TORONTO (AP) – Coronavirus infections set new one-day highs in six Canadian provinces Wednesday, prompting several provinces to impose more restrictions in hopes of containing the spread of the Omicron variant.

The biggest jumps were in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, which are the country’s most populous provinces. Quebec reported more than 13,000 new cases in the previous 24 hours, Ontario had 10,436 and British Columbia listed 2,944.

Manitoba, Alberta, and Newfoundland and Labrador also set new records. Manitoba reported 947 new infections, which broke the previous high of 825 set just a day earlier. Alberta said it had 2,775 and Newfoundland and Labrador reported 312.

British Columbia announced it is delaying the full return to classrooms after the holiday break to give school staff time to implement enhanced health measures. Staff and students whose parents are health workers will return to schools on January 3 or 4 as planned. All other students return on January 10.

Officials in Newfoundland and Labrador said its schools would shift to remote learning after the holiday break.

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (AP) – United States (US) navy vessels seized 385 kilogrammes of heroin in the Arabian Sea worth some USD4 million, in a major bust by the international maritime operation in the region, officials said yesterday.

The USS Tempest and USS Typhoon seized the drugs hidden aboard a stateless fishing vessel plying Mideast waters, the international task force said in a statement. The seizure took place on Monday.

The Navy said the fishing vessel likely came from Iran. All nine crew members identified themselves as Iranian nationals, according to Commander Timothy Hawkins, a spokesperson for the US Navy’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet.

He did not elaborate on who manufactured the drugs or their ultimate destination.

As the task force ramps up regional patrols, it has confiscated illegal drugs worth over USD193 million during operations at sea this year – more than the amount of drugs seized in the last four years combined, its statement said.

Heroin is trafficked to the Middle East and even Europe by land from Iran and Afghanistan through well-worn land routes in the Balkans, Southern Caucasus mountains or Saudi Arabia, according to last year’s United Nations (UN) Global Synthetic Drugs Assessment. Smugglers from Iran have increasingly taken to sea to bring heroin into South Asia, the report added, with Iranian and Pakistani sailors often arrested near Sri Lanka.

Iran’s porous 1,923 kilometre-long eastern border with Afghanistan, the world’s largest producer of opium, has turned it into a key transit country for the illicit drug trade.

MOGADISHU (AFP) – At least four people were killed yesterday when fighters from the Al-Shabaab extremist group raided a town near Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, police said.

The attack came as the troubled country was in the grip of an escalating political crisis pitting the president against the prime minister.

The attackers, armed with machine guns, raided the town of Balcad, about 30 kilometres north of Mogadishu, police and witnesses said.

“The terrorists attacked Balcad early this morning targetting government security checkpoints,” police officer Abdullahi Mohamed told AFP by phone.

“The situation returned to normal now and the government forces are in full control.”

Witnesses said the Al-Shabaab fighters managed to enter some parts of the town, which lies along a road linking Mogadishu to rest of the country, before they were repelled.

President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed and Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble are locked in a festering feud over long-delayed elections in the Horn of Africa nation.

The president, better known as Farmajo, this week announced he was suspending the premier, who in turn accused him of an “attempted coup”.

Relations between the pair have long been frosty, with the latest developments raising fresh fears among international partners that the government could be distracted from its fight to quash the extremist insurgency.

Al-Shabaab has been waging a violent campaign against the country’s fragile government since 2007 but was driven out of Mogadishu in 2011 after an offensive by an African Union force.

But the al-Qaeda-linked insurgents retain control of vast rural areas of Somalia, from which they frequently launch deadly attacks in the capital and elsewhere against civilian, military and government targets.

CAIRO (AP) – Sudanese authorities said on Wednesday rescue workers retrieved at least 31 bodies from a collapsed gold mine in West Kordofan province.

The country’s state-run mining company said workers and villagers were still searching the Darsaya mine for more bodies or possible survivors. The mine is located in the Fuja village, around 700 kilometres south of the capital of Khartoum.

The defunct mine collapsed earlier this week, killing at least 38 people, the company said on Tuesday. It posted images on Facebook showing villagers gathering at the site as at least two dredgers worked to find possible survivors and bodies.

The Sudanese Mineral Resources Limited Company said the mine was not functional but local miners returned to work there after security forces guarding the site left the area.

Collapses are common in Sudan’s gold mines, where safety standards are not widely in effect.

Sudan is a major gold producer with numerous mines scattered across the country. The industry, however, suffered from years of mismanagement and corruption.

The transitional government has begun regulating the industry during the past two years.

In nearby North Darfur province, an unidentified armed group late Tuesday attacked and looted a warehouse for the World Food Program (WFP) in the provincial capital of el-Fasher, said Khardiata Lo Ndiaye, United Nations (UN) humanitarian coordinator in Sudan. Local authorities in North Darfur imposed a curfew across the province starting on Wednesday.

As many as 1,900 metric tonnes of food had been stored at the warehouse, meant to be distributed to people in need in the area, the WFP said.

“Such an attack severely impedes our ability to deliver to the people who need it the most,” she said.

Sudan is one of the poorest counties in the world, with at least 14.3 million people in need humanitarian assistance, according to UN figures.

The attack on WFP’s warehouse came after another one on a former base for the UN peacekeeping mission in el-Fasher last week. The base, handed over to Sudanese authorities on December 21, was also looted, the UN said.