World

Seoul, Sep 4 (IANS) South Korea's new COVID-19 cases stayed below 100,000 for the fourth straight day, local health authorities said Sunday, as a measure to scrap the pre-departure testing rule for arrivals has taken effect.

According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), 72,144 new infections, including 241 from overseas, have been confirmed, with the total caseload having risen to 23,569,192.

The daily caseload jumped to 115,615 cases on August 30 from 43,114 a day earlier, but it continued to decline in the past six days from August 30 through Sunday, Yonhap news agency reported.

The Sunday figure plunged by 13,089 cases compared to a week earlier.

Starting Saturday, South Korea suspended its mandatory pre-departure COVID-19 test for inbound travellers. A mandatory PCR test within the first 24 hours of entry into the country remains in place.

The KDCA reported 79 additional deaths from COVID-19, putting the death toll at 27,093. The fatality rate stood at 0.11 per cent.

The number of critically ill patients came to 548, up 28 from the previous day.

Health authorities remain wary of a potential uptick in cases later this month as many Koreans are expected to travel to their hometowns during the four-day Chuseok holiday that starts on Friday.

Of the 71,903 locally transmitted cases, Seoul reported 11,928 new cases, and Gyeonggi Province that surrounds the capital added 18,351 infections. Incheon, a port city 27 kilometers west of Seoul, identified 3,930 new cases.

Meawhile, the defence ministry reported 560 additional COVID-19 cases among its service members.

The new cases included 405 from the Army, 74 from the Air Force, 20 from the Navy, 34 from the Marine Corps and 27 from units under the direct control of the ministry. Currently, 4,963 military personnel are under treatment.

--IANS
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Dharamsala, Sep 3 (IANS) Expressing satisfaction after witnessing the courage of Tibetan people in their effort to sustain a government in exile, a US delegation led by Senator Jon Ossoff said on Saturday the purpose of the visit was to understand how Tibetans are keeping alive the flame of their struggle in exile, which is both inspiring and encouraging.

The delegation was received by a team led by Deputy Speaker of the Parliament-in-exile, Dolma Tsering Teykhang.

While Ossoff expressed joy over the courage of Tibetans in exile, he informed the Tibetan Parliamentarians of his audience with the Dalai Lama at the latter's residence in Mcleodganj, besides explaining the objective of the delegation's visit.

Many other issues concerning Tibet and Tibetans were discussed during the delegation's interaction with the members of the standing committee of the Tibetan Parliament.

Earlier, members of the US delegation were introduced to the functioning of the Parliament-in-exile and the issues concerning Tibet and Tibetans.

Urging the Senator to voice his support for Tibet's issue, Teykhang spoke about China's attempt to control the reincarnation process of Tibetan lamas, including the Dalai Lama, to legitimise its illegal occupation of Tibet. By imposing restrictions on the reincarnation process, China plans to rule over the emotional sphere of Tibetans after ruling their territorial sphere, Teykhang said.

She also said the world must stop China's illegality and unacceptable imperiousness.

Speaking on the Tibet outreach programmes undertaken by the Tibetan Parliament, Teykhang explained that their ultimae objective of resolving the issue of Tibet remains the same despite having some internal disagreement, which is in fact one of the essentials in a functioning democracy, adding that "we agree to disagree".

--IANS
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Islamabad, Sep 3 (IANS) Pakistan owes 30 per cent of its foreign debt to China, the latest report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said, which includes state-owned commercial banks, local media reported.

Bloomberg, citing the global money lender's document, reported that the debt is now 3% up as compared to February's statistics - when it was at 27 per cent.

After being revised upwards by $4.6 billion, Pakistan owes a debt of $30 billion to China, from $25.1 billion in February, Geo News reported quoting the IMF report.

Chinese assistance to Pakistan is three times greater than IMF debt and exceeds both World Bank and Asian Development Bank funds combined, it said.

The latest figures show that, unlike the World Bank-style concessionary-project financing, Beijing is now playing a role similar to the global money lender by providing funds during a balance of payments crisis.

Islamabad managed to secure a much-needed bailout package from the IMF this week when the Fund's executive board approved the release of $1.1 billion to Pakistan - averting the threat of imminent default.

For the ongoing fiscal year, the IMF report mentioned that official financing includes $7 billion as rollovers of existing and $4 billion in additional financing commitments, including from China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and IFIs - such as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and Islamic Development Bank.

"Pakistan's external debt is low, predominantly held by the public sector and mainly sourced from concessional multilateral and bilateral sources, the central bank said in a presentation it made in July," Bloomberg said.

--IANS
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Mumbai, Sep 3 (IANS) The Bombay High Court has issued notices to the Serum Institute of India (SII), Pune, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and the Centre in a case filed by an Aurangabad man alleging that his medico daughter died due to the side-effects of the Covishield vaccine and sought Rs 1,000-crore as compensation.

The petitioner is Dilip Lunawat, who has contended that his daughter Snehal Lunawat, 33, who was also a Senior Lecturer at the SMBT Dental College & Hospital in Nashik, was compelled to take the vaccine along with all other healthworkers there.

Dilip Lunawat said that his daughter was assured that the vaccines were completely safe and posed no risks/threats to her body, and attached his daughter vaccine certificate (January 28, 2021), and how she died on March 1, 2021, due to the alleged side-effects of the Covishield vaccine.

A few days later, she suffered severe headaches and vomiting and was rushed to a hospital where doctors detected bleeding in her brain and she later succumbed owing to the purported aside-effects of the vaccine', as per Lunawat's plea.

He also cited the views and interviews of experts like the Drug Controller-General of India, Dr. V.G. Somani, and AIIMS Director Dr. Randeep Guleria, making them respondents along with the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and how the incident figured in the Centre's own Adverse Events Following Immunisation Report of October 2, 2021.

In his petition filed in February 2022, Dilip Lunawat said that in 2020, the SII, Pune entered into a partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to speed up the process of manufacture and delivery of upto 100 million doses of Covishield vaccines in India and for other third world countries.

"The petitioner lost his elder daughter. His loss can neither be explained in words nor can be compensated in terms of money.

Only some sort of succour can be done by awarding compensation," said the plea, seeking Rs 1,000crore as interim compensation to the family.

Dilip Lunawat also sought a declaration that the state authorities are responsible for causing his daughter's death "by false narratives", the authorities should initiate steps to stop further deaths of citizens and publish the side-effects of the vaccines.

The plea urged that the state authorities should be given the liberty to recover the compensation amount from SII, which manufactured the Covishield vaccine.

--IANS
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London, Sep 3 (IANS) Apple Watch's ECG heart sensor has once again saved a man's life by sending him alerts for a low resting heart rate on almost 3,000 occasions.

David Last, 54, from the UK credited Apple Watch for saving his life after his heart stopped an astonishing 138 times in a 48-hour testing period at the hospital, reports the Independent.

His heart resting rate was found to have dropped as low as 30 beats per minute (it is normally between 60-100bpm).

After tests like a 48-hour ECG and MRI, his cardiologist told him that he had a massive heart blockage.

His heart stopped 138 times in 10-second intervals over a 48-hour ECG period.

Last was operated this month, and a pacemaker was installed to detect abnormal heart rhythms.

His wife gave him Apple Watch as a gift on his birthday in April this year.

"If she hadn't bought me my Apple watch for my birthday, I wouldn't be here. I will always be eternally grateful to her for it. Apart from charging it, it's always staying on me now," he was quoted as saying.

The Apple Watch has saved several lives in the past across the world.

With iOS 16 and watchOS 9 this fall, Apple Watch and iPhone will offer features that focus on 17 areas of health and fitness, from heart health to sleep, women's health, mobility and more, according to the tech giant.

Apple recently collaborated with Stanford University in the US to build the Apple Heart Study, which was a first of its kind in the medical community and the largest virtual cardiac clinical study during its time.

--IANS
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Lagos, Sep 3 (IANS) At least 56 people have been killed and more than 4,000 others displaced as a result of recent heavy floods which ravaged parts of Nigeria's northern state of Jigawa, an official told Xinhua.

According to Yusuf Sani Babura, Head of the State Emergency Management Agency in Jigawa, the floods triggered by heavy rains since the beginning of the rainy season in May have damaged houses, farmlands and crops in 27 local government areas of the state.

"We are still experiencing the rain as we speak," Babura told Xinhua on the phone.

At least 56 people lost their lives and more than 4,000 people have been rendered homeless following the flood incidents recorded in parts of the state since May, he said.

So far 16 camps have been established to take care of those displaced by the floods, the official added, appealing to the federal government, donor agencies and individuals to come to the aid of flood victims, Xinhua news agency reported.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development directed an assessment by the National Emergency Management Agency officials and deployment of immediate relief items to the affected communities in Jigawa to reduce the impact of the floods, according to reports by local media on Friday.

Nigerian authorities had in May issued an alert to 32 out of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory of the country, warning of severe flooding this year.

--IANS
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By Susitha Fernando
Colombo, Sep 3 (IANS) Beleaguered former Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa returned from Thailand on Friday midnight.


Rajapaksa, 73, returned to Katunayake International Airport on a Singapore airlines SQ-468 flight and a number of Ministers of the present government and politicians from his party, Sri Lankan Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) welcomed him inside the airport.

The former President has reportedly gone to a state bungalow prepared for him in the heart of Colombo. A house and a contingent of security are some of the privileges; a former President is entitled in Sri Lanka.

On July 13, Gotabaya fled to the Maldives in a Sri Lanka Air Force jet and from there to Singapore from where he announced his resignation.

On a request made by Sri Lanka government led by new President Ranil Wickremesinghe, Gotabaya was given a 90-day visa by the Thailand government.

Rajapaksa was blamed for the economic crisis the country was going through and the angry protestors took to streets on March 31 and surrounded the former President's private residence outside the state capital Colombo.

For more than three months, people carried out street fights demanding the resignation of Gotabaya, his elder brother Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and the entire government.

Mahinda and his cabinet were forced to resign on May 9 and on July 9, Gotabaya fled his official residence when the protesters stormed it.

Going through the worst economic crisis in the post-independence Sri Lanka, on Thursday the International Monetary Fund announced a financial bailout under strict conditions, including political stability, tax reforms, action on corruption and negations with the multiple creditors.

--IANS
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London, Sep 3 (IANS) Britain has dropped behind India to become the world's sixth largest economy, according to Bloomberg.

India toppled the UK from its position in the final three months of 2021 to become the fifth-biggest economy. The calculation is based in US dollars, and India extended its lead in the first quarter, according to GDP figures from the International Monetary Fund.

This news comes as a further blow to the government in London as it grapples with a brutal cost-of-living shock, Bloomberg reported.

The IMF's own forecasts show India overtaking the UK in dollar terms on an annual basis this year, putting the Asian powerhouse behind just the US, China, Japan and Germany. A decade ago, India ranked 11th among the largest economies, while the UK was 5th.

The UK's decline down the international rankings is an unwelcome backdrop for the new Prime Minister. Conservative Party members choose Boris Johnson's successor on Monday, with Foreign Secretary Liz Truss expected to beat former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak in the run-off.

The winner will take over a nation facing the fastest inflation in four decades and rising risks of a recession that the Bank of England says may last well into 2024.

By contrast, the Indian economy is forecast to grow more than 7 per cent this year. A world-beating rebound in Indian stocks this quarter has just seen their weighting rise to the second spot in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, trailing only China's.

The calculations were done using the IMF database and historic exchange rates on the Bloomberg terminal.

The UK is likely to have fallen further since. UK GDP grew just one per cent in cash terms in the second quarter and, after adjusting for inflation, shrank 0.1 per cent. Sterling has also underperformed the dollar relative to the rupee, with the pound falling eight per cent against the Indian currency this year.

--IANS
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By Ashe O.
Washington, Sep 2 (IANS) US President Joe Biden went into a combative mood, dubbing his predecessor Donald Trump and the MAGA (Make America Great Again) Republicans as representing "extremism" that threatened the very foundations of American democracy.


"Their MAGA failure to thwart the 2020 election is now a preparation for the 2022 (midterms) and 2024 (presidential) elections. This time they are determined to succeed in thwarting the will of the people," he said on Thursday.

Biden warned that Trump and his fellow ideologues "represent a dark, dangerous force bent on using lies and violence to crush the will of the majority".

"Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic," Biden said in a fiery speech, setting the tone for a battleground for the November 8 midterms where the Democrats will hold the Trump card with their successes in the Congress and key Republicans losing the primaries, and that belied the low-key speeches in his presidency so far.

Even on the day that Biden delivered his most jarring warning yet that democracy is in severe danger, Trump said he will "very, very seriously" consider January 6 pardons if he runs and wins in 2024.

Biden's nationwide speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and their fellow founders set the nation on a democratic path, warned their legacy of government for the people was in peril. It was one of the most stark prime-time speeches ever given by a President.

Biden left no doubt that he sees the purpose of his presidency as being to once again defeat Trump and his "Make America Great Again" movement, which he warned was already poisoning the 2022 midterm elections and the 2024 White House race.

"They look at the mob that stormed the United States Capitol on January 6 brutally attacking law enforcement, not as insurrectionists who placed a dagger at the throat of our democracy, but they look at it (them) as patriots," he said.

"They see their MAGA failure to stop a peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election as preparation for the 2022 and 2024 elections. This time they are determined to succeed in thwarting the will of the people."

Biden addressed a nation whose politics have been transformed by Trump's false claims that he was cheated out of power in 2020. It's a lie that has nevertheless won over millions of Americans and is the platform for countless campaigns by GOP midterm hopefuls trying to ride the ex-President's base to power, some of whom could win and be in a position to influence future elections, CNN said in its analysis.

And the President seems to have had a point. Hours before he spoke, Trump appeared to validate Biden's warnings about the threat that he poses.

"I will be looking very, very strongly at pardons. Full pardons," the ex-President said on Wendy Bell Radio. "I mean full pardons with an apology to many," he said.

His comment at this point is hypothetical and depends on a long, complex road to power. But it was also a stark reminder that he often crushed the principles of democracy and the rule of law in office, the CNN analysis said.

Trump's showdown with the Justice Department over classified documents that he took to his Florida resort -- which was playing out in a courtroom in Florida earlier Thursday -- is fundamentally rooted in his view of the presidency as an all-powerful office that grants its incumbent absolute power.

In another sign of how Trump's movement worked to try to compromise the will of voters, it emerged Thursday that Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, a conservative activist and the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, pushed state lawmakers in Wisconsin, as well as in Arizona, to overturn Biden's election wins in those states, according to emails obtained via a public records request and shared with CNN. The Washington Post first reported the text of those emails, which were obtained by the watchdog group Documented.

This development followed weeks of televised hearings by the House select committee probing the January 6 insurrection that have painted a damning picture of Trump's attempts to steal the 2020 election and then to incite violence when his efforts failed. Multiple courts and Trump's own Justice Department found there was no evidence that the 2020 was marred by massive fraud.

Biden's speech and the intensifying swirl of attacks on the election system from Trump's world underscore how the most critical divide in politics right now is not the age-old duel between liberalism and conservatism, but between leaders who see democracy as under attack (mostly Democrats but with increasing recruits from conservative dissidents like Liz Cheney) and the Trump machine, which is ready to use any method, including undemocratic ones to win power, Biden supporters feel.

Biden's aides had insisted that his speech at Independence Hall was not about the former President. But this in itself was disingenuous since he repeatedly made it about Trump. His appearance came just two days after a previous campaign-style appearance in Pennsylvania where he slammed Republicans who cheered mob rioters who beat up police on January 6. And less than a week ago, Biden compared the philosophy of Trump's followers to "semi-fascism."

Biden is clearly using Trump's return to the spotlight in recent months as a springboard to advance Democrats in the midterm elections, which typically deal a blow to first-term Presidents. He appears to be trying to turn the election into a head-to-head clash between himself and the former President -- ground on which he won in 2020.

--IANS
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Beijing, Sep 2 (IANS) Chinese authorities have sentenced two Tibetan monks to at least three years in prison for possessing photos of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's foremost Buddhist spiritual leader who has been living in exile since 1959, media reports said.

Tenzin Dhargye, a monk in his 30s, was arrested in September 2020, and sources said that several other monks had been arrested along with him, RFA reported.

RFA has since learned that Rigtse, whose age is unknown, was among them. Tenzin Dhargye got three years and six months, while Rigtse was sentenced to three years.

Both monks were among the 250 living at the Barong monastery in Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture's Sershul county. They had photos of the Dalai Lama on their cell phones and have been in custody for the past two years, RFA reported.

"In May of this year they both were convicted of committing an act of 'separatism' by possessing photos of the Dalai Lama," the source said.

"They were both convicted by the People's Court in Sershul county and no one knows how fair the trial was as their families and relatives were not allowed to see them," said the source.

"Tibetans are threatened by the Chinese authorities so they do not share or discuss any information about them, so we don't know about their health or which prison they are detained in."

"Since 2021, the Chinese government has been aggressively inspecting each and every home and threatening Tibetans, telling them that possessing photos of the Dalai Lama is as felonious as possessing arms and guns."

--IANS
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