NEW DELHI: India’s capital is seeing its worst wave of coronavirus infections since the start of the pandemic, even as the nation’s overall cases fall.
New Delhi has averaged more than 5,200 newly confirmed cases a day this past week, the highest this trend has been since the first case was recorded in the capital on March 2.
The Health Ministry has attributed the surge in New Delhi to the festival season and warned the situation can worsen due to people crowding markets for festival shopping, coupled with the onset of winters and high air pollution levels in the capital.
India is maintaining an overall decline in new cases, registering 38,310 in the last 24 hours. The Health Ministry also Tuesday reported another 490 fatalities, raising the overall death toll to 123,097.
With 8.2 million cases of coronavirus, India is the second worst-hit country behind the US.
New Delhi sees worst coronavirus wave as India’s cases drop
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New Delhi sees worst coronavirus wave as India’s cases drop
- New Delhi has averaged more than 5,200 newly confirmed cases a day this past week
Philippine lawmakers start VP Duterte impeachment hearings
- The revived impeachment bid leans heavily on allegations that the younger Duterte misused public funds
MANILA: A Philippine congressional committee began impeachment hearings Monday that could dash Vice President Sara Duterte’s run for the country’s top job.
The daughter of former president Rodrigo Duterte, who recently announced her candidacy for the 2028 presidential election, was impeached by the country’s House of Representatives last year only to see the Supreme Court toss the case out over procedural issues.
The revived impeachment bid leans heavily on allegations that the younger Duterte misused public funds while in office and will see the House justice committee debate three such complaints.
A fourth case was dropped by complainants who hoped to speed up the process.
Duterte also stands accused of making a death threat against her former ally and current President Ferdinand Marcos, with whom she is engaged in an explosive political feud.
Under the Philippine constitution, an impeachment triggers a Senate trial. A guilty verdict would result in Duterte being barred from politics and sidelined from the 2028 presidential race.
The latest impeachment bid faces a changed environment with the vice president ahead in recent polls, analysts told AFP.
“The political context will be very different, especially now that Sara declared her candidacy,” University of the Philippines political science professor Jean Franco said.
“It’s definitely going to weigh on the minds of the members of the House of Representatives,” Franco said, adding that a vote for impeachment would effectively see a lawmaker’s career “marked for death.”
Anthony Lawrence Borja, an associate professor of political science at De La Salle University agreed saying: “It is ultimately a question of whether the patronage of the current administration outweighs their fear of Duterte’s condemnation.”
The same committee hearing the case against Duterte last month tossed out a pair of impeachment complaints against Marcos, ruling that allegations of corruption over a scandal involving bogus flood control projects lacked substance.
Michael Wesley Poa, spokesman for Duterte’s defense team, told AFP they were closely monitoring deliberations and trusted “the same standards” used in the Marcos hearing would be applied.
