Junior Digest

LONDON,July16,2020: A group of the world’s top oil companies including Saudi Aramco, China’s CNPC and Exxon Mobil have for the first time set targets to cut their combined greenhouse gas emissions as a proportion of production, as pressure on the sector’s climate stance grows.
However, the target set by the 12 members of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) is eclipsed by more ambitious plans set individually by the consortium’s European members, including Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Total.

The OGCI members agreed to reduce the average carbon intensity of their aggregated upstream oil and gas operations to between 20 kg and 21 kg of CO2 equivalent per barrel of oil equivalent (CO2e/boe) by 2025, from a collective baseline of 23 kg CO2e/boe in 2017, the OGCI said in a statement.

Intensity targets mean absolute emissions can rise with increasing production.
The members agreed on a common methodology to calculate carbon intensity and the targets could be extended to other sectors such as liquefied natural gas and refining in the future, Dudley added.

The announcement marks an important change for Exxon, the largest U.S. oil company, which has resisted investor pressure to improve the disclosure of its impact on the environment. It did not report its carbon emissions in 2019.

Exxon supports the OGCI targets to decrease the carbon intensity of energy production and is “part of the industry’s efforts to take practical, meaningful steps to reduce emissions,” a spokesman said.

The targets set by different companies can vary widely in scope and definition, making it difficult to compare.

However, some members of the OGCI already exceed or plan to overshoot the joint target.

For example, Saudi Aramco, the world’s top oil exporter, had an upstream carbon intensity of 10.1kg CO2e/boe in 2019, according to its annual report.

Norway’s Equinor aims to reduce its CO2 intensity below 8kg/boe by 2025. It has said the current global industry average is 18 kg CO2e/boe.

OGCI said the group’s collective carbon intensity would be reported annually, with data reviewed by EY, as an independent third party.

The target includes reductions in methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas, which the group had previously committed to cut.

NEW DELHI,23,2020: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged India on Wednesday to focus on domestic supply chains and reduce its dependence on China for telecommunications and medical supplies, as Washington’s ties with Beijing deteriorate dramatically.
India had a chance to move “supply chains away from China and reduce its reliance on Chinese companies in areas like telecommunications, medical supplies and others,” Pompeo said at the U.S.-India Business Council’s India Ideas Summit, being conducted online.

“India is in this position because it has earned the trust of many nations around the world, including the United States,” Pompeo said.

The U.S. administration has squarely blamed China for the coronavirus pandemic and accused Chinese firms like Huawei Technologies Co Ltd of cyberspying and facilitating human rights violations in China, charges Huawei and Beijing deny. The United States has also lambasted China’s new national security law for the former British colony of Hong Kong.

The United States has told China to close its consulate in Houston in a dramatic deterioration in ties between the world’s two biggest economies amid accusations of Chinese espionage.

India’s relations with China have strained following a border clash in the Himalayas last month in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed.

Pompeo accused the Chinese of initiating the conflict, also denied by Beijing.

“The recent clashes initiated by the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) are just the latest examples of the CCP’s (Chinese Communist Party) unacceptable behaviour,” Pompeo said.

India, which recently banned dozens of Chinese apps in the country, including the popular TikTok video app, has not yet taken a call on Huawei after allowing the Chinese telecoms company to participate in trials for 5G networks.

India is the world’s main generic drug supplier and its dependence on Chinese raw materials for its medicines is almost 70%.

Separately, India’s ambassador to the United States, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, said New Delhi was open to U.S. firms building manufacturing plants in the country.

India’s military confrontation with China prompted calls for closer security ties with the United States and its allies, including Japan.

India is modernising its military to narrow a gap with China and has increasingly turned towards the United States over its traditional supplier, Russia.

“The United States has never been more supportive of India’s security. India too, is an important partner and a key pillar of President (Donald) Trump’s foreign policy,” Pompeo said.

NEW DELHI 22,2020: India and the United States are closing in on a trade deal, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said on Tuesday, after two years of negotiations.

India is seeking concessions for generic drugs it exports to the United States in return for opening its dairy markets and slashing tariffs on farm goods as the two sides seek to clinch a new trade accord, three sources told Reuters.

They have been negotiating a limited trade pact aimed also at restoring zero tariffs on a range of Indian exports to the United States under its Generalised System of Preferences (GSP), from which the Trump administration withdrew last year, citing lack of reciprocal access to Indian markets.

“In the long term, I believe we have a quick trade deal which has some of the pending matters built up over the last couple of years, which we need to get out of the way quickly. We are almost there,” Goyal said at the U.S.-India Business Council’s India Ideas Summit, being conducted virtually.

Goyal further said New Delhi and Washington should look at a preferential trade pact with 50 to 100 products and services before moving to a free trade pact.

“We believe we should also look at an early harvest in the form of a preferential trade agreement rather than waiting for the gains of a free trade agreement, which can take several years to conclude,” he said.

Lausanne [Switzerland], July 18,2020: The Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee on Friday announced that all the venues intended for the Games in 2020 have been secured for next year, and confirmed the sports competition schedule.
This was emphasised by the Organising Committee’s president, Yoshiro Mori, and its CEO, Toshiro Muto, at a virtual IOC session.
In their report to the IOC Session, they confirmed that all 43 competition venues, the Olympic Village, the International Broadcast Centre and Main Press Centre would be used for the Olympic Games in 2021.
The Tokyo organisers announced that the competition schedule will remain the same, with some minor timing adjustments for operational reasons.
“The Olympic Village is the beating heart of the Olympic Games, while the venues are its soul. I am delighted that the village and the venues have been confirmed for next year. This means that the athletes will have this once-in-a-lifetime experience. Athletes from all around the world will live together under one roof in the Olympic Village, sharing meals together, celebrating together, discussing together and forming these unique Olympic communities,” said IOC president Thomas Bach in a statement.
“That Tokyo 2020 has been able to achieve this and confirm the competition schedule despite the extraordinary circumstances is testament to the work of the Joint Steering Committee led by John Coates and Yoshiro Mori,” he said.
Tokyo 2020 president Yoshiro Mori stated, “Following the decision to postpone the Games, Tokyo 2020 immediately formed the New Launch Task Force and began to organise systems ready to face this unprecedented challenge. Our staff have been working tirelessly around the clock on these preparations. It is my pleasure to announce today that we have successfully secured all venues and confirmed the competition schedule for next year’s Games.”
The Tokyo Olympic Games will be held from July 23 to August 8, 2021, while the Paralympics will take place from August 24 to September 5, 2021.

Washington, July 16,2020: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday the United States would support countries that believe China had violated their maritime claims in the South China Sea, but he suggested it would do so through diplomatic rather than military means.

“We will assist them, whether that’s in multilateral bodies, whether that’s in ASEAN, whether through legal responses,” he said.

The US on Monday rejected China’s claims to offshore resources in most of the South China Sea, drawing criticism from China which said the US position raised tension in the region, highlighting an increasingly testy relationship.

Pompeo also said that the US would impose visa restrictions on certain employees of Chinese tech companies like Huawei that provide “material support” to regimes engaging in human rights violations and abuses globally, further straining bilateral ties.

New Delhi, Jul 24,2020: The Working Mechanism for Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) is likely to take place on Friday amid the reports of Chinese slowing de-escalation process along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Eastern Ladakh.
During the weekly virtual press briefing, Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said, ‘… another meeting of the Working Mechanism for Consultation & Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) is also expected to be scheduled soon.’
India has also said that the maintenance of peace and tranquillity in the border areas is the basis of bilateral relationship.
‘It is our expectation that the Chinese side will sincerely work with us for complete disengagement and de-escalation and full restoration of peace and tranquillity in the border areas at the earliest, as agreed to by the Special Representatives,’ Mr Srivastava said.
‘We have also made it clear that India is fully committed to observing and respecting the LAC and that we will not accept any unilateral attempts to change the status quo along the LAC,’ he added.
The two sides have agreed during the conversation of the Special Representatives to work towards complete disengagement of the troops along the LAC and de-escalation from India-China border areas for full restoration of peace and tranquillity, said Mr Srivastava.
Both sides are engaged in discussions through the established diplomatic and military channels to achieve this objective expeditiously, he added.

New Delhi, Jul 17: India on Thursday termed the reports of Iran ending its agreement with New Delhi for two key projects — the second phase of Chabahar Port and the Chabahar-Zahidan railway project as “speculative”.
Referring to Chabahar Port, Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava while addressing the mediapersons during weekly online briefing said, “Despite the difficulties posed by the sanctions situation, there has been significant progress on the Port project. An Indian company has been operating the Port since 2018 and has steadily scaled up the traffic at the Port.
Since December 2018, 82 vessels have been handled there including 52 in the last twelve months alone.
The Port handled 12 lakh tonnes of bulk cargo and 8200 containers, he said.
“Proactive measures are currently underway to increase the usage of Chabahar Port, both for Afghanistan and Central Asia,” Mr Srivastava said.
As far as Chabahar-Zahidan railway project is concerned, the Indian government had appointed IRCON to assess the feasibility of the project.
In collaboration with Iranian firm CDTIC, IRCON has completed the site inspection and review of the feasibility report.
“Detailed discussions were thereafter held on other relevant aspects of the project, which had to take into account the financial challenges that Iran was facing,” Mr Srivastava said.
In December 2019, the issues were reviewed in detail at the 19th India-Iran Joint Commission Meeting in Tehran.
“The Iranian side was to nominate an authorized entity to finalize outstanding technical and financial issues. This is still awaited,” the spokesperson added.
On reports of development of Farzad-B gas field in Iran, Mr Srivastava said that the matter is under discussion.
The spokesperson said ONGC was involved in the discovery stage.
“Follow-up bilateral cooperation was however impacted by policy changes on the Iranian side. In January 2020, we were informed that in the immediate future, Iran would develop the field on its own and would like to involve India appropriately at a later stage,” he said.
The reports of dropping the partnership with India comes as Iran finalises a sweeping 25-year economic and security partnership with China worth $400 billion.
The partnership would vastly expand Chinese presence in banking, telecommunications, ports, railways and dozens of other projects.

Dibrugarh (Assam),July 24,2020: Four more people lost their lives in flood-related incidents in Assam on Thursday, taking the death toll to 93, the State Disaster Management Authority said.
So far, 28,32,410 people have been affected due to floods in 26 districts of the state.
People in Dadhiya village are facing hardship as several houses are submerged in water due to flood in the area. They are using boats to ferry themselves to safer places.
Pallav Gopal Jha, District Commissioner said, “This year, our district has faced four waves of flood. Seven deaths have been reported and around 300 cattle have died in flood-related incidents.”
Meanwhile, Parimal Suklabaidya, Assam’s Minister of Environment and Forest, said that this year’s casualty of wildlife is less.
“This is the third wave of flood in Assam and it is a recurring problem in the state. Compared to 2019, this year’s casualty of wildlife is less. Last year, we rescued 169 animals while this year we have rescued 143 from Kaziranga,” Parimal said.
“With each passing year, we have improved our techniques to rescue animals like deploying speedboats, making highlands and remaining vigilant,” added Parimal.

Washington, Jul 16,2020: Unidentified hackers broke into the Twitter accounts of technology moguls, politicians, celebrities and major companies Wednesday in an apparent Bitcoin scam.

The ruse included bogus tweets from former President Barack Obama, Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden, Mike Bloomberg and a number of tech billionaires including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Celebrities Kanye West and his wife, Kim Kardashian West, were also hacked. The fake tweets tweets offered to send USD 2,000 for every USD 1,000 sent to an anonymous Bitcoin address.

There is no evidence that the owners of these accounts were targeted themselves. Instead, the hacks appeared designed to lure their Twitter followers into sending money to an anonymous Bitcoin account.

The Biden campaign, for instance, said that Twitter’s integrity team locked down the account within a few minutes of the breach and removed the related tweet.

Obama’s office had no immediate comment. The FBI said it was aware of Twitter’s security breach, but declined further comment.

In a tweet, Twitter noted that it was aware of a security incident impacting accounts on Twitter. The San Francisco company said it is investigating and promised an update shortly. It did not reply immediately to requests for comment.

The apparently fake tweets were all quickly deleted, although The Associated Press was able to capture screenshots of several before they disappeared. The security problem was severe enough for Twitter to warn that many of its more than 166 million daily users might be unable to tweet or reset their passwords while the company tried to lock things down.

Among the political figures targeted, the hack mostly appeared to target Democrats or other figures on the left, drawing comparisons to the 2016 campaign.

US intelligence agencies established that Russia engaged in coordinated attempts to interfere in those U.S. elections through social media tampering and various hacks, including targeting the various campaigns and major party organisations.

The hack might also be a simple demonstration of Twitter’s weak security controls as the U.S. heads into the 2020 presidential election, a contest in which the service is likely to play an influential role.

The Bitcoin account mentioned in the fake tweets appears to have been created on Wednesday. By the end of the day, it had received almost 12.9 bitcoins, an amount currently valued at slightly more than 114,000. At some point during the day, roughly half that sum in bitcoin was withdrawn from the account.

Bezos, Gates and Musk are among the 10 richest people in the world, with tens of millions of followers on Twitter. The three men are worth a combined 362 billion, according to the latest calculations by Forbes magazine.

The same bogus offer cropped up a second time on Musk’s account, which has a history of sometimes befuddling tweets from the eccentric billionaire. Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Gates, who has become one of the world’s leading philanthropists since stepping down as Microsoft CEO, confirmed the tweet wasn’t from him. This appears to be part of a larger issue that Twitter is facing,” a spokesperson for the billionaire said in a statement.

This is hardly the first time hackers have created mischief on Twitter. Just last year, the account of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was broken into a nd used to tweet racist and vulgar comments.

The latest security breach prompted Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, to send a letter to Dorsey urging him to work with the FBI and the Justice Department on ways to improve Twitter’s security.

A successful attack on your system’s servers represents a threat to all of your users’ privacy and data security,” Hawley wrote.

Investors also appeared to be concerned about potential fallout from the hack affecting Twitter’s usage. Twitter’s shares fell 3% in extended trading after news of the hack broke.

Jul 18,2020: New Delhi, Jul 17 (UNI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday pitched for United Nations reform in the contemporary world and said that India firmly believes that the path to achieve sustainable peace and prosperity is through multilateralism.

In his maiden address to the high-level segment of the United Nations’ Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) since India was elected as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in June this year, the prime minister said, “As children of planet Earth, we must join hands to address our common challenges and achieve our common goals. However, multilateralism needs to represent the reality of the contemporary world.”

He also stated that only reformed multilateralism with a reformed United Nations at its center can meet the aspirations of humanity.

Further, he added that “While celebrating 75 years of the United Nations, let us pledge to reform the global multilateral system. To enhance its relevance, to improve its effectiveness, and to make it the basis of a new type of human-centric globalisation.”

On Covid-19 pandemic, he said that the United Nations was originally born from the furies of the Second World War. “Today, the fury of the pandemic provides the context for its rebirth and reform. Let us not lose this chance.”

PM Modi further said that India will play its role in full support in carrying forward the UN agenda.

“India has been elected to the United Nations Security Council at this very important time. With our deep commitment to maintaining global harmony, to improving socio-economic equity and to preserving nature’s balance, India will play its role in full support of the UN agenda,” he said.

PM Modi also reiterated India’s active support to the UN’s Development work and ECOSOC.

During his address, he said, “The first president of ECOSOC was an Indian. India also contributed to shaping the ECOSOC agenda.”

During his 14-minute address, the Prime Minister also said, “Be it earthquakes, cyclones, Ebola crisis or any other natural or man-made crisis, India has responded with speed and solidarity. In our joint fight against COVID, we have extended medical and other assistance to over 150 countries.”

He went on to mention India’s initiative to set up the International Solar Alliance and the Coalition for Disaster Resilience Infrastructure.

July 23,2020:Archaeologists excavating a cave in the mountains of central Mexico have unearthed evidence that people occupied the area more than 30,000 years ago — suggesting that humans arrived in North America at least 15,000 years earlier than thought.

The discovery, which includes hundreds of ancient stone tools, is backed up by a fresh statistical analysis that incorporates data from other sites. But the conclusion has stirred controversy among some researchers.

“When I see claim being made that is so dramatic, then the evidence has to be there to substantiate the claim,” says archaeologist Kurt Rademaker at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

The first humans in the Americas came from East Asia, but when they began to arrive is hotly debated. Some researchers think that it could have been as early as 130,000 years ago, although most of the archaeological evidence supporting this theory is disputed. For instance, some of the stone artefacts are so simple that sceptics say they were probably produced by natural geological processes rather than by people. The mainstream view is that the peopling of the Americas began about 15,000 or 16,000 years ago — based on genetic evidence and artefacts found at sites including the 14,000-year-old Monte Verde II in Chile.
The latest discoveries, published on 22 July in Nature1, question that consensus. Since 2012, a team led by Ciprian Ardelean at the Autonomous University of Zacatecas in Mexico has been excavating Chiquihuite Cave, which is 2,740 metres above sea level in the country’s Astillero Mountains. The researchers found almost 2,000 stone tools, 239 of which were embedded in layers of gravel that have been carbon dated to between 25,000 and 32,000 years old.

There are so few of these oldest tools that Ardelean thinks the site was visited only occasionally, perhaps used as a refuge every few decades, during particularly severe winters. At the height of the last ice age 26,000 years ago, North America would have been a dangerous place. “There must have been horrible storms, hail, snow,” he says. He adds that the Chiquihuite Cave is well insulated and could have provided shelter to any humans who were around to witness the blizzards.
Troublesome data

The team makes a good case for ancient human occupation, says François Lanoë, an archaeologist and anthropologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson. But he adds that data from caves are “notoriously troublesome” to interpret. Stone tools might have been shifted into deeper layers by geological or biological activity — perhaps moved by burrowing animals — making them seem older than they really are.

That’s assuming they really are stone tools. “If an artefact is a stone tool, you see numerous chips removed from the edge,” says Rademaker. He sees no clear evidence of this in the images in the paper — a point echoed by archaeologist Ben Potter at Liaocheng University in China.

Ardelean admits that some of the tools might have shifted into lower layers, although he says the 239 oldest tools lie beneath an impenetrable layer of mud formed during the height of the last ice age, so they must be at least that old. He insists they are tools — in fact, he thinks some have telltale marks suggesting that they were made by novices learning from experts. “Somebody was teaching somebody else at this site,” he says.
Aside from the stone tools, the team found relatively little evidence of human presence. Geneticists led by Eske Willerslev at the University of Copenhagen searched for ancient human DNA in the cave dirt, but with no luck. “Of course, I was disappointed,” says Ardelean.
Early settlers

In a second study, also published in Nature2, two of Ardelean’s co-authors — archaeologists Thomas Higham and Lorena Becerra-Valdivia at the University of Oxford, UK — combined the Chiquihuite Cave evidence with data from 41 other archaeological sites in North America and a region of eastern Siberia and western Alaska called Beringia, and built a statistical model of early human settlement. They concluded that people were present across North America much earlier than the accepted date of 15,000–16,000 years ago.

Some archaeologists think that it is time to take these ideas seriously. “The growing body of evidence for people in Beringia before 15,000 years ago renders their appearance in places like Mexico 20,000 or 30,000 years ago less surprising,” says John Hoffecker, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Others disagree. Collins says Becerra-Valdivia and Higham assume that early sites such as Chiquihuite Cave and Bluefish Caves3 in Yukon, Canada, where artefacts have been dated to 24,000 years ago, offer unambiguous evidence of human activity. “This is far from the case,” he says.
Becerra-Valdivia accepts that evidence from most sites — with the exception of Monte Verde II — is disputed, but says that the analysis purposely omitted information from the most controversial sites, to make its case stronger.

If there were people in North America so early, it’s unclear what happened to them. “There continues to be no convincing genetic evidence of a pre-15,000-years-ago human presence in the Americas,” says geneticist David Reich at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts

Ardelean says there is a simple reason why genetic studies4 suggest that humans spread across the Americas only relatively recently: early groups such as the one he thinks was present at Chiquihuite Cave didn’t survive to contribute to modern gene pools. “I definitely advocate for the idea of lost groups,” he says.

TOKYO,July 22,2020: Japan’s health ministry has approved dexamethasone, a cheap and widely used steroid, as a second treatment of COVID-19 after a trial in Britain showed the drug reduced death rates in hospitalised patients.

The ministry included dexamethasone as an option for treatment along with Gilead Sciences Inc’s antiviral drug remdesivir in a recent revision to its handbook. The revision was widely reported by Japanese media on Wednesday.
In results announced last month, a trial by researchers in the United Kingdom showed dexamethasone as the first drug to save lives of COVID-19 patients in what scientists said was a major breakthrough in the coronavirus pandemic.

The full results of the large randomised clinical trial released last Friday in the New England Journal of Medicine confirmed the benefits for people with advanced or moderate disease.

Beijing [China], July 24,2020: As part of a broader offensive against India and Western rivals, Pakistan and China have entered a secret three-year agreement to expand potential bio-warfare capabilities, including several research projects related to the deadly agent anthrax, the Klaxon reported citing multiple intelligence sources.
China has been criticised for handling of coronavirus pandemic with speculations that disease could have emerged from Wuhan Institute of Virology, though most experts have discounted the theory.
According to the report authored by Anthony Klan, the same lab has signed the covert deal with Pakistan military’s Defense Science and Technology Organization (DESTO), to collaborate research in “emerging infectious diseases” and advance studies on the biological control of transmitted diseases.
As per the intelligence sources cited by The Klaxon, they have serious concerns about the covert project which involves China testing biological agents outside its borders to minimize the “risk of drawing condemnation from the international community”.
China has been accused over its opaqueness in the handling of coronavirus as crucial information of the lethal virus was not revealed in the early days of the outbreak which could have helped the pandemic to be tackled more effectively.
The infamous Wuhan Lab had “lent all financial, material and scientific support for the project”. The program being entirely funded by China is formally titled “Collaboration for Emerging Infectious Diseases and Studies on Biological Control of Vector Transmitting Diseases”, according to the report.
One senior intelligence source was quoted as saying that DESTO has been engaged in various dual-use research projects related to anthrax under a covert biological weapons program.
The Klaxon report said the “covert China-Pakistan project has conducted “successful soil sampling tests” to isolate Bacillus Thuringiensis (BT), which has a “striking similarity” to Bacillus Anthracis – or anthrax.”
“Considering the striking similarity between BT and Bacillus Anthracis, a classified bio-warfare agent, (Pakistan’s) improved know-how in handling the bacteria could enrich a potential offensive biological program,” a source was quoted as saying.
The Wuhan Lab has provided Pakistan with reagents for Bacillus Thuringiensis. It was also providing “extensive training on the manipulation of pathogens and bio-informatics” to Pakistani scientists “to help Pakistan develop its own virus collection database”, said the report.
According to an intelligence source cited by the outlet, this could help Pakistan “enhance its capability of genetic identification of viruses, access to dangerous microorganisms, and use of genomic tools for research and infectious diseases.”
The secret project was “detached from supervision of civilian universities or government health departments in Pakistan” and was structured so as to allow unspecified operations, the report said.
A source was quoted as saying that the agreement “clearly outlines that the cooperation is not necessarily limited to stated objectives” and “new thematic research to monitor potential new diseases can be added by either party”.
China’s involvement in the project is being viewed by India and key western intelligence agencies as being “driven chiefly by its agenda to engage Pakistan against India,” a security expert told The Klaxon on condition of anonymity.
“China’s keen interest in the project is driven chiefly by its agenda to engage Pakistan against India and to conduct potentially dangerous experiments on foreign soil, without subjecting its own land and people to risk,” the expert said.
The plan, according to the report, was a part of a move by Beijing to “designate Pakistan a destination for hazardous bio chemical research” while “evading use of its own territory for such activities”, which “stand the risk of drawing criticism and condemnation from the international community”.
Sources told The Klaxon that the China-Pakistan biological project had already undertaken experiments on the Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus (CCHFV), a rapid-onset fever virus that causes death in about 25% of cases and is similar to the Ebola virus.
Pakistan is allegedly carrying out tests on CCHFV in laboratories which are not equipped to handle Bio-Safety Level-4 diseases, the report stated.
The threat of biological warfare has grown considerably in recent years with experts warning that China is heavily involved in DNA research that could potentially enable a biological weapon to target, or be ineffective against, people of specific races.
Intelligence sources cited by The Klaxon said there were concerns the Wuhan Institute of Virology had also established the Institute of Medical Biology in Kunming, in China’s southern Yunnan province.
There were concerns the Kunming facility, which is controlled by the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, was also handling class-4 diseases without proper protections, the report said.
According to latest data from the Johns Hopkins University, there has been 15,439,456 cases of coronavirus worldwide, while the fatalities related to the virus has risen to 631,926.

New Delhi,July 22,2020: The Jammu and Kashmir administration and the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board on Tuesday decided to cancel the annual pilgrimage (Amarnath Yatra) for this year in view of the coronavirus outbreak in the country, The decision was taken after the Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board (SASB) met yesterday to decide on the same.
It said the Board will, however, live telecast the prayers twice a day.

“Based upon the circumstances, the Board decided with a heavy heart that it is not advisable to hold and conduct this year’s Shri Amarnathji Yatra and expressed its regret to announce the cancellation of Yatra 2020”, the board said in a statement.

New Delhi,17,2020:The total confirmed COVID-19 positive cases in India crossed the one-million mark, nearly 170 days after the first case was registered on January 30 in Kerala. India now has the third highest number of confirmed cases, behind the U.S.’s close to 3.5 million and Brazil’s 1.97 million cases.

Despite the recovery rate being nearly 63.4%, India’s cumulative test positivity rate has now reached nearly 8% and is rising steadily, indicating that higher testing will continue to reveal more infections.
After U.S., India has done most COVID-19 tests: White House

After the U.S., which has carried out 42 million COVID-19 tests, India has done the second largest number of 12 million coronavirus tests, the White House said.

With regard to (the coronavirus) testing, we’ve done more than 42 million tests. The second-highest number is 12 million from India. We’re leading the world in testing, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters at a news conference in Washington on July 16.

The White House was responding to questions related to the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.

DETROIT ,July 18,2020: Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said on Friday he is now getting intelligence briefings, and has been told Russia continues to try to meddle in November’s U.S. election.

China also was conducting activities “designed for us to lose confidence in the outcome” of the 2020 election, Biden told supporters during an online fundraiser for his campaign.

“We know from before, and I guarantee you that I know now, because now I get briefings again. The Russians are still engaged in trying to delegitimize our electoral process. Fact,” Biden said.

He warned that if Russia continued to interfere there would be “a real price to pay” if he wins the November election against Republican President Donald Trump.

It is unclear when Biden began receiving the intelligence briefings, which are normal for major party presidential nominees. His campaign did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Biden said at a June 30 press conference he had not been offered a classified briefing and “may very well” ask for one in the aftermath of reports Trump did not act on intelligence reports that Russia had put bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
The former vice president under President Barack Obama has criticized Trump over reports he does not read his intelligence briefings.

Multiple U.S. intelligence agencies found Russia acted to help Trump in the 2016 election, a charge Russia denies and which Trump has repeatedly labeled a “hoax.”

New York, Jul 23,2020: The global confirmed COVID-19 cases has topped 15 million, reaching 15,008,046, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.
A total of 617,902 people worldwide have died of the disease, the data showed on Wednesday.
The United States has suffered the most from the pandemic, with 3,919,550 cases and 142,350 fatalities, the tally showed.
Countries with more than 300,000 cases also include Brazil, India, Russia, South Africa, Peru, Mexico and Chile, according to the CSSE.

New Delhi, July 17,2020:: E-commerce platforms like OLX and Quikr selling animals online without registration is a complete violation of animal protection laws and must be stopped, Animal Welfare Board of India, a central government body, said on Thursday.
The demand for a crackdown on these online portals has come after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India appealed to AWBI to stop e-commerce portals such as OLX and Quikr from trading in live animals.
AWBI is a statutory advisory body advising the Government of India’s Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying (Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying).
The agency also notified the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MoEIT) that these companies are selling live animals without being registered with state animal welfare boards as ‘pet shops’.
Under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Pet Shop) Rules, 2018, registration is required, the agency said.
“The Animal Welfare Board of India has called for a crackdown on the illegal sale of vulnerable live animals. Animals suffer when they’re traded online as if they were handbags or teacups rather than living, feeling beings, and PETA India is urging people to adopt only from reputable animal shelters that do thorough checks for good homes,” Mallika Roy, PETA India Corporate Liaison told ANI.
Most pet shops including online platforms and dog breeders operating across the country are not registered with state boards as required by both the Pet Shop Rules and the Dog Breeding and Marketing Rules, 2017.
In the latest advisory to the MoEIT, the Board acknowledges that despite its advisory, unregistered dog breeders and pet shops continue to indulge in the illegal trade.
It has been largely observed that animals face several mistreatments by breeders and pet shops such as illegal ear and tail mutilations, cosmetic cruelties, confinement of animals and other such behaviours lead to a severe health crisis of the animals, be it a grown-up or newborn, AWBI said.

Jammu, July 16,2020: The last prince of Dogra dynasty and former minister Karan Singh condemned the statement of Nepal Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, who claimed that “the birthplace of Bhagwan Ram is in Nepal”.
Karan Singh, a scholar of high calibre and one of the most knowledgeable on Hindu scriptures and history, used quite strong words to condemn Oli who had been trying to distort the history and geography vis-à-vis India in the recent weeks because of domestic political compulsions.

In a statement issued here on Wednesday, the former Member Parliament said, “The bizarre statement by Prime Minister Oli that Sri Ram was in fact born in a village in East Nepal and that our Ayodhya is only an artificial concept created by India is indeed mind-boggling. This outrageous statement will have hurt the sentiments of a billion Hindus living not only in India and Nepal but around the world.”

Karan Singh further said, “The statement could have been dismissed as the gymnastics of a distorted mind, except that it comes fast on the heels of Oli’s unfortunate unilateral action regarding a territorial dispute with India.”

“It would appear that he is trying to do whatever he can, even going to the extent of an absurd statement regarding Ayodhya and Sri Ram, to widen the distance between India and Nepal,” he added.

“Right thinking people in both countries should be aware of this ominous policy and do whatever is possible to recreate the friendly age-old ties between our two countries,” said the veteran leader.