his typical announcement that the U.S. would have fewer instances if the united states did no longer have such expansive trying out capabilities.

Trump claimed, "If we cut our effort in half, we would have about 1/2 of all chances." He additionally recommended casually that the U.S. strategy to the virus would show up higher if in his depend he genuinely "took out" New York, which was once the epicenter of the pandemic when the virus first broke out in the U.S.

Trump has persistently minimized the hazard of the virus, supplying up rosy predictions of his administration's response to the pandemic as it has come underneath great and constant scrutiny. Polls exhibit that a massive majority of Americans disapprove of Trump's coping with of COVID-19, and the virus has turn out to be a key problem on the marketing campaign path beforehand of the November election.

The president and different audio system at the GOP conference ultimate week mostly handled the pandemic as if it had been in the rearview mirror, touting the administration's response as a success. First female Melania Trump used to be a superb exception, supplying condolences to these who have felt ache due to the crisis. For his part, President Trump got here below blistering criticism for his response to the virus from Democrats at their conference the week prior.

Health officers like Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield have warned of the opportunity of a dire public fitness scenario in the fall if Americans do no longer comply with fitness tips as the pandemic coincides with flu season. 

President Donald Trump stated that Serbia and Kosovo had agreed to “economic normalization,” in what he stated used to be a step towards ending a two-decade historic conflict. But the deal fell brief of Belgrade recognizing its neighbor as an unbiased nation.

“My administration proposed a new way of bridging the divide by way of focusing on job introduction and financial growth,” Trump stated throughout a assembly with leaders of the two international locations at the White House on Friday.

“I suppose they’re going to have a terrific relationship,” he added.

But the authentic have an impact on of the deal Trump brokered, two months earlier than his re-election contest, is uncertain.

The settlement calls for imposing preceding airline, rail, and dual carriageway preparations along, in accordance to White House officials. But they declined to outline “economic normalization.”’ The accord additionally consists of a one-year moratorium on Kosovo’s efforts to are searching for membership in global groups and Serbia’s marketing campaign to forestall its recognition, officers said.

A assertion launched via Trump did no longer encompass any important points about what the settlement would entail past a normalization of ties between Kosovo and Israel and Serbia’s dedication to opening a business workplace in Jerusalem this month and to pass its embassy to Jerusalem subsequent year.

Ric Grenell, the U.S. envoy for Serbia and Kosovo, criticized newshounds at a White House briefing on the agreement, suggesting they “might be too young” to apprehend its significance or that it may be “too complicated” for them to comprehend.

But Grenell additionally struggled to element what the pact had substantively changed, encouraging newshounds to study it and claiming, incorrectly, that it had been released. After prompting from National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, Grenell pointed out that the deal did name for the two nations to together apprehend diplomas and expert certificates.

Asked for the full textual content of the agreement, the White House declined to grant it. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic stated in an interview after a assembly with Trump that he had signed a “bilateral agreement” with the American president, no longer an settlement that consists of Kosovo.

Enduring Balkan Dispute

The Balkans dispute has persevered considering the fact that the two aspects fought a hostilities establishing in 1998 and Kosovo declared independence from Serbia a decade later. It’s no nearer to decision notwithstanding years of conflict at the negotiating table. Kosovo needs attention as a sovereign state, which Serbia refuses to provide.

While pursuing “economic normalization” would possibly assist expand change between the two nations, cognizance stays the central issue. Rapprochment has faltered before, as when Kosovo slapped a a hundred percent tariff on Serbian items from 2018 to this yr in retaliation for the Belgrade government’s efforts to deny it entry into worldwide bodies, together with the United Nations.

U.S. officers are attempting to take a look at whether higher monetary hyperlinks will lead to a breakthrough.

“Your dedication to stabilize the location and carry peace and prosperity into the area is some thing we respect a lot,” Vucic instructed Trump at the meeting.

Still, the move angers the European Union, which mediates between Balkan neighbors. EU officers say the U.S. can also are searching for a deeper settlement however that its efforts are aimed at scoring a speedy diplomatic victory instead than resolving the standoff.

An in the past White House assembly was once scrapped when Kosovar President Hashim Thaci used to be accused of hostilities crimes, inclusive of almost a hundred murders. Thaci denies the allegations.

A deal that normalizes political ties is quintessential for each Serbia and Kosovo to growth on the course towards EU membership, which they hope can give up a long time of monetary under-performance and the exodus of hundreds of thousands of their residents in search of higher lives in richer countries.

A 2013 Brussels Agreement on normalization of ties between Kosovo and Serbia used to be made below EU auspices, however in no way signed by means of both of the countries. While some components of the settlement have been implemented, each aspects declare many continue to be outstanding. 

In Dhaka, Bangladesh - An underground fuel pipeline close to a mosque exploded throughout night prayers backyard the capital of Bangladesh, leaving dozens of Muslim worshipers with quintessential burns, officers stated Saturday.

The blast came about Friday night time as humans have been ending their prayers at Baitus Salat Jame Mosque at Narayanganj, nearby police chief Zayedul Alam said.

At least 37 humans had been admitted to a burn unit in a state-run clinic in the capital of Dhaka, stated Samanta Lal Sen, a coordinator of the unit.

Most of them had been in indispensable condition, Sen said.

TV stations stated that due to the fact of the affect of the fuel line blast, at least six air conditioners additionally exploded internal the mosque.

Firefighters had been investigation why the explosions took place. 

 The fire on a giant oil tanker off Sri Lanka's coast has been delivered beneath manipulate however is nonetheless not extinguished, the navy stated Saturday.

Four tug boats, three Sri Lankan navy ships and 4 Indian ships have been struggling with the fire the MT New Diamond considering that Thursday.

The tanker, carrying almost two million barrels of crude oil, used to be drifting about 20 nautical miles (37 kilometers) from Sri Lanka's jap coast and on Friday nighttime a tug boat towed it to the deep sea away from land, stated navy spokesman Capt. Indika de Silva.

One of the crew was killed and the other one was injured because of fire. Both are Filipino.

The injured 1/3 engineer has been hospitalized in secure condition.

The fire started out in an engine room boiler however had now not unfold to the tanker’s oil storage region and no leak has been reported, the navy said. Sri Lankan officers have warned of viable large environmental harm to Sri Lanka’ if the ship leaks or explodes.

The head of Sri Lanka’s Marine Environment Protection Authority, Darshani Lahandapur, stated Sri Lanka does no longer have the sources or potential to fight such a huge catastrophe and had appealed for assist from regional countries.

She stated her agency plans to take prison motion over the fire.

The tanker had 23 crew individuals — 18 Filipinos and 5 Greeks. Twenty-one crew left the tanker unhurt as the hearth burned.

The tanker used to be transporting crude oil from the port of Mina Al Ahmadi in Kuwait to the Indian port of Paradip, the place the state-owned Indian Oil Corp. has a refinery. 

 India's whole corona-virus instances surged past four million with a record upward push on Saturday, making it the 3rd country in the world to surpass that mark, following the U.S and Brazil.

India brought 86,432 instances of the new virus on Saturday, a world each day record, in accordance to statistics from the federal fitness ministry.

Infections rose throughout the country, consisting of in the capital New Delhi and the massive states of Maharashtra and Karnataka.

The soar to extra than four million instances comes solely thirteen days after India reached three million cases, accelerating sharply from the extra than a hundred days it took to make bigger through the preceding 1 million.

India has logged the world's greatest each day coronavirus caseload for nearly a month, as its authorities pushes the opening up of companies to revive a sharply contracting economy.

The quantity of deaths in India from the COVID-19 rose by way of extra than 1,000 to 69,561 on Saturday. 

The North Korean authorities has vowed to punish officers who failed to guard residents from Typhoon Maysak that wreaked havoc in components of the country, in accordance to Rodong Sinmun, a state-run newspaper.

The storm delivered heavy downpours throughout North Korea before this week, with reputable photos displaying streets inundated in the jap city of Wonsan in Kangwon province.

Rodong Sinmun suggested Saturday that the country's pinnacle officers would take an motion towards "irresponsible" town and provincial officers for inflicting "a serious incident involving dozens of casualties."

"Dozens of deaths have been reported due to the fact of purple tapes and gestures between city and provincial officials who have no longer been given party guidelines," the newspaper said.

The officers failed to "immediately prepare a undertaking to totally discover residences at threat and evacuate all residents" no matter being ordered through the ruling Workers' Party of Korea headed through chief Kim Jong Un, it added.

"Those responsible for these killings were once chosen to be extremely party, administrative, and severely punished."

But Ahn Chan-il, a defector became researcher based totally in Seoul, informed AFP information organisation that punishing neighborhood officers is a "way for the North Korean management to keep away from blame" for the casualties.

"They are sending a message that there is nothing wrong with Kim Jong Un, but the losses are only due to the fact that those who work for him fail to comply with his orders."

On Wednesday, nation tv confirmed stay photos of storm surge and torrential rains in Wonsan, with a broken bridge and flooded streets and buildings.

There have been reviews of destroyed farms in the central county of Unpa, the country's breadbasket.

Concerns are developing about in addition crop injury and meals resources as the remoted united states braces for another, probably greater effective typhoon, Haishen, which is on tune to hit the peninsula's east coast on Monday.

Typhoon Maysak killed at least two humans in South Korea, with greater than 2,200 human beings evacuated to brief shelters in the southern metropolis of Busan. 

 China says it has effectively launched a "reusable experimental spacecraft" beneath extended tiers of secrecy. Space enterprise watchers accept as true with it to be some type of unmanned area aircraft comparable to the X-37B operated via the US Air Force and Space Force in current years.

A quick announcement from China's state-run Xinhua media outlet introduced the launch from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Friday.

" It will take a look at reusable applied sciences at some point of its flight, imparting technological assist for the peaceable use of space," the assertion reads.

The mission used to be performed beneath a veil of greater secrecy, with no authentic launch photographs or even the time of launch made public.

"That leads one to assume this is no longer solely a house plane, it is a army house plane," stated Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics astronomer Jonathan McDowell on a European Space Agency backed Zoom convention Friday.

China earlier introduced its intentions to take a look at a area plane, in 2017, and there've been reviews out of the united states of america for months now that preparations have been underway.

The American X-37B has made self reliant flights lasting over two years. It's no longer clear how lengthy this new Chinese spacecraft will remain in orbit.

Satellite watcher Michael Thompson cited that if it is intended to be a quick mission, it may want to come again to Earth in much less than 24 hours:

We'll replace this story as soon as we have extra facts about the craft or its flight.  

President Donald Trump declared Friday that the U.S is "rounding the turn" on the  corona-virus, projecting optimism about the growth on a vaccine and the financial recuperation even as fitness specialists warn of the practicable for any other wave of the disorder in the fall at some point of flu season.

At a information conference, Trump touted the jobs file launched Friday displaying that the U.S. financial system introduced 1.4 million jobs in August and the unemployment charge dropped to 8.4 percent. He referred to as the monetary recuperation "unprecedented" and described it as taking the form of a "super V."

"Were sincerely rounding the turn. The vaccines are coming. The therapeutics have already come however they're persevering with to come," Trump stated of the corona-virus.

Trump implored Americans to "remain vigilant" over the upcoming Labor Day weekend, urging them to socially distance, put on masks, exercise right hygiene and hold gatherings to "a crew that you know."

The president's remarks got here roughly a week after he delivered his acceptance speech to the Republican National Convention from the South Lawn of the White House earlier than a crowd of 1,500 attendees, most of whom have been now not carrying masks or social distancing, in a ruin with his personal administration's guidelines.

Trump on Friday additionally touted the decline in instances over the remaining month, after states like Florida and Arizona skilled a substantial spike in instances at some point of the month of July upon taking steps to loosen virus-related restrictions and reopen businesses.

The president advised newshounds he believed a vaccine would be developed via the stop of the yr and possibly throughout the month of October, which would be earlier than the presidential election.

Trump was once pressed later at some stage in the information convention on his declaration that the u . s . a . used to be rounding a corner, when the University of Washington mannequin tracked by using the White House indicates the U.S. recording extra than 410,000 deaths due to COVID-19 with the aid of January of subsequent year.

The president insisted that his response to the virus, and mainly his selections to avoid journey from China in February and Europe in March, saved many lives.

  "If I had gone in a certain direction we would probably have 1.5 or 20 There could be a million deaths, ”Trump said, referring to recent economic losses, which are more than 180,000.

Trump additionally repeated his typical announcement that the U.S. would have fewer instances if the united states did no longer have such expansive trying out capabilities.

Trump claimed, "If we cut our effort in half, we would have about 1/2 of all chances." He additionally recommended casually that the U.S. strategy to the virus would show up higher if in his depend he genuinely "took out" New York, which was once the epicenter of the pandemic when the virus first broke out in the U.S.

Trump has persistently minimized the hazard of the virus, supplying up rosy predictions of his administration's response to the pandemic as it has come underneath great and constant scrutiny. Polls exhibit that a massive majority of Americans disapprove of Trump's coping with of COVID-19, and the virus has turn out to be a key problem on the marketing campaign path beforehand of the November election.

The president and different audio system at the GOP conference ultimate week mostly handled the pandemic as if it had been in the rearview mirror, touting the administration's response as a success. First female Melania Trump used to be a superb exception, supplying condolences to these who have felt ache due to the crisis. For his part, President Trump got here below blistering criticism for his response to the virus from Democrats at their conference the week prior.

Health officers like Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield have warned of the opportunity of a dire public fitness scenario in the fall if Americans do no longer comply with fitness tips as the pandemic coincides with flu season. 

President Donald Trump stated that Serbia and Kosovo had agreed to “economic normalization,” in what he stated used to be a step towards ending a two-decade historic conflict. But the deal fell brief of Belgrade recognizing its neighbor as an unbiased nation.

“My administration proposed a new way of bridging the divide by way of focusing on job introduction and financial growth,” Trump stated throughout a assembly with leaders of the two international locations at the White House on Friday.

“I suppose they’re going to have a terrific relationship,” he added.

But the authentic have an impact on of the deal Trump brokered, two months earlier than his re-election contest, is uncertain.

The settlement calls for imposing preceding airline, rail, and dual carriageway preparations along, in accordance to White House officials. But they declined to outline “economic normalization.”’ The accord additionally consists of a one-year moratorium on Kosovo’s efforts to are searching for membership in global groups and Serbia’s marketing campaign to forestall its recognition, officers said.

A assertion launched via Trump did no longer encompass any important points about what the settlement would entail past a normalization of ties between Kosovo and Israel and Serbia’s dedication to opening a business workplace in Jerusalem this month and to pass its embassy to Jerusalem subsequent year.

Ric Grenell, the U.S. envoy for Serbia and Kosovo, criticized newshounds at a White House briefing on the agreement, suggesting they “might be too young” to apprehend its significance or that it may be “too complicated” for them to comprehend.

But Grenell additionally struggled to element what the pact had substantively changed, encouraging newshounds to study it and claiming, incorrectly, that it had been released. After prompting from National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, Grenell pointed out that the deal did name for the two nations to together apprehend diplomas and expert certificates.

Asked for the full textual content of the agreement, the White House declined to grant it. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic stated in an interview after a assembly with Trump that he had signed a “bilateral agreement” with the American president, no longer an settlement that consists of Kosovo.

Enduring Balkan Dispute

The Balkans dispute has persevered considering the fact that the two aspects fought a hostilities establishing in 1998 and Kosovo declared independence from Serbia a decade later. It’s no nearer to decision notwithstanding years of conflict at the negotiating table. Kosovo needs attention as a sovereign state, which Serbia refuses to provide.

While pursuing “economic normalization” would possibly assist expand change between the two nations, cognizance stays the central issue. Rapprochment has faltered before, as when Kosovo slapped a a hundred percent tariff on Serbian items from 2018 to this yr in retaliation for the Belgrade government’s efforts to deny it entry into worldwide bodies, together with the United Nations.

U.S. officers are attempting to take a look at whether higher monetary hyperlinks will lead to a breakthrough.

“Your dedication to stabilize the location and carry peace and prosperity into the area is some thing we respect a lot,” Vucic instructed Trump at the meeting.

Still, the move angers the European Union, which mediates between Balkan neighbors. EU officers say the U.S. can also are searching for a deeper settlement however that its efforts are aimed at scoring a speedy diplomatic victory instead than resolving the standoff.

An in the past White House assembly was once scrapped when Kosovar President Hashim Thaci used to be accused of hostilities crimes, inclusive of almost a hundred murders. Thaci denies the allegations.

A deal that normalizes political ties is quintessential for each Serbia and Kosovo to growth on the course towards EU membership, which they hope can give up a long time of monetary under-performance and the exodus of hundreds of thousands of their residents in search of higher lives in richer countries.

A 2013 Brussels Agreement on normalization of ties between Kosovo and Serbia used to be made below EU auspices, however in no way signed by means of both of the countries. While some components of the settlement have been implemented, each aspects declare many continue to be outstanding. 

In Dhaka, Bangladesh - An underground fuel pipeline close to a mosque exploded throughout night prayers backyard the capital of Bangladesh, leaving dozens of Muslim worshipers with quintessential burns, officers stated Saturday.

The blast came about Friday night time as humans have been ending their prayers at Baitus Salat Jame Mosque at Narayanganj, nearby police chief Zayedul Alam said.

At least 37 humans had been admitted to a burn unit in a state-run clinic in the capital of Dhaka, stated Samanta Lal Sen, a coordinator of the unit.

Most of them had been in indispensable condition, Sen said.

TV stations stated that due to the fact of the affect of the fuel line blast, at least six air conditioners additionally exploded internal the mosque.

Firefighters had been investigation why the explosions took place. 

 The fire on a giant oil tanker off Sri Lanka's coast has been delivered beneath manipulate however is nonetheless not extinguished, the navy stated Saturday.

Four tug boats, three Sri Lankan navy ships and 4 Indian ships have been struggling with the fire the MT New Diamond considering that Thursday.

The tanker, carrying almost two million barrels of crude oil, used to be drifting about 20 nautical miles (37 kilometers) from Sri Lanka's jap coast and on Friday nighttime a tug boat towed it to the deep sea away from land, stated navy spokesman Capt. Indika de Silva.

One of the crew was killed and the other one was injured because of fire. Both are Filipino.

The injured 1/3 engineer has been hospitalized in secure condition.

The fire started out in an engine room boiler however had now not unfold to the tanker’s oil storage region and no leak has been reported, the navy said. Sri Lankan officers have warned of viable large environmental harm to Sri Lanka’ if the ship leaks or explodes.

The head of Sri Lanka’s Marine Environment Protection Authority, Darshani Lahandapur, stated Sri Lanka does no longer have the sources or potential to fight such a huge catastrophe and had appealed for assist from regional countries.

She stated her agency plans to take prison motion over the fire.

The tanker had 23 crew individuals — 18 Filipinos and 5 Greeks. Twenty-one crew left the tanker unhurt as the hearth burned.

The tanker used to be transporting crude oil from the port of Mina Al Ahmadi in Kuwait to the Indian port of Paradip, the place the state-owned Indian Oil Corp. has a refinery. 

 India's whole corona-virus instances surged past four million with a record upward push on Saturday, making it the 3rd country in the world to surpass that mark, following the U.S and Brazil.

India brought 86,432 instances of the new virus on Saturday, a world each day record, in accordance to statistics from the federal fitness ministry.

Infections rose throughout the country, consisting of in the capital New Delhi and the massive states of Maharashtra and Karnataka.

The soar to extra than four million instances comes solely thirteen days after India reached three million cases, accelerating sharply from the extra than a hundred days it took to make bigger through the preceding 1 million.

India has logged the world's greatest each day coronavirus caseload for nearly a month, as its authorities pushes the opening up of companies to revive a sharply contracting economy.

The quantity of deaths in India from the COVID-19 rose by way of extra than 1,000 to 69,561 on Saturday. 

The North Korean authorities has vowed to punish officers who failed to guard residents from Typhoon Maysak that wreaked havoc in components of the country, in accordance to Rodong Sinmun, a state-run newspaper.

The storm delivered heavy downpours throughout North Korea before this week, with reputable photos displaying streets inundated in the jap city of Wonsan in Kangwon province.

Rodong Sinmun suggested Saturday that the country's pinnacle officers would take an motion towards "irresponsible" town and provincial officers for inflicting "a serious incident involving dozens of casualties."

"Dozens of deaths have been reported due to the fact of purple tapes and gestures between city and provincial officials who have no longer been given party guidelines," the newspaper said.

The officers failed to "immediately prepare a undertaking to totally discover residences at threat and evacuate all residents" no matter being ordered through the ruling Workers' Party of Korea headed through chief Kim Jong Un, it added.

"Those responsible for these killings were once chosen to be extremely party, administrative, and severely punished."

But Ahn Chan-il, a defector became researcher based totally in Seoul, informed AFP information organisation that punishing neighborhood officers is a "way for the North Korean management to keep away from blame" for the casualties.

"They are sending a message that there is nothing wrong with Kim Jong Un, but the losses are only due to the fact that those who work for him fail to comply with his orders."

On Wednesday, nation tv confirmed stay photos of storm surge and torrential rains in Wonsan, with a broken bridge and flooded streets and buildings.

There have been reviews of destroyed farms in the central county of Unpa, the country's breadbasket.

Concerns are developing about in addition crop injury and meals resources as the remoted united states braces for another, probably greater effective typhoon, Haishen, which is on tune to hit the peninsula's east coast on Monday.

Typhoon Maysak killed at least two humans in South Korea, with greater than 2,200 human beings evacuated to brief shelters in the southern metropolis of Busan. 

 China says it has effectively launched a "reusable experimental spacecraft" beneath extended tiers of secrecy. Space enterprise watchers accept as true with it to be some type of unmanned area aircraft comparable to the X-37B operated via the US Air Force and Space Force in current years.

A quick announcement from China's state-run Xinhua media outlet introduced the launch from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Friday.

" It will take a look at reusable applied sciences at some point of its flight, imparting technological assist for the peaceable use of space," the assertion reads.

The mission used to be performed beneath a veil of greater secrecy, with no authentic launch photographs or even the time of launch made public.

"That leads one to assume this is no longer solely a house plane, it is a army house plane," stated Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics astronomer Jonathan McDowell on a European Space Agency backed Zoom convention Friday.

China earlier introduced its intentions to take a look at a area plane, in 2017, and there've been reviews out of the united states of america for months now that preparations have been underway.

The American X-37B has made self reliant flights lasting over two years. It's no longer clear how lengthy this new Chinese spacecraft will remain in orbit.

Satellite watcher Michael Thompson cited that if it is intended to be a quick mission, it may want to come again to Earth in much less than 24 hours:

We'll replace this story as soon as we have extra facts about the craft or its flight.  

President Donald Trump declared Friday that the U.S is "rounding the turn" on the  corona-virus, projecting optimism about the growth on a vaccine and the financial recuperation even as fitness specialists warn of the practicable for any other wave of the disorder in the fall at some point of flu season.

At a information conference, Trump touted the jobs file launched Friday displaying that the U.S. financial system introduced 1.4 million jobs in August and the unemployment charge dropped to 8.4 percent. He referred to as the monetary recuperation "unprecedented" and described it as taking the form of a "super V."

"Were sincerely rounding the turn. The vaccines are coming. The therapeutics have already come however they're persevering with to come," Trump stated of the corona-virus.

Trump implored Americans to "remain vigilant" over the upcoming Labor Day weekend, urging them to socially distance, put on masks, exercise right hygiene and hold gatherings to "a crew that you know."

The president's remarks got here roughly a week after he delivered his acceptance speech to the Republican National Convention from the South Lawn of the White House earlier than a crowd of 1,500 attendees, most of whom have been now not carrying masks or social distancing, in a ruin with his personal administration's guidelines.

Trump on Friday additionally touted the decline in instances over the remaining month, after states like Florida and Arizona skilled a substantial spike in instances at some point of the month of July upon taking steps to loosen virus-related restrictions and reopen businesses.

The president advised newshounds he believed a vaccine would be developed via the stop of the yr and possibly throughout the month of October, which would be earlier than the presidential election.

Trump was once pressed later at some stage in the information convention on his declaration that the u . s . a . used to be rounding a corner, when the University of Washington mannequin tracked by using the White House indicates the U.S. recording extra than 410,000 deaths due to COVID-19 with the aid of January of subsequent year.

The president insisted that his response to the virus, and mainly his selections to avoid journey from China in February and Europe in March, saved many lives.

  "If I had gone in a certain direction we would probably have 1.5 or 20 There could be a million deaths, ”Trump said, referring to recent economic losses, which are more than 180,000.

Trump additionally repeated his typical announcement that the U.S. would have fewer instances if the united states did no longer have such expansive trying out capabilities.

Trump claimed, "If we cut our effort in half, we would have about 1/2 of all chances." He additionally recommended casually that the U.S. strategy to the virus would show up higher if in his depend he genuinely "took out" New York, which was once the epicenter of the pandemic when the virus first broke out in the U.S.

Trump has persistently minimized the hazard of the virus, supplying up rosy predictions of his administration's response to the pandemic as it has come underneath great and constant scrutiny. Polls exhibit that a massive majority of Americans disapprove of Trump's coping with of COVID-19, and the virus has turn out to be a key problem on the marketing campaign path beforehand of the November election.

The president and different audio system at the GOP conference ultimate week mostly handled the pandemic as if it had been in the rearview mirror, touting the administration's response as a success. First female Melania Trump used to be a superb exception, supplying condolences to these who have felt ache due to the crisis. For his part, President Trump got here below blistering criticism for his response to the virus from Democrats at their conference the week prior.

Health officers like Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield have warned of the opportunity of a dire public fitness scenario in the fall if Americans do no longer comply with fitness tips as the pandemic coincides with flu season. 

President Donald Trump stated that Serbia and Kosovo had agreed to “economic normalization,” in what he stated used to be a step towards ending a two-decade historic conflict. But the deal fell brief of Belgrade recognizing its neighbor as an unbiased nation.

“My administration proposed a new way of bridging the divide by way of focusing on job introduction and financial growth,” Trump stated throughout a assembly with leaders of the two international locations at the White House on Friday.

“I suppose they’re going to have a terrific relationship,” he added.

But the authentic have an impact on of the deal Trump brokered, two months earlier than his re-election contest, is uncertain.

The settlement calls for imposing preceding airline, rail, and dual carriageway preparations along, in accordance to White House officials. But they declined to outline “economic normalization.”’ The accord additionally consists of a one-year moratorium on Kosovo’s efforts to are searching for membership in global groups and Serbia’s marketing campaign to forestall its recognition, officers said.

A assertion launched via Trump did no longer encompass any important points about what the settlement would entail past a normalization of ties between Kosovo and Israel and Serbia’s dedication to opening a business workplace in Jerusalem this month and to pass its embassy to Jerusalem subsequent year.

Ric Grenell, the U.S. envoy for Serbia and Kosovo, criticized newshounds at a White House briefing on the agreement, suggesting they “might be too young” to apprehend its significance or that it may be “too complicated” for them to comprehend.

But Grenell additionally struggled to element what the pact had substantively changed, encouraging newshounds to study it and claiming, incorrectly, that it had been released. After prompting from National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, Grenell pointed out that the deal did name for the two nations to together apprehend diplomas and expert certificates.

Asked for the full textual content of the agreement, the White House declined to grant it. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic stated in an interview after a assembly with Trump that he had signed a “bilateral agreement” with the American president, no longer an settlement that consists of Kosovo.

Enduring Balkan Dispute

The Balkans dispute has persevered considering the fact that the two aspects fought a hostilities establishing in 1998 and Kosovo declared independence from Serbia a decade later. It’s no nearer to decision notwithstanding years of conflict at the negotiating table. Kosovo needs attention as a sovereign state, which Serbia refuses to provide.

While pursuing “economic normalization” would possibly assist expand change between the two nations, cognizance stays the central issue. Rapprochment has faltered before, as when Kosovo slapped a a hundred percent tariff on Serbian items from 2018 to this yr in retaliation for the Belgrade government’s efforts to deny it entry into worldwide bodies, together with the United Nations.

U.S. officers are attempting to take a look at whether higher monetary hyperlinks will lead to a breakthrough.

“Your dedication to stabilize the location and carry peace and prosperity into the area is some thing we respect a lot,” Vucic instructed Trump at the meeting.

Still, the move angers the European Union, which mediates between Balkan neighbors. EU officers say the U.S. can also are searching for a deeper settlement however that its efforts are aimed at scoring a speedy diplomatic victory instead than resolving the standoff.

An in the past White House assembly was once scrapped when Kosovar President Hashim Thaci used to be accused of hostilities crimes, inclusive of almost a hundred murders. Thaci denies the allegations.

A deal that normalizes political ties is quintessential for each Serbia and Kosovo to growth on the course towards EU membership, which they hope can give up a long time of monetary under-performance and the exodus of hundreds of thousands of their residents in search of higher lives in richer countries.

A 2013 Brussels Agreement on normalization of ties between Kosovo and Serbia used to be made below EU auspices, however in no way signed by means of both of the countries. While some components of the settlement have been implemented, each aspects declare many continue to be outstanding. 

In Dhaka, Bangladesh - An underground fuel pipeline close to a mosque exploded throughout night prayers backyard the capital of Bangladesh, leaving dozens of Muslim worshipers with quintessential burns, officers stated Saturday.

The blast came about Friday night time as humans have been ending their prayers at Baitus Salat Jame Mosque at Narayanganj, nearby police chief Zayedul Alam said.

At least 37 humans had been admitted to a burn unit in a state-run clinic in the capital of Dhaka, stated Samanta Lal Sen, a coordinator of the unit.

Most of them had been in indispensable condition, Sen said.

TV stations stated that due to the fact of the affect of the fuel line blast, at least six air conditioners additionally exploded internal the mosque.

Firefighters had been investigation why the explosions took place.