KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The death toll in a horrific bombing at a girls’ school in the Afghan capital has soared to 50, many of them pupils between 11 and 15 years old, the Interior Ministry said Sunday.

The number of wounded in Saturday’s attack has also climbed to more than 100, said Interior Ministry spokesman Tariq Arian.

Three explosions outside the school entrance struck as students were leaving for the day, he said. The blasts occurred in a mostly Shiite neighborhood in the west of the capital. The Taliban denied responsibility, condemning the attack.

COTONOU, May 9 (NNN-Xinhua) — Benin’s Minister of the Interior Sacca Lafia on Saturday warned of a destabilizing plan as a serious threat to the integrity of the country.

Lafia sounded the alarm in a statement here in the economic capital Cotonou, citing the seizures of batches of ammunitions in Benin as well as in neighboring Togo.

He recalled that on April 30, Benin’s police seized a batch of 70,000 cartridges of 12 mm calibre on board a vehicle.

ISLAMABAD, May 8 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani President Arif Alvi Saturday promulgated an ordinance to allow the use of electronic voting machines in general elections as well as permission to Pakistani expatriates to cast their votes in the country's elections, a statement from the president's office said.

According to the statement, the president made an amendment in the Election Act of the country, making the Election Commission of Pakistan responsible for procurement of the electronic voting machines for use in the general elections.

08 May 2021; MEMO: Supreme Iranian Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced on Friday: "The decline of the enemy Zionist regime has begun and will not stop."

Marking Al-Quds Day, an annual event that takes place on the last Friday of Ramadan, Khamenei asserted: "Israel is not a country, but a terrorist base against the nation of Palestine and other Muslim nations."

MOSCOW, May 9. /TASS/: There can be no forgiveness for those who have forgotten the lessons of World War Two and are again nurturing aggressive plans, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday.

JOHANNESBURG, May 9 (Xinhua) -- Eleven cases of COVID-19 variant B.1.1.7 and four of B.1.617.2 variants have been detected in South Africa, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said on Saturday night.

According to Mkhize, the Network for Genomic Surveillance in South Africa confirmed four cases of the B.1.617.2 variant, which was first detected in India, have been detected in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal and all the person had a recent history of travelling from India.

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — India’s surge in coronavirus cases is having a dangerous effect on neighboring Bangladesh, with health experts warning of imminent vaccine shortages just as the country should be stepping up jabs and as more contagious virus variants are beginning to be detected.

BEIJING, May 9 (APP): Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight No.6852 carrying a batch of one million doses of Sinovac vaccine left the Beijing Capital International Airport here on Sunday for Islamabad as the country is battling to control the third wave of Covid-19 pandemic.

“More flights of the national carrier are expected to airlift more consignments of Sinovac vaccines procured from China between May 13-15 and by the end of May”, Qadir Bux Sangi, PIA Country Manager for China told APP.

MOSCOW, May 9. /TASS/: An improvised light plane that crash landed in the Republic of Tatarstan in the Volga area, killing two, was apparently hijacked, a source in law-enforcement agencies told TASS on Sunday.

"According to preliminary data, the plane was hijacked by two individuals from the Alemetyevsk aeroclub, which operates the plane. Both of them died," the source said.

According to the source’s data, the light plane crashed almost immediately after it took off, some 900 m from the runway of the Poima aerodrome.

Srinagar, May 8 (PTI) An oxygenated 100-bedded COVID care facility has been set up at the Haj House in Srinagar, an official spokesman said on Saturday.

The District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA), Srinagar set up the facility in Bemina area of the city in the wake of rising coronavirus cases.

The spokesman said the facility came up at the Haj House in just a week's time.

New Delhi, May 9 (PTI) The ongoing lockdown in Delhi will be extended for another week up to May 17 morning and Metro train services will be halted during the period, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Sunday.

He said although COVID-19 cases have come down in the last few days, but any slackness would squander the gains achieved so far in the current wave of the pandemic.

Auckland, May 9 (PTI) A group of New Zealand cricketers and coaches, who were involved in the now-suspended IPL, arrived home by a private jet while another lot is expected to land here on Sunday.

Cricketers Trent Boult, Finn Allen, Jimmy Neesham, Adam Milne and Scott Kuggeleijn, coaches and former players James Pamment and Shane Bond, and Royal Challengers Bangalore's director of cricketing operations Mike Hesson landed here late on Saturday night.