WORLD briefs
MOSCOW – Imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny said Friday he is ending his hunger strike after getting medical attention and being warned by his doctors that continuing it would put his life at risk.
In an Instagram post on the 24th day of his hunger strike, Navalny said he will continue to demand a visit from his doctor to address numbness in his legs and arms – his main demand. But he said he would halt the strike after having been examined by doctors who were not affiliated with the prison, something he called “a huge progress.”
He also acknowledged the mass pro-Navalny protests across Russia on Wednesday and multiple letters and statements supporting him from public figures and government officials around the globe.
“Thanks to the huge support of good people across the country and around the world, we have made huge progress,” Navalny said in his message from behind bars. “Two months ago, my requests for medical help were prompting smirks. I wasn’t given any medications. … Thanks to you, now I have been examined by a panel of civilian doctors twice.”
Another reason he was ending the hunger strike was that some of his supporters were refusing to eat in a show of solidarity with him, Navalny said.
“Tears flowed from my eyes when I read that. God, I’m not even acquainted with these people, and they do this for me. Friends, my heart is full of love and gratitude for you, but I don’t want anyone physically suffering because of me,” said the 44-year-old politician, who is President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic.
He said he would start “coming out of the hunger strike” on Friday and the process of ending it will take 24 days.
India sets virus record, pleads for oxygen
NEW DELHI – India put oxygen tankers on special express trains as major hospitals in New Delhi begged on social media on Friday for more supplies to save COVID-19 patients who are struggling to breathe. More than a dozen people died when an oxygen-fed fire ripped through a coronavirus ward in a populous western state.
India’s underfunded health system is in tatters as the world’s worst coronavirus surge wears out the nation, which set a global record in daily infections for a second straight day with 332,730.
India has confirmed 16 million cases so far, second only to the United States in a country of nearly 1.4 billion people. India has recorded 2,263 deaths in the past 24 hours for a total of 186,920.
The fire in a hospital intensive care unit killed 13 COVID-19 patients in the Virar area on the outskirts of Mumbai early Friday.
The situation is worsening by the day with hospitals taking to social media to plead with the government to replenish their oxygen supplies and threatening to stop admissions of new patients.
U.S. carrier to aid in Afghanistan withdrawal
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon decided to keep an aircraft carrier in the Middle East to help provide protection for American and coalition troops during their planned withdrawal from Afghanistan in coming weeks, U.S. defense officials said Friday.
Also, two U.S. Air Force bombers will be deployed to Afghanistan as part of the pre-pullout bolstering of security.
The moves back up Pentagon officials’ public assurances that U.S. forces will be prepared to meet whatever resistance the Taliban might present during the withdrawal of more than 10,000 U.S. and coalition troops starting after May 1.
About 2,500 to 3,500 of those troops are American.
“I would advise the Taliban that we will be well-prepared to defend ourselves throughout the withdrawal process,” Gen. Frank McKenzie, the head of U.S. Central Command, said Thursday at the Pentagon.
From wire reports