Twitter, Facebook freeze Trump accounts as tech giants respond to storming of US Capitol

Twitter Inc, Facebook Inc and Snap Inc temporarily locked the accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday, as tech giants scrambled to crack down on his baseless claims about the U.S. presidential election amid riots in the capital. Twitter hid and mandated the removal of three of Trump’s tweets “as a result of the unprecedented and ongoing violent situation in Washington, D.C.,” after pro-Trump protesters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to force Congress to block the appointment of President-elect Joe Biden. Four people died on Capitol grounds in the chaos, including a woman who was shot and killed inside the building. The president and his allies for months have amplified unsubstantiated claims of election fraud, driving the organizing for the day’s demonstration. Trump said in a tweet on Wednesday, later taken down by Twitter, that the storming of the building was a natural response. He also blamed Vice President Mike Pence for lacking “courage” to pursue the claims of election fraud. Twitter locked Trump’s account until 12 hours after he deletes those tweets and a video in which he alleged the presidential election was fraudulent and urged protesters to go home. If the tweets are not deleted, the account will remain locked. Facebook and YouTube, owned by Alphabet’s Google, likewise removed the video. Facebook later said it would block Trump’s page from posting for 24 hours, with vice president of integrity Guy Rosen tweeting the video “contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence.” The company said in a blog post that it would ban calls to bring weapons to locations across the country and would remove any support for the events at the Capitol. A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. RISK OF VIOLENCE Violent rhetoric and advice on weaponry ramped up significantly in the past three weeks on social media platforms as groups planned for the rallies, including white nationalists and enthusiasts of the wide-ranging QAnon conspiracy theory, according to researchers and public postings. Twitter and Facebook acted against major QAnon accounts last year, but by the time they did, influencers had been able to drive their followers to new platforms, such as Parler, and closed channels, like those on Telegram, where their conduct was harder to track.  Movement leaders frequently pointed to Trump’s words in their calls to action, including the president’s exhortation that the events in Washington on Jan. 6 would be “wild.” Comments during the occupation of the Capitol on TheDonald.win, a web site of Trump enthusiasts, included “WE WANT BLOOD” and “murder Pelosi,” according to research firm Advance Democracy Inc. As the siege of the Capitol escalated on Wednesday, civil rights groups including The Anti-Defamation League and Color of Change called for social media companies to suspend Trump’s accounts permanently. Former Facebook security chief Alex Stamos likewise tweeted: “Twitter and Facebook have to cut him off.” Some Facebook staffers joined calls for Trump’s accounts to be shut down and demanded transparency from executives about how they were handling the situation, according to internal posts seen by Reuters. “Can we get some courage and actual action from leadership in response to this behavior? Your silence is disappointing at the least and criminal at worst,” one employee wrote. Internal communications managers quickly closed comments on the threads. Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the internal posts. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg later wrote in an internal post confirmed by the company that he was “personally saddened by this mob violence.” He said Facebook was treating the situation as an emergency and “implementing additional measures to keep people safe,” without elaborating.

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Criticism mounts over India's 'abrupt' approval of COVAXIN

Criticism of India’s approval of a local COVID-19 vaccine without proof of its efficacy grew on Wednesday after news that a regulatory panel approved the shot just one day after asking the vaccine maker for more evidence it would work. The recommendations of the Indian drugs regulator’s subject expert committee (SEC) released on Tuesday show that the panel asked Bharat Biotech International Ltd to present more efficacy data for its COVID-19 shot before it could consider approving the treatment. “After detailed deliberation, the committee recommended that the firm ... may perform interim efficacy analysis for further consideration of restricted emergency use approval,” the SEC’s recommendations in a Jan. 1 meeting show. The very next day, the committee recommended approving Bharat Biotech’s vaccine for “restricted use in emergency situation in public interest as an abundant precaution.” The SEC also separately recommended emergency use authorisation for the Oxford University/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, being produced by India’s Serum Institute. The greenlighting of Bharat Biotech’s COVAXIN had already faced criticism from opposition lawmakers and health experts for lack of efficacy data, typically obtained from a large, Phase III human trial - which the manufacturer is still conducting. News of the SEC’s recommendations spurred further criticism. “Was the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) approval a command performance? This is as serious as it can get,” Manish Tewari, an opposition lawmaker, said on Twitter. Health experts questioned why the SEC abruptly recommended approval one day after asking Bharat Biotech for more analysis. “The SEC ... appears to have been pressured overnight into reconsidering its decision and giving approval the next day, albeit hedged in by many conditions,” the All India People’s Science Network, a network of science advocacy groups, said in a statement. “We are perplexed at the abrupt change in thinking of the SEC from the first two meetings to the third day on which the approval was recommended while apparently discounting the need for efficacy data as the condition of the approval,” the All India Drug Action Network, a nonprofit health watchdog, said. Both Bharat Biotech and government officials have pointed to regulatory provisions that allow for quick drug approval for serious diseases even without Phase III trial data. Neither India’s drugs regulator nor Bharat Biotech responded to Reuters requests for comment on Wednesday. Regulators also granted approval to Bharat Biotech’s vaccine only “in clinical trial mode”, unusually cryptic language that left some experts baffled. “They’ve introduced terminologies that are confusing,” said Giridhar Babu, a professor of epidemiology at the Public Health Foundation of India. “The phrase ‘in clinical trial mode’ is not generally a term you will see in approvals.” Any confusion around vaccines could harm immunisation programmes by causing distrust, Babu said. “It takes decades of work to build confidence in vaccines.”

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Four deaths, 52 arrests made after Trump supporters storm US Capitol

Four people died and 52 were arrested, Washington D.C.’s police chief said, after supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday to stop Congress from certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s election victory. In a late night news conference, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Robert J. Contee said 47 of the 52 arrests to date were related to violations of Mayor Muriel Bowser’s 6 p.m. curfew, with 26 of those involving people arrested on U.S. Capitol grounds. Several others were arrested on charges related to carrying unlicensed or prohibited firearms. In addition, Contee said, two pipe bombs were recovered from the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic national committees, as well as a cooler from a vehicle on U.S. Capitol grounds that contained Molotov cocktails. Contee declined to identify the woman a Capitol Police officer shot and killed, saying next of kin notification was still pending. Three other people also died on Wednesday because of medical emergencies, he added, and 14 police officers were injured - two of whom remain hospitalized. It was not clear if other federal or local police agencies, including the Capitol Police, had made additional arrests. While the number of people arrested is expected to grow, the initial number pales in comparison to the more than 300 people who were arrested by police following the June 1 protests in the district related to the police killing of George Floyd. In that incident, baton-swinging police and federal agents fired smoke canisters, flashbang grenades and rubber bullets to drive protesters farther from the White House, enabling President Donald Trump to walk across Lafayette Park and hold up a Bible in front of St. John’s Church. While police faced staunch criticism for being too aggressive at Lafayette Square, however, the Capitol Police are now facing questions about why they did not do more to secure the Capitol and let many of the rioters later exit the building without arrests. Bowser, the mayor, said police intend to ask the public for help in identifying rioters, many of whom posed for photos inside the Capitol and can be seen in viral videos on social media without face masks. “We will be on the lookout,” she said. “Some of them, we think ... have to be held accountable for the carnage.” Late on Wednesday, the FBI also asked the public to submit tips, such as images, videos and other information to help agents identify people were “actively instigating violence.” Bowser also extended a public emergency declaration for 15 days, an action she said will allow her to restrict peoples’ movements around the city if necessary.

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Under heavy guard, Congress back to work after Trump supporters storm US Capitol

Hundreds of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday in a stunning bid to overturn his election defeat. But after hours of chaos in which police battled to regain control, lawmakers returned to Congress to begin certifying Democratic President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. In the gravest assault on the symbol of American democracy in more than 200 years, rioters forced their way past metal security barricades, broke windows and scaled walls to fight their way into the Capitol, where they roamed the hallways and scuffled with police officers. Police said four people died - one from gunshot wounds and three from medical emergencies - during the chaos. Some besieged the House of Representatives chamber while lawmakers were inside, banging on its doors and forcing suspension of the certification debate. Security officers piled furniture against the chamber’s door and drew their pistols before helping lawmakers and others escape. By Wednesday night, both houses of Congress resumed their debate on the certification of Biden’s Electoral College win, and it quickly became clear that objections from pro-Trump Republican lawmakers to Biden’s victory in battleground states would be rejected overwhelmingly, including by most Republicans. “To those who wreaked havoc in our Capitol today - you did not win,” Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over the session, said as it resumed. “Let’s get back to work,” he said, drawing applause. Police struggled for more than three hours after the invasion to clear the Capitol of Trump supporters before declaring the building secure shortly after 5:30 p.m. (2230 GMT). One woman died after being shot during the mayhem, Washington police said, although the circumstances were unclear. Three people died due to medical emergencies, said Metropolitan Police Department Chief Robert J. Contee. The assault on the Capitol was the culmination of months of divisive and escalating rhetoric around the Nov. 3 election, with Trump repeatedly making false claims that the vote was rigged and urging his supporters to help him overturn his loss. The chaotic scenes unfolded after Trump - who before the election refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he lost - addressed thousands of supporters near the White House and told them to march on the Capitol to express their anger at the voting process. He told his supporters to pressure their elected officials to reject the results, urging them “to fight.” Trump came under intensive fire from some prominent Republicans in Congress, who put the blame for the day’s violence squarely on his shoulders. “There is no question that the President formed the mob, the President incited the mob, the President addressed the mob. He lit the flame,” House Republican Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney said on Twitter. Republican Senator Tom Cotton, a leading conservative from Arkansas, called on Trump to accept his election loss and “quit misleading the American people and repudiate mob violence.” A source familiar with the situation said there have been discussions among some Cabinet members and Trump allies about invoking the 25th Amendment, which would allow a majority of the Cabinet to declare Trump unable to perform his duties and remove him. A second source familiar with the effort doubted it would go anywhere with Trump having just two more weeks in office. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who had remained silent while Trump has sought to overturn the election result, called the invasion a “failed insurrection” and promised that “we will not bow to lawlessness or intimidation.” “We are back in our posts. We will discharge our duty under the Constitution, and for our nation. And we are going to do it tonight,” he said. ‘RECKLESS BEHAVIOR’ The shock of the assault on the Capitol seemed to soften the resolve of some Republicans who had supported Trump’s efforts to convince Americans of his baseless claims of fraud. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s staunchest allies in Congress, rejected an effort by his fellow Republicans to object to election results in hopes of setting up a commission to investigate Trump’s unsubstantiated allegations of election fraud. “All I can say is count me out. Enough is enough,” Graham said on the floor of the Senate. “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are lawfully elected and will become the president and the vice president of the United States on Jan. 20.” The Senate rejected by a 93-6 vote Republican objections to the certification of Biden’s victory in the battleground state of Arizona, ensuring their defeat. The House of Representatives, controlled by Democrats, also rejected the move, voting 303-121 against it. After the vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said both chambers of Congress would resume consideration of the Electoral College results. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser ordered a citywide curfew starting at 6 p.m. (2300 GMT). National Guard troops, FBI agents and U.S. Secret Service were deployed to help overwhelmed Capitol police. Guard troops and police pushed protesters away from the Capitol after the curfew took effect. It was the most damaging attack on the iconic building since the British army burned it in 1814, according to the U.S. Capitol Historical Society. Biden, a Democrat who defeated the Republican president in the November election and is due to take office on Jan. 20, said the activity of the protesters “borders on sedition.” TRUMP REPEATS FALSE CLAIMS In a video posted to Twitter while the rioters roamed the Capitol, Trump repeated his false claims about election fraud but urged the protesters to leave. “You have to go home now, we have to have peace,” he said, adding: “We love you. You’re very special.” Twitter Inc later restricted users from retweeting Trump’s video, and Facebook Inc took it down entirely, citing the risk of violence. Twitter said later it had locked the account of Trump for 12 hours over “repeated and severe violations” of the social media platform’s “civic integrity” rules and threatened permanent suspension. Election officials of both parties and independent observers have said there was no significant fraud in the Nov. 3 contest, in which Biden won 7 million more votes than Trump. Weeks have passed since the states completed certifying that Biden won in the Electoral College, which decides presidential elections, by a 306-232 vote. Trump’s challenges to Biden’s victory have been rejected by courts across the country. Trump had pressed Pence to throw out election results in states the president narrowly lost, although Pence has no authority to do so. Pence said in a statement he could not accept or reject electoral votes unilaterally. The mayhem stunned world leaders. “Trump and his supporters must accept the decision of American voters at last and stop trampling on democracy,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said.

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Bharat Biotech says approved COVID shot trials 'honest'

 A top executive at an Indian biotechnology company defended its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, approved for emergency use by the government, and said it will produce efficacy data from late-stage trials by March. The vaccine, COVAXIN, received emergency use approval from India’s drugs regulator on Sunday, but the move faced questions after the regulator took the step without publishing information about its efficacy. Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech had carried out “200 percent honest clinical trials”, Krishna Ella, chairman and managing director, told reporters an online address on Monday. Ella highlighted the company’s experience and expertise in producing vaccines, its numerous patents and its presence in 123 countries. The approval for COVAXIN, jointly developed with a government institute, was hailed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ministers as a success in India’s self-reliance push. Efficacy data from the company’s ongoing late-stage trial should be available by March, Ella said. Health Minister Harsh Vardhan clarified on Twitter on Sunday that the emergency use approval for COVAXIN was “in clinical trial mode”, wherein all recipients of the vaccine would be tracked and monitored as if they were in trial. The company is also investing in four manufacturing facilities and is planning to make around 200 million doses in Hyderabad and 500 million doses in other cities this year. The company has 20 million available doses so far. India has the second-highest number of coronavirus infections in the world, though cases have been steadily falling since a peak in September. India also approved the use of a vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University which will be the lead vaccine in the country’s immunisation programme.

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Government, farmers fail to break impasse on farm laws

The government on Monday refused to roll back farm reform laws, prompting farmers to threaten to step up their weeks-long protests, but the two sides agreed to meet again on Friday. Tens of thousands of farmers have been camping out on roads around the capital, New Delhi, for 40 days, insisting that the government withdraw the reforms and guarantee a minimum support price for their produce. “I am hopeful the stalemate will be resolved very soon,” Agricultural Minister Narendra Singh Tomar told reporters after the seventh round of meetings between the ministers and 40 farming unions. “For resolution, the cooperation of both sides is essential.” Farmers leaders, however, said they would not give up their fight unless the government agrees to repeal the laws, approved by parliament in September. “Our agitation will continue till the three laws are withdrawn. There is no other way,” said Rakesh Tikait, one of the farmers’ leaders who attended the meeting with ministers. Reliance Industries asked authorities to help stop attacks on its telecommunication masts by protesting farmers, who say the conglomerate has profited from the reforms at their expense. The majority of India’s farmers sell their produce largely to small retailers at a much lower price than the government guaranteed price - offered to only a fraction of farmers. They fear that with the introduction of the new laws, big retailers like Reliance will enter the market to buy their produce at a lower price, while the government may slowly dismantle the current system of procurement at the guaranteed price.

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Reliance seeks help against telecom mast attacks as India farmer protests rage on

India’s Reliance Industries on Monday asked government authorities to help stop attacks against its telecommunication masts by protesting farmers, who have alleged that the conglomerate has profited from farm reforms at their expense. Reliance, controlled by one of Asia’s richest men, Mukesh Ambani, will file a petition on the matter in the Punjab and Haryana High Court later on Monday, it said in a statement to stock exchanges. In India’s biggest farm unrest in years, tens of thousands of growers — largely from the states of Punjab and Haryana in India’s north — have been protesting near New Delhi against the laws, which seek to allow farmers to sell to institutional buyers and big retailers such as Reliance Retail, Walmart and Cargill. The farmers, who form a powerful political constituency, fear the laws passed in September could see the government stop buying grains at guaranteed prices, leaving them at the mercy of private buyers that may not pay guaranteed prices for food grains. Reliance, which also operates India’s largest retailer, said it would insist that its suppliers abide by these minimum support prices or any similar mechanism that may be implemented by the government. The company also said it had not done any corporate or contract farming in the past and has no plans to enter the business. Protesters have attacked hundreds of telecommunications masts of companies such as Reliance’s Jio in recent weeks, resulting in damage or their power supply being cut off. Jio is India’s top telecom provider by subscribers. Reliance said “these acts of violence have endangered the lives of thousands of its employees and caused damage and disruption to the vital communications infrastructure, sales and service outlets run by its subsidiaries.” More than 1,400 of Reliance’s 9,000-plus telecom masts had been hit, with power supply and fibre cut by unidentified people, Reuters reported last week.

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Afghan rivals to resume talks as civilian killings sow suspicion

Afghan government representatives and Taliban officials are due to resume their power-sharing talks, officials said on Monday, although battlefield clashes and targeted killings risk undermining efforts to end the war.  The talks began in Qatar in September months after the Taliban reached an agreement with the United States allowing it to pull its troops out of Afghanistan and end its longest war in exchange for Taliban security guarantees. The two Afghan sides got bogged down on procedures for weeks but in December they reached an agreement on the process, clearing the way for them to get down to the issues when they resume their negotiations on Tuesday. “Talks are a complicated process but the Afghan government and the negotiating team, with regard to the interest of the people of Afghanistan, are determined to take the process forwards,” said Najia Anwari, a spokeswoman for the Ministry for Peace Affairs. But Afghan government officials have in recent weeks accused the Taliban of a string of high-profile murders, including of bureaucrats and journalists, and bomb attacks. The Taliban have rejected some of the accusations but at the same time, the insurgents have made gains against government forces in fighting in various parts of the country. U.S. and European officials said they have urged both sides to reduce hostilities and move quickly towards a negotiated settlement. The United States has been scaling back its presence in Afghanistan nearly 20 years after it intervened with its allies to overthrow the Taliban in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. cities. Afghan security officials expect the size of the U.S. force to dwindle to about 2,500 troops early this year. The Taliban have been fighting since 2001 to oust foreign forces and reimpose their version of Islamic rule.

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Japan to consider new Covid-19 emergency declaration

Japan will consider issuing a new emergency declaration after governors in the capital region urged action to tackle a record surge in Covid-19 cases, the head of the nation’s pandemic response said on Saturday. The government needs to consult with health experts before deciding on a new declaration, Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura told reporters after a meeting with Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike and leaders from three neighbouring prefectures. “The national government and the three governors shared the view that the situation in the Tokyo area is getting more severe such that an emergency declaration may be necessary,” Nishimura said. As an interim measure, restaurants and karaoke parlors in the Tokyo area would be asked to close at 8 p.m., while businesses that serve alcohol should close at 7 p.m., he said. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has resisted calls to reinstate a national state of emergency, which the government had introduced in April during an earlier wave of the pandemic. Suga is next scheduled to speak publicly on Jan. 4. It relied on voluntary business closures and travel restrictions rather than the sort of rigid lockdown measures seen in parts of Europe and the United States. Tokyo raised its Covid-19 alert level to its highest measure on Dec. 17. New infections in the capital hit a record 1,337 on Dec. 31, and on Saturday numbered 814. A nationwide record was also set on Dec. 31 with 4,520 new cases. The rise in Covid-19 cases is compounding a seasonal increase in hospitalisations, said Fumie Sakamoto, infection control manager at St Luke’s International Hospital in Tokyo. “The Japanese government has not done a great deal to control the infection,” Sakamoto said. “I would expect the (infection) numbers will get bigger in the coming days, and the emergency declaration should have come earlier, probably during December or November.”

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Australia's Covid-19 cases on the rise as masks made compulsory

Australia’s most-populous state of New South Wales (NSW) reported eight new Covid-19 cases on Sunday, while neighbouring Victoria’s tally increased by three, as new measures to combat the disease kicked in. The NSW outbreak started around mid-December in Sydney’s Northern Beaches area, where a quarter of a million people are in strict lockdown until Jan. 9. Cases associated with the cluster now total 148. A smaller cluster in the west of the city, linked to a different genome sequence, has 13 confirmed cases. But the state’s chief health officer, Kerry Chant, said authorities are worried as recent transmission at a liquor store occurred with “fleeting” exposure. “We know these transmission events have happened through very minimal exposure. We are asking members of the community who did purchase alcohol or enter that premises for that period to be very vigilant,” Chant told reporters. NSW has made wearing masks mandatory at indoor venues like gaming rooms, hair salons and shops as authorities try to limit the spread of the disease. They will be legally enforced from midnight local time. Australia has avoided the worst of the pandemic following swift action by authorities to shut borders, enforce lockdowns, and to carry out widespread testing and social distancing. Since the pandemic began, it has reported more than 28,450 COVID-19 cases and 909 deaths.  Despite the outbreak in Sydney, a scheduled 5-day cricket match between Australia and India, starting on Thursday, will go ahead, although with a reduced number of spectators. Five Indian players have been placed in isolation while the Australian and Indian cricket boards investigate allegations of a breach of biosecurity protocols. In Victoria, where all cases are linked to the same Melbourne restaurant, officials are investigating how the disease spread from the source in NSW, authorities said. Victoria has more than 30 active cases and has made masks mandatory across the state, restricted the number of people who can meet socially and shut its border with NSW. Health authorities have identified 220 “close contacts” and more than 50 “exposure sites” linked to positive cases. But, “what is important is that they are in quarantine when they are diagnosed so that the risk of onward transmission is reduced,” Victoria’s Deputy Chief Health Officer Allen Cheng said in Melbourne.

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Saudi Arabia ends entry ban, keeps some coronavirus restrictions -state news agency

Saudi Arabia said that entry to the kingdom by sea land and air will be resumed starting Sunday after a ban that lasted two weeks amid fears of a new coronavirus variant, the state news agency reported on Sunday. A ministry of interior official said that some restrictions including asking people coming from countries where the new variant spread such as the UK, South Africa and any others, to stay at least 14 days out of these countries before entering the kingdom.

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Iran's foreign minister urges Trump to avoid Israel 'trap' to provoke war

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif urged U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday not to be “trapped” by an alleged Israeli plan to provoke a war through attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq. He issued the warning on the anniversary of the U.S. killing of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani by a drone strike in Iraq. There was no immediate comment by Israel. Washington blames Iran-backed militia for regular rocket attacks on U.S. facilities in Iraq, including near the U.S. embassy. No known Iran-backed groups have claimed responsibility. “New intelligence from Iraq indicate(s) that Israeli agent-provocateurs are plotting attacks against Americans — putting an outgoing Trump in a bind with a fake casus belli (act justifying war),” Zarif said in a tweet. “Be careful of a trap, @realDonaldTrump. Any fireworks will backfire badly,” Zarif wrote. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office and the Israeli Foreign Ministry declined to comment on Zarif’s remarks. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Zarif’s message. Esmail Ghaani, who succeeded Soleimani as head the elite Quds force, said on Friday Iran was still ready to respond. The U.S. military flew two nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to the Middle East in a message of deterrence to Iran on Wednesday, but the bombers have since left the region.

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Out of the frying pan, into the fire

Borders closed, schools shut and businesses suspended- the year 2020 has been an interminable struggle for the country’s financial capital. Yet, amid the most uncertain of times, the city of 20 million, in some sense of stoicism, had pinned its hope on the dawn of 2021 to herald a new fate for the metropolis. Like the gospel truth, many had believed that the first light of January 1 will pierce through the dark cloud of Covid-19, which had, for months, gripped the world in its unforgiving bedlam. However, although hope may have once helped the city triumph fear, it appeared on the eve of 2021 that much of it was perhaps misplaced and misread. On December 29 2020, while Karachi was still facing the disease’s second wave, the provincial health department reported the city’s first case of a new Covid-19’s strain discovered in the United Kingdom. Said to be up to 70 per cent more transmissible, the new variant was detected in a passenger coming from the United Kingdom. Less than a day later, the number had spiked to three cases. Much of the port city’s hope had stemmed from the jubilant months of August and September. At the time, the country, after various incremental lockdowns, appeared to be miraculously flattening the coronavirus curve for the first time in six months. None really knew what went right in those two months, but it was Karachi’s cue to revel. Masks came off, standard operating procedures (SOPs) were flouted, congregations resumed and the megacity was once again abuzz. In this collective consciousness, it was almost as if the pandemic had never existed. By October, all the reveling of the previous month had started bearing its cursed fruit. Between November and December, the virus was once again seen to be peaking. During the same time, disease severity was noted to be at a concerning 10 per cent, while death rates also climbed sharply. After a short-lived break, the city’s healthcare system yet again found itself struggling to deal with an onslaught of coronavirus-infected patients. Medical laboratories across Karachi reported a sudden increase in people seeking PCR tests for Covid-19. Around this time, a faster antigen test, which could yield results within an hour- compared to PCR’s 20-hour waiting time- was also introduced. Hospital statistics As per the provincial health department, 2.33 million suspects of Covid-19 were tested across Sindh till December 29. So far, 217,636 coronavirus cases have been reported in the province, from which 196,677 patients have recovered and a total 3,594 have regrettably died. “Some 143,880 Covid-19 patients were reported in different districts of Karachi, out of which 126,173 patients have recovered while 2,880 died during treatment from February 24 to December 27. Whereas the number of active cases in Karachi is reported to be 14,757, as of this moment,” said Karachi Heath Director Dr. Nadeem Sheikh on Thursday. Speaking in the same vein, Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi’s Medical Superintendent (MS) Dr Noor Mohammad said that during the last 10 months, over 1,700 patients of Covid-19 had been admitted to the medical facility. Out of which, he admitted, over 1,480 have so far been discharged after recovery, while over 420 have died. “In addition to that, the hospital’s Outpatient Department (OPD), during the same 10 months, registered a total of 55,200 patients. Among them, 581 were registered in March, 3,616 in April, 4,717 in May, 6,905 in June, 4,423 in July, 2,976 in August, 5,646 in September, 7,507 in October, 14,140 in November and 4,689 in December. The highest number of patients were reported in November and December,” the MS said. Published in The Express Tribune, January 3rd, 2021.

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India's Kashmir region seeks $4 billion in investments, to provide security

India’s federal territory of Jammu and Kashmir plans to attract investments worth up to $4 billion in the next two three years and would provide security to businesses setting up shop in the insurgency-hit region, its chief said on Saturday. Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) was India’s only Muslim-majority state until August 2019, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi carved out a Buddhist-dominated enclave and designated both as federally-administered territories. Tens of thousands of security forces guard the region where India has been fighting an armed-insurgency for decades, especially in the disputed Kashmir valley that is also claimed by Pakistan. J&K Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha said his administration was identifying 6,000 acres (2,400 hectares) of land for businesses and that they would make companies feel secure. “We have an annual budget of 1 trillion rupees ($13.68 billion) for the region and a good amount of that is being used for providing security for businesses,” Sinha said a group of journalists in New Delhi. The government was also working on organising an investment summit there after a delay due to the coronavirus pandemic, he said. “We are in touch with all big business houses,” he said. J&K is one of India’s least industrialized regions, with per capita income of 62,145 rupees in 2016/2017, lower than the national average of 82,229 rupees but higher than several other states. The government enforced the changes the region through a harsh crackdown, deploying thousands of additional troops, imposing a communication blackout and detaining scores of people.

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Pfizer and BioNTech to offer Covid vaccine to volunteers who got placebo

Pfizer Inc and its partner BioNTech Se plan to give volunteers who received a placebo in its Covid-19 vaccine trial an option to receive a first dose of the vaccine by March 1, 2021, while staying within the study. The trial's Vaccine Transition Option allows all participants aged 16 or older the choice to discover whether they were given the placebo, "and for participants who learn they received the placebo, to have the option to receive the investigational vaccine while staying in the study," the companies said on their website for trial participants. The US Food and Drug Administration and a panel of its outside advisers have expressed concerns over Pfizer’s “unblinding” plan, saying it could make it harder to continue collecting data on safety and effectiveness needed to win full FDA approval of the vaccine. Trial participants who received the placebo will have two doses of the investigational vaccine reserved for them within the study, the companies said on the website. “The study doctor will follow the latest guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and their local health authorities to offer the Vaccine Transition Option to participants in a prioritized manner,” the companies said.

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All you need is not ‘love jihad’, but liberty, say India’s embattled interfaith couples

India’s ruling Hindu nationalist party has launched a legal campaign against "love jihad", a conspiracy theory that Muslims are luring Hindu women into marriage, that is shrinking liberties in a country that has long celebrated endogamy. But in some quarters, opponents are choosing to resist the divisive narrative and give love a chance. It was a vague project, mulled between three friends who agreed it was a great idea but were just too busy to get down to it. For over a year, Niloufer Venkatraman, a writer and editor, and her friends – a married couple and fellow journalists – had been discussing some sort of project that would gather stories of Indian couples who had bridged societal divides. Love and marriage outside religious and caste groups have long attracted censure in India, where arranged marriages within social units are the norm. Over the past few years however, the discourse on interfaith marriages has turned dangerously hostile, with hardline Hindu groups launching a campaign against “love jihad” – an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that Muslim men are luring Hindu brides in a bid to convert them to Islam and ultimately gain demographic domination. Venkatraman – the daughter of a Hindu Brahmin father and Zoroastrian mother and married to a Christian – had been monitoring the situation with disquiet. In her conversations with Samar Harlankar and Priya Ramani – a well known Indian journalist duo based, like her, in Mumbai – Venkatraman toyed with the idea of setting up a website. “We talked about telling real life stories in long form, just wonderful heartwarming love stories that are also a part of India, not just caste and religious marriages. There was no concrete plan for more than a year,” she explained. But in mid-October, a major Indian jewellery brand owned by the Tata Group withdrew an advertisement featuring a Hindu-Muslim couple following a Hindu right-wing backlash. Opponents of the ad for the jewellery line “Ekatvam” – or “unity” in Hindi – accused the Tatas of promoting “love jihad” and threatened boycotts. The decision to withdraw the ad sparked howls of despair from Indians opposed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu majoritarian policies that target the country’s Muslim minority. The time was right for digging out and jump-starting that project, Venkatraman and her friends decided. “We said let’s just do it, let’s do a less ambitious version and take it to Instagram with two posts,” she explained in a phone interview with FRANCE 24. Within days, the India Love Project was born. Venkatraman wrote one of the first two posts on an Instagram page inviting others to share their stories of “love and marriage outside the shackles of faith, caste, ethnicity and gender”. The trio went back to their day jobs expecting a submission a week – if they were lucky. But since its October 20 launch, the India Love Project has featured a new story every single day. Venkatraman says they now have a backlog of around 100 stories to be edited and posted. They’re also busy providing a service they didn’t quite anticipate: fielding desperate messages from couples seeking help and putting them in touch with NGOs offering legal and psychological services. Those pleas for help are likely to increase as India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) cracks down on marriages between Hindus and Muslims in a bid, critics say, to stem consensual interfaith marriages and deprive minorities – particularly Muslims and women – of fundamental liberties. On December 29, lawmakers in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, which is controlled by the BJP, approved a law that criminalises forced religious conversion of brides. The Freedom of Religion Bill 2020 will be enacted once it receives approval from the state's governor, a leading BJP member. Protecting ‘the honour of Hindu women’ Madhya Pradesh is the second state to enact such legislation in as many months. In November, India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, home to around 40 million Muslims, passed a law banning “unlawful religious conversions” through marriage. While the laws do not mention the term “love jihad” or specify religious groups, Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister, Yogi Adityanath – a hardline Hindu monk widely viewed as Modi’s political successor – has never minced his words on the subject. Weeks before the law was passed, Adityanath vowed to enact legislation banning “love jihad” – a term that lacks a legal definition since there’s no evidence the phenomenon exists. In a menacing local election campaign speech, the Hindu monk-minister vowed, “We will pass an effective law – those who hide their name and identity and play with the honour of our daughters and sisters, I am warning them in advance: If they don’t stop, their funerals will start.” Adityanath, the founder of Hindu Yuva Vahini, a vigilante group implicated in the lynching of Muslims, has long been obsessed by relationships between Hindu women and Muslim men, and with protecting, as he sees it, the honour of Hindu women. In an undated video uploaded in 2014, Adityanath warned that, “If [Muslims] take one Hindu girl, we’ll take 100 Muslim girls. If they kill one Hindu, we’ll kill 100 Muslims,” prompting Amnesty International to issue a statement calling on the BJP chief minister to retract his past statements against Muslims. An unforgettable day – in the worst way The day Modi chose Adityanath as Uttar Pradesh chief minister is one many Indian supporters of secularism will never forget. Prachi Pinglay-Plumber, a Hindu Brahmin married to a Muslim man, was on a beach in Mumbai on March 26, 2017, enjoying an evening walk with a friend, when the shock appointment was announced. “The BJP had already won the most seats in the state elections, we knew that. But when the party announced that Yogi Adityanath was appointed Uttar Pradesh chief minister, my friend and I just went silent,” said Pinglay-Plumber. “It was as if something had happened in front of us, it felt very real. That was a marker. For me, it was the moment when I realised, okay, now we know where we’re headed.” The post of chief minister of Uttar Pradesh is one of the most consequential in Indian politics, and is often viewed as a springboard for future prime ministers. As a journalist married to a fellow journalist, who happens to be Muslim, Pinglay-Plumber immediately understood the implications of the appointment as a harbinger of things to come. More than three years later, as the Modi administration abandoned an ideologically moderate development agenda for Hindu supremacist populism – including citizenship laws that discriminate against Muslims – Pinglay-Plumber is beyond shock. But the 41-year-old journalist, who is currently working on a podcast documentary on religious discrimination, is nonetheless alarmed by the new trend of BJP-controlled states adopting “love jihad” laws. In addition to Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, the states of Haryana, Karnataka and Assam have also announced plans to enact similar anti-conversion laws. “With Yogi Adityanath as chief minister, you’re almost anticipating something like this to happen. What has disappointed me is the way this is getting replicated in other states,” said Pinglay-Plumber. Challenges in court, reality on the ground Weeks after the law was passed in Uttar Pradesh, police began making arrests, mostly of Muslim men married to Hindu women whose families filed complaints accusing the husband of forced conversions. A number of cases have moved to the courts and at least two petitions questioning the constitutionality of the law have been filed in the country’s Supreme Court. But while the legal challenges are welcome, activists note that no matter how the courts rule, the authorities have made their point. In a country plagued with an overwhelmed legal system, police brutality issues and high levels of intimidation, the message for Indians outside progressive urban elite circles is clear. “They have made their point,” said Asif Iqbal, co-founder of Dhanak of Humanity, a New Delhi-based NGO that assists interfaith couples. “It’s clear that these cases won’t stand up in the courts. But the fear in society, they’ve already created that among families and friends of interfaith couples.” Secular marriage law that undermines security  While the Indian Constitution affirms the right to life and liberty, societal pressures as well as legal hurdles pose a challenge for interfaith couples. Most Indian marriages are conducted under religious personal laws, with the country’s diverse faith groups – including Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Zoroastrians – having their own personal marriage laws. The right to a secular marriage is enshrined in the 1954 Special Marriage Act. But as the name implies, it’s so special, many Indians are unaware of the law’s existence. The 1954 act is derived from a colonial era law, which stipulated that both partners had to renounce their religion to have a civil union. After India gained independence, lawmakers dropped the clause requiring parties to renounce their religion. But critical clauses requiring one-month notice periods, publicly posting intent-to-marry notices, and residency requirements to register marriages remained unchanged. They have proved to be stumbling blocks for the exercise of individual choice and liberty when it comes to love in the land of Bollywood romances. “Conspicuous displays of [intent-to-marry] notices are picked up by fanatic groups who take it to families and say, ‘Look what your daughter is doing’,” explained Iqbal. Under the law’s jurisdiction provisions, couples are required to provide proof of residence to local marriage officers. For interfaith couples facing threats and pressure from families and community groups, this can be risky. “In practice, marriage officers ask for stupid things from couples such as witnesses from the residence area, they say police will be sent to verify addresses... It’s presumed that anybody marrying under the Special Marriage Act is going against the wishes of the family, the wishes of society and the wishes of the marriage officer because they’re from the same communities,” said Iqbal. No choice please, we're Indian Endogamy, or marriage within a social unit, has been a norm in India that has adapted to the times, spawning business models for matchmakers, websites and ad supplements that feed off the country’s enduring embrace of arranged marriages. Only 5 percent of Indian marriages are between people of different castes, according to the 2011-12 Indian Human Development Survey. Interfaith marriages are an even tinier fraction, constituting 2.2 percent of the total marriages, according to a 2005-06 survey. Meanwhile the lines between “arranged” and “forced” marriages in India are blurred, a phenomenon that’s so widespread, it tends to get overlooked in a country hailed for lavish, colourful weddings. The Indian Human Development Survey, for instance, found only 5 percent of Indian women said they had sole control over choosing their husbands. “In India, the right to choose is a big question. Religion and caste are just alibis to stop that,” explained Iqbal. The ‘guardians of women’ are at work Unlike civil marriages under secular law, religious marriages are quicker and require less bureaucracy for interfaith couples. “When there’s an emergency, the couple has left home, or one of the partners, mostly women, are being forcefully married to someone from the community, then a religious marriage is easier, instant and a kind of assurance for couples since the administration and police only consider it a relationship if there’s a marriage certificate,” said Iqbal. But the problem, Iqbal notes, is “any religious marriage is not possible between people of two different faiths. Both have to be of the same faith”. That’s where the vitriolic discourse of conversions and “love jihad” allegations arise. Despite high profile rants by the likes of Yogi Adityanath, experts say there is no evidence of any “love jihad” campaign. The courts so far appear to agree. In the latest ruling squashing a forced conversion for marriage case, a court in Uttar Pradesh on December 28 ruled in favour of an interfaith couple, underlining that the woman is an adult who "wants to live with her husband" and had the "right to live life on her terms”. The Allahabad High Court bench also criticised a district magistrate for handing the woman over to child protection services without establishing the woman’s age. While BJP-led state administrations invest time and resources drafting and approving new “freedom of religion” bills, they supply no proof of coerced conversions in interfaith marriages. Venkatraman recalls being a panelist on a televised debate with a BJP representative. “He kept talking about cases of forced conversions and we kept saying show us the data. Nobody can show any data on this,” she said. “How many Indian girls are in forced marriages within their caste and nobody’s talking about it. Now the guardians of women have something to say about women exercising their basic freedom to choose who they want to marry.” The patriarchy underscoring the new laws was explained by Charu Gupta, a Delhi University historian, in an interview with the BBC. “When a Hindu man marries a Muslim woman, it is always portrayed as romance and love by Hindu organisations, while when the reverse happens it is depicted as coercion,” she explained. The asymmetry, Gupta explained, was that the offspring of a Hindu man constitute a demographic gain for a community that constitutes around 80 percent of India’s 1.3 billion-strong population. All you need is love  Far from preventing forced conversions, the new laws have sparked a harassment spike against interfaith couples, according to news reports. Shortly after the law was passed in Uttar Pradesh, media reports ran footage of a woman being heckled by members of a hardline Hindu group for marrying a Muslim. The woman later alleged she suffered a miscarriage in custody. The flood of discriminatory assaults against Muslims under Modi’s Hindutva – or Hindu nation – agenda has made life extremely tense for Muslims and their partners, a fact recognised in progressive circles. “My friends keep saying, ‘What are you doing in India? Why don’t you go to Canada?’ It pisses me off – why should I go? But I know where this is coming from and that they mean well,” said Pinglay-Plumber. She also welcomes initiatives such as the Love India Project, which offer a different narrative of a diverse country where not everyone is susceptible to the government’s divisive agenda. “It’s a sweet thing to do,” said Pinglay-Plumber as her two-year-old son squealed excitedly in the background. “It’s a good thing something like this exists. Every little pushback, every little effort is important. It’s not easy to do it, but I do believe every little bit counts.”

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Afghan journalist shot dead in car ambush

An Afghan journalist was shot dead in a car ambush in the central province of Ghor, the fifth media professional to be killed in the country in two months, officials said on Saturday. Bismellah Adel Aimaq, 28, the editor-in-chief of Sada-e-Ghor (Voice of Ghor) radio station, was killed near Firoz Koh city, the capital of Ghor, on Friday. No militant group has claimed responsibility for the killing. “Unfortunately, Bismellah Adel Aimaq, the head of Sada-e Ghor Radio, was killed by unknown gunmen this evening in Firoz Koh. “He was 28 years old, and started working with Sada-e-Ghor Radio since 2015,” said Habibollah Radmanesh, the deputy governor of Ghor. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani condemned the killing and said his government was committed to supporting and promoting freedom of expression. “The Taliban and other terrorist groups could not silence the legitimate voices of journalists and the media by carrying out such attacks,” he said in a tweet. A civil society activist was also killed on Friday by unknown militants. Targeted killings of journalists, government officials and rights activists, have increased rapidly in recent months as violence surges in Afghanistan despite peace talks between the government and the Taliban. The Taliban stated in December it was not involved in the killing of media professionals.

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US Covid-19 cases surpass 20 million as deaths mount

US coronavirus cases crossed the 20 million mark on Friday as officials seek to speed up vaccinations and a more infectious variant surfaces in Colorado, California and Florida. The United States has seen a spike in number of daily Covid-19 fatalities since Thanksgiving with 78,000 lives lost in December. A total of 345,000 have died of Covid-19, or one out of every 950 US residents, since the virus first emerged in China late in 2019. To slow the death toll, Senator Mitt Romney on Friday urged the US government to enlist veterinarians and combat medics to give out coronavirus vaccinations. The US rate of new Covid-19 infections increased in the second half of last year. An analysis of Reuters data shows it took 200 days to reach the first 5 million cases, 93 days to go from 5 million cases to 10 million, 31 days from 10 million to 15 million cases and only 25 days to go from 15 million to 20 million cases. California has the most total cases of any state, with about 2.28 million infections followed by Texas with 1.76 million cases and Florida with 1.32 million cases. The United States is averaging 186,000 cases a day, down from a peak in mid-December of over 218,000 new infections each day. Health officials have warned that cases will likely spike again after holiday gatherings. Currently, there are more than 125,000 Covid-19 patients in US hospitals, up 25% in the last month. While the United States has approved two vaccines, rollout is going more slowly than the government hoped. About 2.8 million Americans received a Covid-19 vaccine by Dec. 31, falling far short of a 20 million target. Despite early setbacks in the vaccine rollout, leading US infectious disease specialist Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Wednesday that he expects Americans to achieve enough collective Covid-19 immunity through vaccinations by autumn 2021. The government’s goal is 100 million shots in arms by March 1.

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Aviation deaths rise worldwide in 2020 even as fatal incidents, flights fall

The number of people killed in large commercial airplane crashes rose in 2020 to 299 worldwide, even as the number of crashes fell by more than 50%, a Dutch consulting firm said on Friday. Aviation consulting firm To70 said in 2020 there were 40 accidents involving large commercial passenger planes, five of which were fatal, resulting in 299 fatalities. In 2019 there were 86 accidents, eight of which were fatal, resulting in 257 fatalities. Large commercial airplanes had 0.27 fatal accidents per million flights in 2020, To70 said, or one fatal crash every 3.7 million flights -- up from 0.18 fatal accidents per million flights in 2019. The decline in crashes came amid a sharp decline in flights due to the coronavirus pandemic. Flightradar24 reported commercial flights it tracked worldwide in 2020 fell 42% to 24.4 million. More than half of all deaths in the To70 review were the 176 people killed in January 2020 when a Ukrainian plane was shot down in Iranian airspace. The second deadliest incident was the May crash of a Pakistan airliner crashed in May killing 98. Large passenger airplanes covered by the statistics are used by nearly all travelers on airlines but exclude small commuter airplanes in service. Over the last two decades, aviation deaths have been falling dramatically. As recently as 2005, there were 1,015 deaths aboard commercial passenger flights worldwide, the Aviation Safety Network (ASN) said. Over the last five years, there have been an average of 14 fatal accidents for commercial passenger and cargo planes resulting in 345 deaths annually, ASN said. In 2017, aviation had its safest year on record worldwide with only two fatal accidents involving regional turboprops that resulted in 13 deaths and no fatal crashes of passenger jets. The United States has not had a fatal US passenger airline crash since February 2009 and one fatality due to a US passenger airline accident in that period.

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UK reactivates emergency Covid-19 hospitals, closes London primary schools

Britain reactivated emergency hospitals built at the start of the pandemic and shut primary schools in London on Friday to counter the rapid spread of a much more infectious variant of the coronavirus. With more than 50,000 new daily cases of Covid-19 for the last four days, the health service said it was preparing for an anticipated rush of patients and needed more beds. The announcement comes just days after the Royal London Hospital told staff in an email it was now in “disaster medicine mode” and unable to provide high standard critical care. With the capital one of the areas worst-hit by the new variant, which is up to 70% more infectious, the government also decided to close all London primary schools, reversing a decision made just two days ago. “Children’s education and wellbeing remains a national priority,” Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said. “Moving further parts of London to remote education really is a last resort and a temporary solution.” Britain is battling a new wave of a virus that has already killed more than 74,000 people and crushed the economy. One of the worst hit countries in the world, it recorded 53,285 cases in the last 24 hours on Friday, and 613 new deaths. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government has been criticised for frequent reversals during the pandemic, including delaying lockdown during the first wave in March and abandoning a system to award school grades without exams. The temporary ‘Nightingale’ hospitals at locations such as convention centres were one success, built by the military in a matter of days. They were barely used but have remained on standby. A Sky News report said intensive care units of three London hospitals were full on New Year’s Eve, forcing patients to be transferred to other hospitals for critical care. “In anticipation of pressures rising from the spread of the new variant infection, the NHS London Region were asked to ensure the Nightingale was reactivated and ready to admit patients should it be needed,” a spokeswoman for the National Health Service (NHS) said. The Royal College of Nursing warned however that the country does not have enough nurses to staff the new sites, especially with many sick with the virus or forced to isolate. On schooling, the government said it had to shut all primary schools in the capital following a review of the transmission rates. On Wednesday, Williamson had outlined a plan to delay the reopening of secondary schools but open most primaries, including across much of the capital, on time next week after Christmas break. The opposition Labour Party said the last-minute reversal would cause chaos for parents.

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