Monday 31 August 2020
Photos: Berlin zoo's twin panda cubs celebrate 1st birthday
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IPL in UAE: Rohit Sharma calls on Mumbai Indians army to get ready
With just 21 days left for the start of the 13th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), the excitement and anticipation is building among the teams who have assembled in the UAE.
Rohit Sharma, the captain of Mumbai Indians, the most successful outfit in the tournaments history with four titles, once again took to his Twitter account to announce he eagerness to swing into action.
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Sharma struck a military style pose with his cricket bat and called on his army of players to get ready for action come September 19.
Using the nickname by which the Indians go by, ‘Paltan’ (which means platoon, soldiers in English), Sharma was pictured on ahead of the team’s departure to the Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi for their first practice session.
Sharma captioned it as ‘Paltan, get ready’ having earlier posted tweets that revealed his excitement at getting onto the cricket pitch after a long gap of six months.
‘Ro: “Feels good to be back!” he tweeted.
Having played with his daughter, Samaira, in his hotel room, Sharma went to work in the nets and was also seen talking to teammate Mitchell McClenaghan.
With the COVID-19 safety protocols in place, Sharma also posted pics of him being checked before the training session which was held under lights, in Abu Dhabi on Friday evening.
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Britain honours World War Two spy heroine of Indian descent
London: A Muslim woman of Indian descent who spied for Britain during World War Two is being honoured on Friday with a plaque marking her former home in London, more than 75 years after she was executed in Germany.
Noor Inayat Khan is the first woman of Indian origin to be given a blue plaque under the 150-year-old scheme to commemorate notable figures from Britain’s past.
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A plaque marking the family home in central London that she left aged 29 to become the first female undercover radio operator sent into Nazi-occupied France will be unveiled by her biographer Shrabani Basu in a virtual ceremony on Friday.
“When Noor Inayat Khan left this house on her last mission, she would never have dreamed that one day she would become a symbol of bravery. She was an unlikely spy,” Basu said in a statement ahead of the ceremony.
“As a Sufi she believed in non-violence and religious harmony. Yet when her adopted country needed her, she unhesitatingly gave her life in the fight against Fascism.” Khan was captured and eventually executed at Dachau concentration camp in 1944, and was posthumously awarded the George Cross, one of Britain’s highest honours, for “acts of the greatest heroism”.
In 2012, following a long campaign by Basu to keep her memory alive, a statue of Khan was put up in London.
Khan was born in Russia to an American mother and an Indian father of royal descent, and educated in Paris, fleeing France for London at the start of World War Two.
After she returned to France as a secret agent in 1943, the German Gestapo made mass arrests in the resistance groups she was working with, putting her in danger of exposure, and she was offered the chance to go back to Britain.
But she refused to leave her post and when she was captured, gave nothing away to her interrogators, not even revealing her real name. Her final word before she was executed was said to have been “Liberte”, or “Freedom”.
Debate over statues
Khan’s plaque is the first to be unveiled since the scheme was paused during the coronavirus pandemic, and comes at a time of intense debate over statues and other forms of commemoration after the Black Lives Matter movement.
Anna Eavis, curatorial director at English Heritage, which runs the scheme, said she was particularly pleased to be restarting it with a tribute to Khan.
“She’s important for reflecting London’s ethnic diversity, and of course she’s also important because she represents the changing role of women in the 20th century in particular,” Eavis said.
“That sort of role would have been unthinkable 100 years before. So I think the blue plaque scheme is a very important way of giving visibility of those changes for women.” Just 14% of the more than 950 blue plaques in London celebrate women and in 2016 English Heritage launched a “plaques for women” campaign, aiming to redress the balance.
Later this year it will unveil plaques to the artist Barbara Hepworth and to Christine Granville, who also served as a secret agent in World War Two.
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Cartoons from Satish Acharya: Reserve Bank of India loan moratorium ends on August 31
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Flash floods kill at least 30 people north of Kabul: officials
Kabul: At least 30 people have been killed and hundreds of houses destroyed as flash floods caused by torrential rains lashed an Afghan city north of Kabul, officials said on Wednesday.
Many women and children were among the dead in the city of Charikar, which was hit by heavy rains overnight that caused flash floods, the ministry of disaster management said.
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A local government hospital in the province of Parwan confirmed receiving the bodies of 17 people killed in the floods.
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India: 7-year-old boy attacks 4-year-old with knife
Bareilly (Uttar Pradesh): In a shocking incident, a seven-year-old boy allegedly slit the throat of his four-year-old cousin with a knife during a fight over a game they were playing outside their house in Uttar Pradesh's Bareilly district.
The boy is battling for his life at a private hospital.
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The incident was reported from Chopula locality of Nawabganj area where both families live and earn their living by working as labourers.
Nawabganj Station House Officer Surendra Singh Pachauri said that both the families have reached a compromise as it was a fight between their children.
No FIR has been registered in the matter. "Both parents said the boy was too young to realise what he was doing and gave a written declaration that they did not want any action," he said.
The incident took place two days ago when the fathers of both the children had gone out to work. The children were playing outside their house when they began fighting among themselves. The older boy went into his house and returned with a knife and attacked the younger cousin.
The younger boy sustained a deep cut on his throat and chin and fell unconscious. He was rushed to the community health centre, where doctors referred him to a higher medical facility after preliminary treatment.
The injured boy's mother initially lodged a complaint with police, alleging that her son was attacked on the instructions of her sister-in-law, but later retracted the same.
The SHO said, "We are keeping a close watch on the child's condition. If something happens to the boy, we will proceed as per law."
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Japan PM Shinzo Abe resigns over health issues; who's next in line?
Tokyo: Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced Friday he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy.
"I have decided to step down from the post of the prime minister," he told a press conference, saying he was suffering from a recurrence of the ulcerative colitis that ended his first term in office.
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The unexpected news sent Tokyo stocks plunging more than two percent, with the benchmark Nikkei 225 index reversing earlier gains.
Rumours about Abe's possible resignation had intensified after two recent surprise hospital visits for unspecified medical checks, but in recent days, senior government officials had suggested he would serve out the rest of remaining year in office.
The resignation would be a bitterly familiar scenario for Abe, who stepped down just one year into his first term, in 2007, over health problems.
He was subsequently diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, which he said upon return to office in 2012 was under control with the help of new medication.
A report card of Abe's Abenomics
Major monetary easing
On his return to power after a disastrous first term between 2006-2007, Abe cut a deal with the Bank of Japan that saw the central bank implement a policy of unprecedented monetary easing.
The goal was to reduce the cost of borrowing, stimulating business activity and personal consumption, and pushing inflation up to a two percent target to end the deflation that had haunted the Japanese economy since the 1990s.
The BoJ's policy helped strengthen the competitiveness of Japanese exporters by weakening the yen, but the inflation target has remained stubbornly out of reach.
The Japanese economy has gradually recovered and prices have slowly increased, but are still far short of expectations.
The country even experienced deflation between 2015 and 2016, which made an unwelcome return this year with the global economic crisis caused by the coronavirus.
Government spending galore
The BoJ's efforts were paired with stimulus in the form of massive government spending, the second of the "three arrows" of Abenomics.
Hundreds of billion of dollars was spent from 2013, particularly for the modernisation of infrastructure nationwide, some of it with an eye on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
The spending boosted revenue and investments for business, stimulated financial and real estate markets and helped support the country's growth for several years.
But it didn't stop the national economy from derailing several times: GDP contracted between 2014-2015 before recovering, and the country fell into recession again in 2020, even before the coronavirus crisis hit.
With an ageing population more inclined to save than spend, consumption has remained stubbornly low. And spending was hit further by two consumption tax hikes, in 2014 and 2019.
Economists warned both times that the increases would send the economy into reverse, but the government pushed ahead, spurred by its burgeoning obligations in a country with the world's highest debt-to-GDP ratio.
With the coronavirus causing economic devastation, and domestically forcing the postponement of the Olympics and a nosedive in tourist revenue, the government has unleashed massive new stimulus.
But Japan's growth potential is dropping because "the government lacks a green recovery vision and digital initiatives," said Sayuri Shirai, a professor in Keio University's faculty of policy management and former BoJ policy board member.
Structural reforms
The first two arrows of Abenomics could not work without the third pledged by the premier: structural reforms.
A chief target was Japan's labour market, characterised by a post-war boom era model in which workers could expect life-long employment and extensive benefits in jobs at one of the country's behemoth firms.
But attempts to overturn the calcified model and promote greater flexibility have moved too slowly, experts say.
"At first we thought the government was buying time by monetary easing and fiscal policy, to prepare for structural reforms which are painful," said Masamichi Adachi, an economist with UBS.
"However this time was not used wisely for structural reforms," he told AFP.
There have been some bright spots, including a rising number of women and older people in the workplace, and some loosening of the country's strict immigration policy, which may help tackle chronic labour shortages.
But many of the reforms "have been not bold enough" to boost labour productivity," Shirai said.
The pandemic, she added, revealed "not only Japan's corporate sector vulnerability but also inadequate electronic public services" and the slow implementation of government policies.
Who could lead Japan after Abe?
Taro Aso, gaffe-prone finance minister
In his dual role as finance minister and deputy prime minister, 79-year-old Taro Aso is a Liberal Democratic Party old-timer.
A close Abe ally, Aso was prime minister from 2008-09 and has been deputy prime minister and finance minister since 2012.
Aso stepped down as premier after his ruling LDP was booted from office in a historic defeat in 2009, and has long been rumoured to nurse hopes of another chance at the top office.
His long political career has been punctuated by repeated gaffes, including comments that the elderly should "hurry up and die" instead of costing the government money, and that Tokyo could learn from Nazi Germany when it comes to constitutional reform.
But he has weathered the multiple furores over his comments, and leads a major faction in the LDP.
He backed a massive stimulus programme in the face of the 2008 global financial crisis, but later shifted to stressing the importance of reducing the country's snowballing debt.
Shigeru Ishiba, popular ex-defence minister
Former defence minister Shigeru Ishiba is considered a military geek but is also a self-confessed fan of 1970s pop music.
The 63-year-old former banker is the scion of a political family and seen as a strong orator with significant experience - he entered parliament at just 29.
Like Abe, Ishiba is a defence hawk who wants to strengthen the role of the country's Self-Defense Forces in the pacifist constitution, and he has even mused about whether Japan should reconsider its policy forbidding nuclear weapons on its soil.
He has served in several cabinet posts and is a popular choice to succeed Abe among the public.
Ishiba is less favoured by his fellow ruling party lawmakers, partly because he once left the LDP.
He was the sole challenger to Abe in the party's 2018 leadership contest and was heavily defeated.
Yoshihide Suga, power player and adviser
Yoshihide Suga, 71, rose to national prominence as a trusted Abe adviser and was a key proponent of his bid for the premiership after a disastrous first term.
After Abe returned to power in 2012, he appointed Suga chief cabinet secretary, a powerful position that coordinates the efforts of government ministries and the ruling party.
He is also often the face of the government, delivering regular press briefings and famously revealed the name of the new imperial era declared with the ascension of Emperor Naruhito in 2019 - the Reiwa era.
He is a rare self-made lawmaker in a ruling party filled with hereditary politicians and former technocrats, and is the eldest son of a strawberry farmer.
Suga moved to Tokyo after high school and worked odd jobs to put himself through night college.
He was first elected in 1987, as a municipal assembly member in Yokohama, and won a lower house seat in 1996.
Fumio Kishida, favoured successor
Former foreign minister Fumio Kishida currently serves as the ruling party's policy chief and is often described as Abe's preferred successor, but his soft-spoken, low-key presence and alleged lack of charisma are seen as possible obstacles.
Elected from Hiroshima, Kishida worked to invite then-US president Barack Obama for a historic visit to the city that was devastated by the world's first war-time atomic bomb explosion.
He has been credited with helping cement a deal between Japan and South Korea in 2015 that was meant to end the long-running dispute between the countries over the use of sex slaves during Japan's occupation.
Taro Kono, colourful Twitter user
Defence Minister Taro Kono was once considered an ambitious and independent-minded political reformer, but the 57-year-old has toned down his rhetoric in recent years as a key member of Abe's cabinet.
After a stint as a government reform minister, Georgetown-educated Kono served as foreign minister between 2017-2019 before becoming defence minister.
He travelled extensively as Japan's top diplomat, but also oversaw the deterioration of ties with South Korea over unresolved wartime disputes.
In recent years, he has largely avoided discussing his passionate opposition to nuclear power, given the government's official support, and despite his independent image he is seen as close to both Aso and Suga.
Often contrasted with his father, political dove Yohei Kono, he has also set himself apart with his online presence, maintaining personal Twitter accounts in Japanese and English.
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Hurricane Laura to cause 'unsurvivable storm surge' on US Gulf Coast
Hurricane Laura was expected to cause catastrophic damage and "unsurvivable storm surge" to the Gulf Coast near the Texas and Louisiana border after strengthening on Wednesday to a Category 4 storm, the National Hurricane Center said.
Laura, located 200 miles (320 km) south-southeast of Port Arthur, Texas, on Wednesday afternoon, had maximum sustained winds of 140 miles per hour (220 km per hour) and was expected to pack winds of up to 145 mph (233 kph) before landfall on Wednesday night, the Miami-based forecaster said.
Some 620,000 people were under mandatory evacuation orders in Louisiana and Texas.
The catastrophic storm surge could penetrate up to 30 miles (48 km) inland from the coastline between Sea Rim State Park, Texas, and Intracoastal City, Louisiana and could raise water levels as high as 20 feet (6 m) in parts of Cameron Parish, Louisiana, the NHC said.
"To think that there would be a wall of water over two stories high coming on shore is very difficult for most to conceive, but that is what is going to happen," said National Weather Service meteorologist Benjamin Schott at a news conference. Most of Louisiana's Cameron Parish would be underwater at some point, Schott added.
"The word 'unsurvivable' is not one that we like to use, and it's one that I've never used before," Schott said of the storm surge.
Temporary housing was being hastily erected outside the storm surge zone for evacuated residents, and emergency teams were being strategically positioned, state and federal emergency management agencies said.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Pete Gaynor posted pictures of portable shelters on Tuesday at Camp Beauregard, Louisiana, about 115 miles (185 km) north of the Gulf Coast.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said his state's National Guard was in place with high-water vehicles and rescue helicopters.
While Houston had earlier in the week feared Laura would deliver a direct hit to the fourth-largest U.S. city, the storm has shifted east and Houston, which was devastated by Hurricane Harvey in 2017, looked likely to escape the worst of it.
Louisiana Governor John Edwards said that the state's entire National Guard had been activated for the first time since 2012.
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Dark portrait of a childhood wins International Booker Prize
London: “The Discomfort of Evening,” a story of childhood grief that reviewers have called both “disturbing” and “exceptional,” has been named as the winner of the International Booker Prize, the prestigious award for fiction translated into English.
Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, the book’s author, shares the prize of 50,000 pounds ($66,000), with Michele Hutchison, who translated it from the original Dutch.
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Ted Hodgkinson, chair of the judging panel, said in a statement that “The Discomfort of Evening” was “a tender and visceral evocation of a childhood caught between shame and salvation, and a deeply deserving winner.”
The annual International Booker Prize is administered by the same foundation as the Booker Prize, which is awarded for fiction written in English. To be eligible for the International Booker, a translated book must be published in Britain. Past winners have included “The Vegetarian” by Korean writer Han Kang, and “Flights” by Olga Tokarczuk, who was subsequently awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
“The Discomfort of Evening,” published in the United States this month, was chosen from a shortlist that included Yoko Ogawa’s “The Memory Police,” a dystopian tale that was a finalist for last year’s National Book Award for Translated Literature, and Daniel Kehlmann’s “Tyll,” about a 17th-century jester who travels around Europe, which is being adapted for Netflix.
“The Discomfort of Evening,” Rijneveld’s first novel, was a bestseller in the Netherlands when published there in 2018. The book is set among a religious Dutch family living on a dairy farm in the early 2000s. It tells the story of Jas, a 10-year-old girl whose brother dies in an ice-skating accident, and follows her family’s struggle with grief.
Rijneveld, 29, who uses the pronouns they and them, grew up on a dairy farm and was 3 when their 12-year-old brother was hit and killed by a bus on the way to school.
The book contains graphic depictions of animal abuse and of Jas and her siblings’ sexual awakening. Hutchison, the translator, said in an interview with The New York Times this year that she found it hard working on some of those scenes. “I’d tend not to do those passages at the end of the day, in case I would get nightmares,” she said.
Many critics in Britain, where the book was widely reviewed on its publication in March, highlighted the book’s disturbing scenes in reviews, while praising the effect of Rijneveld’s storytelling. Sophie Ratcliffe, writing in The Daily Telegraph, called the novel “a parable to shake us from sentiment.”
“I can’t imagine giving it to anybody. Nobody would want to read this book,” Ratcliffe said. But, she added, “I think many of us need to.”
In an interview with The New York Times in April, Rijneveld said they had grown up in a religious family and used to confide in God with their struggles. Now, Rijneveld said, “I’m trying to do the same thing by writing that I did as a child by praying: hoping, desiring and asking for some relief.”
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Global COVID-19 cases cross 25 million as India sets grim record
New Delhi: Global coronavirus infections soared past 25 million on Sunday, as countries around the world further tightened restrictions to try to stop the rampaging pandemic.
A million additional cases have been detected globally roughly every four days since mid-July, according to an AFP tally, with India on Sunday setting the record for the highest single-day rise in cases with 78,761.
The surge in India, home to 1.3 billion people, came as the government further eased lockdown restrictions on the weekend to help ease pressure on the reeling economy.
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Even nations such as New Zealand and South Korea, which had previously brought their outbreaks largely under control, are now battling new clusters of infections.
On the other side of the world, Latin America - the worst-hit region - was still struggling with its first wave, with Covid-19 deaths in Brazil crossing 120,000, second only to the United States.
Brazil's curve "has stabilised now, but at a very dangerous level: nearly 1,000 deaths and 40,000 cases per day," said Christovam Barcellos, a researcher at public health institute Fiocruz.
"And Brazil still isn't past the peak."
Nearly 843,000 people have died of Covid-19 globally, and with no vaccine or effective treatment available yet, governments have been forced to resort to some form of social distancing and lockdowns to stop the spread of the virus.
Masks will become mandatory from Monday on public transport and flights in New Zealand, which went more than 100 days without local transmission before the current cluster emerged.
And tightened virus curbs kicked in on Sunday in South Korea, which is also battling fresh clusters - including in the greater Seoul region, home to half the country's population.
'Anti-corona' rallies in Europe
Despite the grim numbers, there has been steady opposition to lockdowns and social distancing measures in many parts of the world, often because of their crushing economic cost.
But resistance has also come from the extreme right and left of the political spectrum, as well as conspiracy theorists and anti-vaccine campaigners.
In Berlin on Saturday, around 18,000 people gathered to march against coronavirus restrictions - but police later stopped the rally because many were not respecting social distancing measures.
Protesters waved German flags and shouted slogans against Chancellor Angela Merkel often used by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Many carried placards promoting widely debunked conspiracy theories about vaccines, face masks and 5G communications.
Similar protests were held in London and Zurich, where some carried signs supporting the far-right QAnon movement, which promotes bizarre theories about Satan-worshipping cabals and "deep state" plots - without any credible evidence.
'A big first step'
The pandemic has upended economies and societies around the world, and halted most large gatherings - from sport and music to religion and politics.
The Tour de France set off from the French Riviera on Saturday, two months later than planned and with the French sport minister not ruling out the cancellation of the event because of the coronavirus.
Under the Tour rules, a team with two positive tests in its entourage would be expelled. A virus testing cell will travel with the teams throughout the race.
The world's top sport, culture and music events are struggling with the challenge of hosting spectators while reducing the risk of virus transmission.
But there was some cheer on Saturday in New York, once among the world's biggest coronavirus hotspots.
Visitors raised their arms, clapped and lined up to get tickets as New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art reopened its doors to the public in a festive atmosphere after a six-month closure.
Tracy-Ann Samuel, who came with her daughters aged four and nine, said she couldn't wait to again be "surrounded by beautiful art".
"It means that there is some semblance of normalcy," Samuel said.
"The Met has been a part of New York history for over 150 years... So this is a big first step."
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Photos: Hurricane Laura leaves path of destruction in Louisiana
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Obese, diabetics over 3 times more likely to die of COVID: Study
New York: COVID-19 patients hospitalised with high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes were over three times more likely to die from the viral disease, say researchers.
The study, published in the journal Diabetes Care, looked at the impact of metabolic syndrome on outcomes for COVID-19 patients.
Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of at least three of five conditions - hypertension, high blood sugar, obesity, high triglycerides, and low HDL cholesterol - that increases the risk of cardiovascular disease.
"Together, obesity, diabetes, and pre-diabetes, high blood pressure, and abnormal cholesterol levels are all predictive of higher incidents of death in these patients," said the study lead author Joshua Denson from the Tulane University in the US.
"The more of these diagnoses that you have, the worse the outcomes. The underlying inflammation that is seen with metabolic syndrome may be the driver that is leading to these more severe cases," Denson added.
Researchers followed the outcomes for 287 patients hospitalised for Covid-19 from March 30 to April 5, which was the peak of the pandemic in New Orleans.
The mean age was 61 years and almost 57 per cent were women. The most common conditions were hypertension (80 per cent), obesity (65 per cent), diabetes (54 per cent), and low HDL (39 per cent).
The research team looked at two groups -- those diagnosed with metabolic syndrome and those who weren't.
They tracked the outcomes including if patients were admitted to an intensive care unit, placed on a ventilator, developed acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), or died from the disease.
Almost 66 per cent of the patients in the study had metabolic syndrome.
When these cases were compared with patients without the condition, 56 per cent vs 24 per cent required the ICU, 48 per cent vs 18 per cent required ventilator support, 37 per cent vs 11 per cent developed ARDS, and 26 per cent vs 10 per cent died.
Importantly, after accounting for age, sex, race, hospital location, and other conditions, the patients with metabolic syndrome were 3.4 times more likely to die from COvid-19 than those who didn't have the condition.
These patients were also nearly five times more likely to be admitted to ICUs, needed ventilator support, or developed ARDS.
"Metabolic syndrome should be considered a composite predictor of Covid-19 lethal outcome, increasing the odds of mortality by the combined effects of its individual components," Denson said.
Recently, a study published in the European Journal of Endocrinology, also found that the risk of greater Covid-19 severity and death is higher in people with any obese body mass index (BMI).
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Pakistan: Sindh CM says his life was threatened by floods in Karachi
Karachi: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has disclosed that Thursday’s record torrential rain in Karachi threatened his own safety. While on an emergency visit of the city at night, he had to abandon his vehicle on the flooded Aiwan-e-Saddar Road after it was submerged in rainwater.
“The water level reached around till my back as I waded through it to come out of the water as other vehicles were called to reach back,” said Shah while speaking about the widespread devastation caused by maximum 230 millimetres of rain in Karachi in the span of 24 hours. Till Saturday afternoon, a number of residential localities were still inundated as prolonged failure of electric supply lasting up to 40 hours was another major cause of trouble for citizens in the city.
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“Never before so much rain had occurred in the entire city as no doubt rainwater didn’t get drain”, said Shah.
“So was our confidence also shaken as before this rain, we were confident that we would be able to control the situation but this rainfall has made us realize that we have to do much for this city,” he added.
He said that all the encroachments on storm water drains of Karachi would be demolished to restore them to their original capacity to carry flood waters after torrential rains.
Extreme flooding
He could not visit the famous Nursery road intersection on Sharea Faisal on Thursday night as the area had extreme flooding there. “The next day I visited Nursery area at 10 am after the rainwater was drained as a shopkeeper there showed me that flood water level was till the signboard of his shop that was 12 feet high as there was so much devastation,” he said.
“The situation was even worse in the posh and expensive areas of the city but people living there have the ability to stand again on their own feet but we will surely resolve infrastructure issues of their localities,” he continued, adding that his government would help the deprived settlements in the city devastated by the heavy rains.
Shah visited the shanty settlement of Yousuf Goth in suburban area of District West of Karachi. “There was so much water as people there were very much concerned. I promised with them that once the situation gets normal after drainage of rainwater, a drainage scheme for the area will be constructed under my own supervision so that such a situation doesn’t occur again,” he said.
Shah says his government will take care of the shopkeepers and small traders in the city whose investment of the lifetime had washed away due to the heavy rainfall as surveys would be conducted to assess their damages adding help would be sought from the federal government to compensate for damages. He mentioned that Prime Minister Imran Khan had phoned him on the night of torrential rains in Karachi and promised to extend all out support.
He negated the impression that the authorities of his government were missing and seen nowhere in the city during the torrential rainfall as the administrative officials had remained awake all the night to rescue people in distress.
He informed that since 6th July, 2020 when the monsoon rains started in the province, 80 people had lost their lives in different cities of Sindh. These include 47 people in Karachi, 10 in Hyderabad, five in Shaheed Benazirabad, 11 in Mirpurkhas, six in Larkana, and one person in Sukkur. He said that people lost their lives due to the mishaps of drowning in flood waters, electrocution, wall and roof collapse, and also lightning strikes.
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India extends suspension of scheduled international passenger flights until September 30
New Delhi: The suspension of scheduled international passenger flights has been extended till September 30, said Indian aviation regulator DGCA on Monday.
"However, international scheduled flights may be allowed on selected routes by the competent authority on a case-to-case basis," noted the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in a circular.
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Scheduled international passenger services continue to remain suspended in India since March 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Meanwhile, special international flights have been operating under the Vande Bharat Mission since May and under bilateral air bubble arrangements with other countries since July.
The circular said the suspension does not affect the operation of international all-cargo operations and flights specifically approved by the DGCA.
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COVID-19: US surpasses 180,000 virus deaths: Johns Hopkins
Washington: The United States passed the grim milestone of 180,000 coronavirus deaths Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins University's real-time tracker.
The US added 931 new virus deaths in 24 hours, the Baltimore-based university reported at 8:30 pm (0030 GMT Friday), bringing the total death toll to 180,527.
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An additional 42,859 new cases brought the overall caseload to 5,860,397. The US is by far the hardest-hit country in the world in terms of both number of cases and deaths.
At least 2,101,326 have recovered from the virus in the country.
The number of new COVID-19 cases in the US has dropped in recent weeks, but the country is far from out of the woods, with case numbers varying vastly by region.
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Kerala woman’s humanitarian act wins applause and assistance
Kumbalangi (Kochi): Even 15 kms away from the backwater village of Kumbalangi in the outskirts of Kochi, when one asks for directions to the house of Mary Sebastian, people ask in return: “The woman who kept a Rs100 note in the charity lunch packet?”
Such has been the sunshine spread by her humanitarian act that Mary Sebastian has become a household name not only in the neighbourhood but across the state and even outside its borders.
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The 56-year-old, who had a job with a local caterer, and her husband Sebastian V. who repairs fishing boats, both lost their jobs owing to COVID-19, but when the local panchayat requested charity lunch packets to be distributed to flood-hit villagers of nearby Chellanam, Mary too chipped in.
Charity with a loving twist
What distinguished that act of charity was something unique: After losing her job, Mary had got a few days of work under the government’s rural employment guarantee programme that fetches Rs290 (Dh15) per day. Dipping into her small savings from those few days of work, she took a Rs100 currency and kept it in a plastic envelope along with the meal packet.
“I thought, whoever in Chellanam gets my lunch packet can use the money to buy some tea and sugar and help themselves. I just prayed that it reaches the most deserving person,” she told Gulf News from her modest house in Kumbalangi that can only be accessed on foot or by a two-wheeler and has no piped water.
As it turned out, her lovingly-packed lunch packet was one of the few that ended up surplus. When one of the policemen in charge of the distribution of packets opened Mary’s packet, he was astounded to find the Rs100 note.
Another police official shared on social media, “Found this Rs100 worth one billion,” which went viral across the state and beyond.
Anonymous philanthropist
For several hours no one knew who had done it, and even when the morning newspapers carried news of the anonymous philanthropist, Mary did not know – because she had recently stopped newspaper subscription to save on expenses.
The entire village was abuzz with the news, and after the benefactor was identified, Mary was swamped by local residents, police and panchayat officials and many more. “I couldn’t believe it. Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala called me, local MP Hibi Eden rang me up and chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan mentioned it during his media briefing. I never expected my small act to be so widely appreciated,” she said.
Applause and assistance
The local police felicitated Mary with a memento and Rs5,000 and many others have offered more assistance to the family whose compound gets flooded in heavy rains. “It costs Rs6,000 to get a water supply connection,” muses Mary, hoping that the piped water supply dream will somehow materialise.
Such personal deprivations, of course, never deterred her from helping those even less privileged than herself.
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India allows on-board meals, in-flight entertainment
New Delhi: India’s federal government has permitted the resumption of on-board serving of meals and in-flight entertainment on domestic and international flights.
In an order, the government has said that airlines may serve pre-packed snacks and meals and pre-packed beverages as per the policy of the airlines depending on the duration of the flight.
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The order says, in all classes, tray set-up, plates and cutlery will be completely disposable with no re-use, cleaned and disinfected rotables will be used. Further, used disposable trays, crockeries and cutleries shall not be reused and used rotables should be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected before reuse.
Beverages will be served in single use disposable units.
The government had banned the meal and beverage service and in-flight entertainment when flights resumed in the domestic segment from May 25 and in special international flights under the Vande Bharat Mission since May 7.
Domestic flights were suspended from March 25 and international flights from March 23 in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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France sees 7,379 new daily coronavirus cases in exponential surge
Paris: France reported 7,379 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Friday, the most since lockdown, in what the health ministry described as an exponential surge just days before millions of children are due to return to school for the first time since March.
The daily tally was just shy of the record 7,578 high set on March 31, at the peak of an initial wave of COVID-19 infections that paralysed Europe. The surge has raised the possibility that the government could be forced to shut the country down again.
"We're doing everything to avoid another lockdown, and in particular a nationwide lockdown," President Emmanuel Macron told journalists earlier on Friday. He added it would be dangerous to rule out any scenario.
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In a weekly review of the pandemic, the health ministry said the country was seeing an "exponential progression of virus transmission".
Like other hard-hit western European countries, France imposed a sudden and strict lockdown in March, during which most residents were confined to their homes. The restrictions were gradually lifted from May 11 after infections sharply dropped.
The authorities are now searching for ways to limit the spread of the disease without a new lockdown. On Friday, Parisians were ordered to wear masks at all times outdoors in the capital.
The reopening of schools on Tuesday next week has been widely anticipated as a major step back towards normality. More than 12 million children will return to school, most for the first time in more than five months.
So far, the rapid increase in case numbers has yet to lead to a similar surge in hospitalisations or deaths. The ministry reported 20 new COVID-19 deaths on Friday, raising the cumulative total to 30,596. The number of people in hospital with the disease was unchanged at 4,535 and the number in intensive care rose by six to 387.
Authorities say the virus is now spreading among younger people who are less likely to show severe symptoms.
Two weeks after France's lockdown ended on May 11, the number of daily new infections fell to a low of 115 and a seven-day average low of 272. But as the country gradually reopened restaurants, museums and shopping malls, the number of new confirmed cases rose to about 500 per day by the end of June.
That doubled to around 1,000 per day by the end of July, doubled again to around 2,000 by mid-August, and surged above 5,000 this week.
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IPL in UAE: Every dog has its day with IPL players
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Pakistan: Education Department to register religious seminaries in Sindh
Karachi: Religious seminaries in the province of Sindh will now be registered by the government’s Education Department to formally recognise their academic services.
This decision was taken at a meeting of provincial Apex Committee of Sindh, chaired by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah. The Apex Committee is the top-level body in the province to discuss security and law and order related issues. Its meetings are attended by Commander of the Corps-5 of Pakistan Army headquartered in Karachi, Director General of Sindh Rangers that is the top-level para-military force in the province, Inspector General of Sindh Police, Sindh chief secretary, relevant provincial ministers, senior government, and intelligence officials.
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The meeting was informed that the Sindh government would soon adopt a separate law for proper control and regulation of the religious seminaries, like the case of schools and colleges in the province.
The meeting decided to move forward in accordance with the guidelines provided by the federal government for reforms, improvement in curricula and monitoring of funding affairs of the religious seminaries in Sindh.
The meeting was also informed that a separate law was being enacted to expeditiously dispose of cases of street crime in Karachi. The Apex Committee decided to approach the High Court to designate some of the subordinate trial courts for disposal of the cases.
The meeting also discussed improvement of law and order situation of Karachi since a targeted operation was launched jointly by Sindh Rangers and Police in 2013.
The meeting was informed that there were 51 incidents of terrorism in 2013, against only six such incidents in 2020 in the city.
The meeting asked the Sindh Police to launch an operation against dealers in Karachi dealing in stolen cellular phones and motor vehicles.
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First skydive from a solar electric plane accomplished in Switzerland
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Inside Tokyo's Art Aquarium with 30,000 goldfish
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COVID-19 hits isolated Indian tribe in Andaman and Nicobar islands
Port Blair: Ten members of India’s dwindling Great Andamanese tribe have tested positive for the coronavirus, officials said Thursday, fuelling concerns about the safety of the group and other indigenous people in the remote archipelago.
Out of the 10, six have recovered and have been put in home quarantine, while the rest are undergoing treatment in a local hospital, officials said.
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- Indian Muslim artisan fights COVID-19 slowdown with Hindu idols
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Just over 50 Great Andamanese people survive today and live on the tiny Strait Island where the Indian government looks after their food and shelter.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a chain of islands in the Indian Ocean with a population of some 400,000, has reported 2,268 coronavirus cases so far with 37 deaths.
Indian authorities sent a team of health officials to Strait Island on Sunday after six members of the tribe tested positive in the archipelago’s capital Port Blair recently.
Some of the tribe’s members travel to Port Blair where they have government jobs.
“The team tested 37 samples and four members of the Great Andamanese tribe were found to be positive. They are admitted in hospital,” Avijit Ray, a senior health officer in charge of the disease management in the Andamans, told AFP.
Sanjiv Mittal, a senior government officer for tribal welfare, told AFP authorities were doing their best to keep all the members safe and healthy.
Extremely vulnerable
Anthropologists and activists for isolated tribal communities say more than 5,000 Great Andamanese lived in the islands when British settlers arrived in the 19th century.
However, hundreds were killed in conflicts as they defended their territories from British invasion, and thousands more were wiped out in epidemics of measles, influenza and syphilis, according to Survivor International.
In recent days, concerns have grown for the safety of the Great Andamanese and other tribes, including the remote Jarawa and the Sentinelese people.
Poachers continue to invade their territory despite strict government restrictions.
Last week, eight fishermen were arrested for illegally entering the Jarawa’s territory, local media reported.
In 2018, a 26-year-old American missionary seeking to convert the nomadic hunter-gatherer tribe was killed after he secretly visited the North Sentinel island.
His body was never retrieved.
Outsiders are banned from visiting the island to protect the Sentinelese way of life and avoid exposing them to infectious diseases.
As one of the most isolated tribes in the world, the Sentinelese are extremely vulnerable to diseases from outsiders, especially during a global pandemic such as the coronavirus, experts say.
“The Andaman authorities must act urgently to prevent the virus reaching more Great Andamanese and to prevent infection in the other tribes,” said Sophie Grig, a senior researcher with Survival.
“The waters around North Sentinel must be properly policed and no outsiders should enter the territories of any of the Andaman tribes without their consent.”
India is the third worst-hit country in the world behind the US and Brazil, with more than three million coronavirus cases.
Some 60,000 people have died from the infection so far.
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Sunday 30 August 2020
Climate change is the greatest challenge to life on Earth
The environmental challenges that our planet is facing are increasing year after year. Earth is entering a new phase of danger, where the negative impacts of climate change are becoming more deadly than the many diseases that humankind has experienced throughout the ages.
Millions of lives will be threatened if temperatures continue to rise, in addition to the serious risks posed by emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
Since time immemorial, people have worked together to manage epidemics through developments in the field of medicine and preventive measures that have enabled them to combat the spread of diseases. Meanwhile, the one challenge that jeopardises the continuity of all life forms on the planet — climate change — remains unaddressed.
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Since the Covid-19 outbreak, the virus has claimed about 830,000 lives, and although the number of people infected is close to 25 million, recoveries have exceeded 17 million. In contrast, air pollution — a key contributor to climate change — is responsible for an estimated 7 million deaths annually, and is expected to negatively affect the livelihoods of 220 million people by 2020-end. Climate-related natural disasters resulted in 204 million deaths in 2016, and the economic losses they caused reached $335 billion (Dh1.2 trillion) in 2017.
The coronavirus pandemic has shown the whole world that failure to recognise the problem early on is enough for a crisis to turn into a disaster, and lack of proper management only escalates the situation. The same applies to climate change, but the difference is that Covid-19 represents one crisis, while climate change has many consequences, each of which constitutes a crisis of its own that threatens millions of lives.
Food security at risk
Climate change is a major reason for increased desertification and droughts that reduce the productivity of agricultural crops and livestock, which will affect the livelihoods of 220 million people around the world by 2050, according to Climate Change and Land, a special report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It is also expected that the prices of grains, which are among the most important elements of the human food chain, will rise by nearly seven per cent by 2050, jeopardising the food security and sustainability of hundreds of millions of people.
Furthermore, the World Health Organisation (WHO) believes that between 2030 and 2050, climate change will lead to the death of an additional 250,000 people annually due to heat stress, malnutrition, malaria, and diarrhoea. A study published in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change predicts that by 2100, 75 per cent of people around the world will be exposed to deadly heatwaves.
Although the impacts of climate change are daunting, we still have the chance to save our planet and ensure the survival of humankind.
The impact of climate change on oceans and marine habitats, especially coral reefs, threatens the livelihoods of nearly 100 million people working in marine tourism and fishing, and this number is projected to hit 600 million by 2100.
Climate change also contributed to more than 60 per cent of new displacements in 2019. Due to droughts, hurricanes, and landslides, 17.2 million people around the world were forced to abandon their homes, and this year, the number is on the rise.
Unlike with epidemics, we cannot wait for the invention of a vaccine to put a stop to climate change once and for all. Instead, a successful intervention requires a long-term strategy of organised, concerted, and rapid global action that incorporates a two-pronged approach — mitigating the risks and adapting to the impacts of climate change. Any action plans must take into account the natural environment of each region, and focus on transforming challenges into opportunities for growth.
UAE a role model
Over the past five decades, our country has emerged as a role model in environmental action. In 1972, about six months after the formation of the UAE, a delegation from the new country attended the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, the world’s first environmental mega-event. And 1975 saw the birth of the UAE Supreme Committee on Environment that drafted the country’s first laws and regulations aimed at protecting the environment and preserving its natural resources.
The UAE has gradually stepped up its efforts to tackle climate change through its active participation in globate climate dialogue, culminating in its signing of the Paris Agreement as the first country in the region.
On the home front, the UAE has initiated a transition towards a green economy that supports sustainable growth, and adopted the UAE Energy Strategy 2050, which seeks to increase the share of clean energy in the national energy mix to 50 per cent.
To achieve this ambitious target, we have implemented several renewable energy projects with a total production capacity of 1,800MW, with an additional 6,500MW either under development or planned until 2030. The UAE has also become the first country in the Arab world to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes with the launch of the first reactor of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant that will ultimately provide up to 25 per cent of the country’s electricity needs.
Renewables solutions
On the global level, the UAE is driving the deployment of renewables solutions through direct financing from Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) and investments from Masdar. To date, we have contributed to renewable energy projects across 70 countries with a total value of around $16.8 billion.
To boost the country’s climate resilience, we devised the National Climate Change Plan of the UAE 2017-2050. Within the framework of the plan, the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment (MOCCAE) developed the National Climate Change Adaptation Programme that aims to assess the impacts of climate change on our key sectors — energy, health, infrastructure, and the environment. It identifies the risks that demand urgent action, and provides feasible solutions. The Ministry is also currently finalising the region’s first climate change law.
As part of its integrated climate action endeavours, the UAE is exploring the principles of circular economy and promoting environment-friendly transportation options, including hybrid and electric cars. Moreover, the country has launched green finance initiatives, such as the Dubai Declaration on Sustainable Finance, the Dubai Green Fund with a value of Dh100 billion, the Green Sukuk and Working Party (GSWP), and the Abu Dhabi Sustainable Finance Declaration. In addition, it has formed the Dubai Sustainable Finance Working Group with the participation of financial regulators and financial markets in the UAE, which seeks to create a conducive ecosystem for sustainable finance.
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By 2020-end, signatories to the Paris Agreement, including the UAE, are expected to update their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) — pledges to reduce their carbon emissions — that play a crucial role in fighting climate change worldwide. This presents an opportunity for countries to increase their climate ambitions, commit to decisive action with tangible benefits, strengthen international cooperation, and fast-track the implementation of climate change mitigation and adaptation measures.
Developed economies must also establish a global investment system to support the transition towards a green economy that balances economic prosperity with environmental protection to build a climate-safe future for the next generations.
Although the impacts of climate change are daunting, we still have the chance to save our planet and ensure the survival of humankind, but only if we face this grave challenge head on, and if we do it right now.
— Dr Abdullah Belhaif Al Nuaimi is the UAE Minister of Climate Change and Environment.
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Philippines attack: Suicide bombers were widows of extremists
Manila: Two female suicide attackers who carried out a double bombing in the southern Philippines were the widows of extremists who had worked for the Daesh-linked Abu Sayyaf group, the army chief said on Wednesday.
Fourteen people were killed and 75 wounded, including members of the government-backed security forces and civilians, when the pair blew themselves up in a coordinated attack on Jolo island in Muslim-majority Sulu province on Monday.
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No group has claimed responsibility for the country's deadliest attack this year, but the military had pointed to Abu Sayyaf as the likely culprits.
Army chief Lieutenant General Cirilito Sobejana identified the female bombers as Nanah and Inda Nay.
In a text message to reporters, Sobejana said Nanah was the wife of Norman Lasuca, who is considered the Philippines' first homegrown suicide bomber.
Lasuca and another attacker blew themselves up outside a military camp on Jolo in June 2019, killing several soldiers and civilians.
Inda Nay was the wife of Talha Jumsah, also known as Abu Talha, who acted as liaison between Abu Sayyaf and the Daesh. He was killed in November in a shoot-out with security forces on Jolo.
Authorities are checking if Nanah was Indonesian.
Sobejana has called for martial law to be imposed in Sulu - a chain of islands that has long been a stronghold for Abu Sayyaf - to "bring back normality" and enable the military to control the movement of people.
But Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana has rejected the request.
"There will be no martial law," Lorenzana told AFP late Tuesday.
Listed by the United States as a terrorist organisation, Abu Sayyaf is a loose network of Islamist militants blamed for the Philippines' worst terror attacks as well as kidnappings of foreign tourists and Christian missionaries.
Monday's explosions happened near a Catholic cathedral on Jolo where two suicide bombers blew themselves up in January 2019 killing 21 people. That attack was blamed on a group linked to Abu Sayyaf.
Suicide attacks were once very rare in the Philippines, but since July 2018 there have been five, including the latest blasts.
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India: 8 arrested at Delhi Railway Station with 504 gold bars from Myanmar worth over Dh21 million
Gold worth over Dh21 million was seized while being smuggled into India from Myanmar on August 28, from eight men arrested at New Delhi railway station.
According to local media reports, as many as 504 gold bars, weighing 83.6 kilograms, were recovered from the accused who hail from the Sangli district in the Indian state of Maharashtra, officials said.
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In a statement issued on Saturday, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) said eight people were intercepted after their arrival at New Delhi railway station by Dibrugarh-New Delhi Rajdhani Express on Friday.
The DRI officials seized the gold bars which were found to be concealed in specially tailored cloth vests worn by the eight passengers, Indian media reported.
“The carriers of the smuggled gold were found to be travelling with fake identity (Aadhar cards),” the DRI statement read, as reported by Indian media.
Tweeting about the incident, India’s East Coast Railway, @EastCoastRail, posted: “Eight persons arrested for smuggling 504 gold bars at NDLS station (New Delhi railway station). They were travelling to NDLS by Dibrugarh- New Delhi Rajdhani express. They had fake identity cards.”
Reportedly, the recovered gold bars had foreign markings on them, and they were smuggled into India from Myanmar through the international land border at Moreh, a town located on the India-Myanmar border, in the state of Manipur.
The smugglers were operating from the city of Guwahati in the state of Assam and they were attempting to dispose of the contraband in Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai, which have thriving markets for the yellow metal, DRI informed local media.
“The smuggling syndicate sourced and recruited poor and needy individuals from various parts of the country, to act as carriers of smuggled gold, by luring them with the prospect of quick and easy money. The smugglers used air, land and rail routes to locally transport the smuggled gold,” the statement said.
The seized gold bars are of 99.9 per cent purity and collectively weigh 83.621 kilograms.
“The market value of the recovered contraband is close to Rs 43 crore (Dh 21,593,893),” the statement said.
The eight carriers have been arrested and remanded to judicial custody.
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10 killed in Pakistan van-truck collision
Islamabad: A head-on collision between a passenger van and a mini truck claimed the lives of 10 people and injured 20 others in Pakistan's Balochistan province.
The accident took place on Sunday at the Karachi-Quetta Highway when the van carrying over 20 passengers was hit by the truck with two people aboard coming from the opposite direction, reports Xinhua news agency.
Three people died on the spot and 27 others sustained injuries who were shifted to a nearby hospital where seven of the passed away during treatment, according to local media reports.
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Hospital officials saidthat the death toll might further rise as 10 of the injured were in critical condition with major fractures and head injuries.
Some of the passengers were sitting on the roof of the overcrowded van, which became the major reason of the serious injuries, the reports added.
Local police have registered a case and started an investigation into the accident.
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COVID-19 hits isolated Indian tribe in Andaman and Nicobar islands
Port Blair: Ten members of India’s dwindling Great Andamanese tribe have tested positive for the coronavirus, officials said Thursday, fuelling concerns about the safety of the group and other indigenous people in the remote archipelago.
Out of the 10, six have recovered and have been put in home quarantine, while the rest are undergoing treatment in a local hospital, officials said.
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Just over 50 Great Andamanese people survive today and live on the tiny Strait Island where the Indian government looks after their food and shelter.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a chain of islands in the Indian Ocean with a population of some 400,000, has reported 2,268 coronavirus cases so far with 37 deaths.
Indian authorities sent a team of health officials to Strait Island on Sunday after six members of the tribe tested positive in the archipelago’s capital Port Blair recently.
Some of the tribe’s members travel to Port Blair where they have government jobs.
“The team tested 37 samples and four members of the Great Andamanese tribe were found to be positive. They are admitted in hospital,” Avijit Ray, a senior health officer in charge of the disease management in the Andamans, told AFP.
Sanjiv Mittal, a senior government officer for tribal welfare, told AFP authorities were doing their best to keep all the members safe and healthy.
Extremely vulnerable
Anthropologists and activists for isolated tribal communities say more than 5,000 Great Andamanese lived in the islands when British settlers arrived in the 19th century.
However, hundreds were killed in conflicts as they defended their territories from British invasion, and thousands more were wiped out in epidemics of measles, influenza and syphilis, according to Survivor International.
In recent days, concerns have grown for the safety of the Great Andamanese and other tribes, including the remote Jarawa and the Sentinelese people.
Poachers continue to invade their territory despite strict government restrictions.
Last week, eight fishermen were arrested for illegally entering the Jarawa’s territory, local media reported.
In 2018, a 26-year-old American missionary seeking to convert the nomadic hunter-gatherer tribe was killed after he secretly visited the North Sentinel island.
His body was never retrieved.
Outsiders are banned from visiting the island to protect the Sentinelese way of life and avoid exposing them to infectious diseases.
As one of the most isolated tribes in the world, the Sentinelese are extremely vulnerable to diseases from outsiders, especially during a global pandemic such as the coronavirus, experts say.
“The Andaman authorities must act urgently to prevent the virus reaching more Great Andamanese and to prevent infection in the other tribes,” said Sophie Grig, a senior researcher with Survival.
“The waters around North Sentinel must be properly policed and no outsiders should enter the territories of any of the Andaman tribes without their consent.”
India is the third worst-hit country in the world behind the US and Brazil, with more than three million coronavirus cases.
Some 60,000 people have died from the infection so far.
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North Korea: Typhoon caused little damage, says Kim
Seoul: Typhoon Bavi toppled trees in the streets of North Korea's capital though state media reported Friday that leader Kim Jong Un said the country was "fortunate" and had suffered only limited damage.
The storm - at one point categorised as a severe typhoon - made its way up the peninsula this week, raising fears of havoc as it approached the North.
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Trees were uprooted in Pyongyang, including along Mirae Scientists' Street, one of Kim's showpiece developments.
State media images also showed a building in Sariwon, to the south, missing some panels.
However the official KCNA news agency made no mention of any fatalities and Kim gave an upbeat assessment of the storm's aftermath as he inspected a farming region southwest of Pyongyang.
The damage was "smaller than expected", KCNA quoted Kim as saying, adding he had "worried a lot" and the outcome was "fortunate".
Kim was pictured in Friday's Rodong Sinmun newspaper holding a corn cob as he discussed the situation with officials.
As the typhoon struck on Wednesday night and into Thursday, state television carried near-live coverage of its trajectory and impact, sometimes interrupting regular programmes with weather reports and warnings, and airing footage within hours of it being filmed.
Such broadcasting is extremely unusual in the North and continued overnight in what observers said was a possibly unprecedented move. Broadcasts normally end before midnight.
Natural disasters tend to have a greater impact in the North than in the South due to its creaking infrastructure.
The North is also vulnerable to flooding as many mountains and hills have long been deforested, allowing water to flow downhill unchecked.
International aid workers in the country are currently unable to travel outside Pyongyang due to restrictions authorities have imposed to guard against the coronavirus outbreak.
The North has yet to confirm a single case of the disease.
Three of the four officials accompanying Kim wore facemasks, while he did not, the Rodong Sinmun pictures showed.
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Needle-free, nasal COVID-19 vaccine more effective?
DUBAI: Vaccines given through the nose similar to the flu shot invented by an Arab-American scientist, could work better than intramuscular jabs in preventing the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new research.
That, at least, is the hope of a research team who did their comparative study in mice, which showed nasal vaccines were more effective in conferring immunity to SARS-CoV-2 than muscle shots.
Now that laboratory, animal trials are done and human trials of coronavirus vaccines are in advanced stages, the game will soon shift to mass manufacturing.
A new question arises: What is the best way to deliver such vaccines?
The study, published in the journal Cell as a pre-proof, has shown that an intranasal administration of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine worked better in animal models, than the intramuscular route.
Based on available literature, most COVID-19 vaccines in development are planned to be intramuscular shots.
Vaccine administration routes include:
- Oral route: administered by mouth.
- Subcutaneous route: injected into the area just beneath the skin into the fatty, connective tissue.
- Intramuscular route: injected into muscle tissue.
- Intradermal route: injected into layers of the skin.
- Intranasal route: administered into the nose.
In the new study, the researchers found that the nasal delivery created a strong immune response throughout the body. But it was found particularly effective in the nose and respiratory tract, preventing the infection from taking hold in the body.
Vaccine delivered via the nose, often the initial site of infection, is nothing new. It is being used in the flu shots by the millions each year. Spritzing a vaccine is also deemed less traumatic to children.
What’s the study about and who was behind it?
The research evaluated the protective activity in mice of a vaccine encoding the so-called "spike" protein in challenge studies with SARS-CoV-2 and mice expressing the human angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) 2 receptor.
The 31-member team of scientists was led by Ahmed Hassan of the Washington University (WU) School of Medicine, at St. Louis, Missouri. Hassan was joined from colleagues from The Andrew M. and Jane M. Bursky Center for Human Immunology & Immunotherapy Programs (at WU), the Center for Infectious Disease and Vaccine Research, the La Jolla Institute for Immunology and the Department of Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
What were their findings?
In animal subjects (mice), the scientists demonstrated that a nasal shot does offer immunity from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
Interestingly enough, the team’s findings suggest just one dose is enough to do the trick.
The researchers stated: “A single-dose intranasal ChAd vaccine protects upper and lower respiratory tracts against the new viral infection in mice susceptible to the novel coronavirus.”
What vaccine platform did the researchers use?
The researchers used a chimpanzee adenovirus-vectored vaccine to evaluate the protective potential of their nasal shot.
The vaccine encoded a “pre-fusion” stabilised spike protein (ChAd-SARS-CoV-2-S) in challenge studies with SARS-CoV-2. The mice were tweaked to express the human angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) 2 receptor.
Did the study results show the nasal vaccine worked better?
Yes. Two groups of mice were immunised – one via a mist, and another intra via an intramuscular shot.
After the results came, the scientists stated: “Intramuscular dosing of ChAd-SARS-CoV-2-S induces robust systemic humoral and cell-mediated immune responses and protects against lung infection, inflammation, and pathology but does not confer sterilising immunity, as evidenced by detection of viral RNA and induction of anti-nucleoprotein antibodies after SARS-CoV-2 challenge.
Here’s the interesting part: “In contrast, a single intranasal dose of ChAd-SARS-CoV-2-S induces high levels of neutralising antibodies, promotes systemic and mucosal IgA and T cell responses, and virtually completely prevents SARS-CoV-2 infection in both the upper and lower respiratory tracts.”
Therefore, they stated, “intranasal administration of ChAd-SARS-CoV-2-S is a candidate for preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection and transmission, and curtailing pandemic spread.”
After this nasal vaccine study in mice, what's next?
The study authors hope to test the vaccine in non-human primates in the near future, before going into human trials.
Which vaccine manufacturer plans to take the nasal route?
At least one vaccine maker has publicly declared their plan to do the mist vaccine.
A top official of India’s Bharat Biotech has expressed their intent to introduce a nasal vaccine for COVID-19, partly to make it easier on children.
Suchitra Ella, director of India’s Bharat Biotech, told the Indian media that they are working on a coronavirus vaccine based on the seasonal flu nasal mist platform.
The Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech, one of the world's top vaccine makers, has commercialised 16 vaccines, including one for H1N1 (swine flu), Rotavirus, Hepatitis-B, Typhoid, Polio, Diphtheria.
For coronavirus, it is currently developing and testing the shot — called “Coroflu” — in collaboration with virologists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the vaccine company FluGen.
Covaxin, also developed by Bharat, is India's first "indigenous" SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. It's not immediately clear which one of the two (Coroflu or Covaxin) would be eventually developed as a mist-type vaccine.
What other vaccines are given through intranasal administration?
The nasal flu vaccine is a classic example of a nasal shot.
Ella said: “Vaccines can be delivered in different forms…There are many routes. The polio vaccine, for example, is an oral drop. But this time around, the route that we want to take is the nasal route. We are working towards getting that delivery model.”
“This (nasal coronavirus vaccine) can be handled and it has been done in the past with the flu, which is a classic example. We are pretty hopeful that we would be able to deploy a similar route, or take a similar path when it comes to the COVID-19 as well,” Ella added.
The flu (influenza) is a virus which comes around every year. The virus is known to mutate. At the beginning of each flu season (typically from October through May), health authorities advise the medical fraternity of the flu virus strain likely to become dominant during that period, and the vaccine to be given to the population.
FLU DEATHS
The US CDC estimates that influenza has resulted in between 9 million to 45 million illnesses, between 140,000 to 810,000 hospitalisations and between 12,000 to 61,000 deaths annually since 2010. In the UK, childhood deaths from influenza A (H1N1) is estimated at 2 per 1 million for under 14s.
(Source: The Lancet)
When was the first nasal flu vaccine approved?
In 2003, the US Food and Drug Administration approved "FluMist", a nasal spray flu vaccine, following 40 years of research by University of Michigan (UM) professor Hunein “John” Maassab.
FluMist, approved for use by healthy people ages 5-49, is a cold-adapted, "live-attenuated" (virus is still alive, but weakened), trivalent influenza virus vaccine. It is the first flu vaccine delivered as a nasal mist to be commercially available in the United States. Other vaccine makers soon followed the nasal route.
With the nasal spray flu vaccine, who can be vaccinated?
The CDC guidelines approve its use in healthy non-pregnant individuals, 2 years through 49 years old. People with certain medical conditions, however, should not receive the nasal spray flu vaccine, according to CDC guidelines.
What flu viruses does the nasal spray vaccine protect against?
For the 2020-2021 flu season, all nasal spray influenza (flu) vaccines are "quadrivalent". It means they will be made using four flu viruses: an influenza A(H1N1) virus, an influenza A(H3N2) virus and two influenza B viruses, the CDC said.
How many nasal spray vaccines are used each year?
In 2009, the CDC rolled out the first H1N1 (swine flu) vaccines in US in the form of a nasal spray, initially with 3.4 million doses of MedImmune (AstraZeneca). It was later bumped up to about 20 million doses a week. It was given to people in America for free. That year alone, the US has ordered 195 million doses of H1N1 swine flu vaccine from five pharmaceutical companies.
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