World

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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Islamabad, Sep 2 (IANS) As Pakistan's inflation, which just hit a 47-year-high in August at over 27 per cent, is on an upward curve, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned against protests and instability in the country.

"High food and fuel prices could prompt social protest and instability," The News quoted the IMF as saying in an executive summary of the seventh and eighth reviews, released under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF).

The report said that risks to the outlook and programme implementation remain high and tilted to the downside given the very complex domestic and external environment.

It said that the spillovers from the war in Ukraine through high food and fuel prices, and tighter global financial conditions will continue to weigh on Pakistan's economy, pressuring the exchange rate and external stability, The News reported.

The report further said that policy slippages remain a risk, as evident in FY22, amplified by weak capacity and powerful vested interests, with the timing of elections uncertain given the complex political setting.

Apart from the risks of protests, socio-political pressures are expected to remain high and could also weigh on policy and reform implementation, especially given the tenuous political coalition and their slim majority in Parliament, it said.

"All this could affect policy decisions and undermine the program's fiscal adjustment strategy, jeopardising macro-financial and external stability and debt sustainability," it said.

Moreover, elevated near-term domestic financing needs may overstretch the financial sector's absorption capacity and cause market disruption, The News reported.

The IMF said substantial risks stem from higher interest rates, a larger-than-expected growth slowdown, pressures on the exchange rate, renewed policy reversals, weaker medium-term growth, and contingent liabilities related to state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

The report also mentioned that the former government of PTI granted a four-month "relief package" in late February that reversed commitments to fiscal discipline made earlier in the year.

The largely untargeted package reduced petrol and diesel prices (through a generous general subsidy and setting fuel taxes at zero taxation); lowered electricity tariffs by Rs5/kwh for almost all households and commercial consumers; and provided tax exemptions and a tax amnesty.

--IANS
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Colombo, Sep 2 (IANS) Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka's former President who fled the country after anti-government protesters stormed his official residence on July 13, will return to the crisis-hit island nation on Saturday.

Following months of street protests over the country's worst-ever economic crisis that led to the acute shortage of basic essentials like food, fuel, medicine and cooking gas, Rajapaska, who came to power with a thumping Sinhala Buddhist majority votes in November 2019, announced his resignation two-and-a-half years before the end of his term.

Rajapaksa secretly fled to the Maldives first with the intervention of former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed and then to Singapore.

Following the intervention of the Sri Lankan government, Rajapaksa who holds a diplomatic passport, flew to Thailand where he was allowed a 90-day stay.

Rajapaksa's initial attempt to flee to the US where his son lives with his family, had failed after Washington refused to provide a visa.

A former duel citizen, Rajapaksa had to give up the US citizenship in order to run in the 2019 presidential election.

"The President should not have left the country but he could have given up the presidency while living in Sri Lanka," Jagath Kumara, an MP from Rajapaksa's Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party, told the media on Friday while welcoming the return of the former leader.

"He is a citizen of this country and nobody can take the law into his or her hand," the MP said when he was asked about the safety of the former President.

Incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe had earlier stated that it was not safe for Rajapaksa to return to the country.

--IANS
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Madrid, Sep 2 (IANS) Spain's tourism sector continues to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, with the Statistical Office (INE) confirming that the country welcomed 39.3 million foreign travellers in the first seven months of this year.

Although this is still below the 48 million visitors registered in the same period of 2019, it is three times more than the 9.8 million tourists who visited Spain in January-July 2021, reports Xinhua news agency citing the INE as saying.

This year so far, foreign visitors to the country spent 47.6 billion euros, over four times more than in 2021 but still less than in the same period of 2019 (52.2 billion euros).

Juan Carlos Higueras, professor at the EAE Business School, explained to Xinhua that the increase in tourist numbers is a direct response to the elimination of restrictions introduced during the pandemic and commented that "the comparison and growth should be looked at in relation to the years prior to Covid".

The expert also highlighted that, although everything points to the tourist market remaining buoyant over the autumn, macroeconomic factors, such as rising inflation and fuel bills, could play a role.

"Everything will depend on how the market evolves and the inflation that is already causing problems for families.

"We have to take into account that rising costs have had an impact on the profit margin of the tourism sector, although it has tried to alleviate the situation by increasing prices," he said.

The main source markets for Spain in the first seven months of 2022 were the UK (with about 8.4 million tourists and an annual increase of 908.5 per cent), followed by Germany (5.5 million arrivals) and France (5.3 million).

--IANS
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