Junior Digest

Rome , Mar 16,2020: The number of people who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus since the epidemic hit Italy reached 17,750 as of Saturday, authorities said.
The figure marked an increase of 2,795 cases over that of the previous day and did not include recoveries or fatalities, according to the latest update provided at a press conference by the Civil Protection Department. The death toll also grew by 175 cases on a daily basis to 1,441, Xinhua news agency reported.
Some 527 people were dismissed in the day, bringing the total cases to 1,966, the Department chief Angelo Borrelli was quoted as saying at a televised press conference.
Among the 17,750 people positive for COVID-19, some 1,518 were currently in intensive care (190 new cases), while 8,372 were hospitalized with symptoms and 7,860 under home confinement as they were asymptomatic or with light symptoms.
Considering all data (including deaths and recoveries), the total number of assessed coronavirus cases in Italy was 21,157, Borrelli added.
One of the latest cases was Italy’s Deputy Minister of Health Pierpaolo Sileri, who issued a statement on Saturday confirming that he had tested positive.
By making his infection known, Sileri joined a growing list of high-profile Italian officials infected that includes Nicola Zingaretti, president of the region of central Lazio and head of the Democratic Party; Alberto Cirio, president of the northern region of Piedmont; Army Chief of Staff Salvatore Farina, and Deputy Minister of Education Anna Ascani.
Italy’s National Health Institute (ISS) provided insights related to lethality (number of deaths out of the total number of infected people) on the base of data updated until Friday.
“The lethality of COVID-19 in Italy is currently 5.8 per cent,” the ISS said in a statement on Friday.
“The average age of deceased patients positive to COVID-19 is 80 years, about 15 years higher than the average age of those infected (living).”
“Stratified by age group, lethality is not higher than that in other countries,” explained Graziano Onder, director of the ISS department of cardiovascular, endocrine-metabolic, and aging diseases.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared that Europe has become the new ‘epicentre’ of the global coronavirus pandemic that has infected more than 15 lakh people with over 4000 deaths.

Mar 16,2020:Faced with a growing economic shutdown from the coronavirus pandemic, the US Federal Reserve on Sunday announced drastic emergency measures to shore up confidence and keep the financial sector running, including slashing the key interest rate to virtually zero.

The Fed made its second emergency rate cut in less than two weeks, cutting the benchmark borrowing rate to a range of 0-0.25 percent, where it was during the 2008 global financial crisis, and pledged to keep it there “until it is confident that the economy has weathered recent events.”

The central bank also announced massive asset purchases, opened its discount-lending windows to banks and urged them to use it to help businesses and households.

In another move, it removed bank reserve requirements to allow them to use cash backstops.

The Fed joined forces with other major central banks to guarantee the global financial system has enough cash to continue to operate.

The action was coordinated with the European Central Bank, Bank of England, Bank of Japan, Bank of Canada and the Swiss National Bank.

President Donald Trump, who in the past has repeatedly berated the independent central bank for not acting more aggressively, praised the moves.

“What’s happened with the Fed is phenomenal news,” Trump said at a regular briefing of his coronavirus task force.

“It’s a tremendous thing that took place just now,” he said. “I can tell you, I’m very happy. I didn’t expect this. And I like being surprised.”

The massive show of financial force, coming as more countries are on lockdown due to the spread of the COVID-19 illness, aims to contain the economic fallout as businesses are forced to shut their doors in an already sluggish global economy.

“The swap lines are available standing facilities and serve as an important liquidity backstop to ease strains in global funding markets,” a joint statement from the central banks said.

The Fed’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee, following its emergency meeting, said that “the coronavirus outbreak has harmed communities and disrupted economic activity in many countries, including the United States.”

The committee, which had been due to hold a regularly-scheduled two-day meeting starting Tuesday, vowed to “use its tools and act as appropriate to support the economy,” though what tools it has left is a question.

One FOMC member dissented from the vote. Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester objected only to the move to take the federal funds rate nearly to zero.

– ‘Time is of the essence’ –

In the wake of the global financial crisis, the bank regulators including the Fed had required lending institutions to build up a large cash buffer in case of another emergency, so they would not require a government bailout.

The Fed decision on Sunday unleashed those reserves so bank can help support families and businesses, with more than $4 trillion at their disposal.

Mar 06, 2020: New Delhi : In the wake of coronavirus outbreak, the University Grants Commission has issued an advisory to universities asking students to avoid large gatherings on campuses.
“Avoid large gathering on campus, any student or staff with travel history to COVID-19 affected countries or in contact with an infected person in the last 28 days should be home quarantined for 14 days,” the advisory added.
Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan earlier today held a review meeting with states over preparedness for coronavirus. State governments have been asked to keep the testing and quarantine facilities, isolation wards and labs in active readiness.
The country’s total number of positive cases of coronavirus touched 31 today.
COVID-19 has so far killed more than 3200 people globally.

Mar 7,2020:Dozens of people were killed when gunmen opened fire at a political rally in Kabul on Friday, the deadliest assault in Afghanistan since the US signed a withdrawal deal with the Taliban.

The attack, claimed by the Islamic State group, highlights a glaring lack of security in the Afghan capital just 14 months ahead of the scheduled withdrawal of all foreign forces.

It also calls into question a key element of the US-Taliban deal signed February 29 — whether the Taliban can stop jihadists such as IS from running amok in Afghanistan after US forces pull out.

In a statement, IS said two brothers had targeted a “gathering of apostates” with machine guns and grenades.

The gunmen inflicted devastating carnage at the crowded event in west Kabul, killing 32 people and wounding 58 others, health ministry spokesman Wahidullah Mayar told AFP.

Interior ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi put the toll at 29 dead, with an additional 61 wounded. He said special forces units eventually killed the two gunmen.

The assault occurred at a commemoration ceremony for Abdul Ali Mazari — a politician from the Hazara ethnic group, most of whom are Shiite Muslims.

The Sunni-extremist IS had claimed an attack on the same ceremony last year, when a barrage of mortar fire killed at least 11 people.

Rahimi said gunfire had erupted from a construction site near the event.
Several top political officials were at the ceremony, including Afghanistan’s chief executive Abdullah Abdullah.

The interior ministry later confirmed that all the high-ranking officials had been “safely evacuated.”

“We left the ceremony following the gunfire, and a number of people were wounded, but I do not have any reports of martyred people for now,” Hazara leader Mohammad Mohaqiq told Tolo News.

President Ashraf Ghani condemned the massacre as a “crime against humanity”.

New Delhi, Mar 15,2020: The Indians who landed from Milan, Italy at the Delhi airport on Sunday have been taken to the Indo-Tibetan Border Police’s Camp in Chhawla, where they will be quarantined.
The 218 Indians that included 211 students from Milan landed in Delhi this morning who were flown in from Milan by Air India.
All of them will be quarantined for a period of 14 days, beginning Sunday, Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan said.
‘218 Indians including 211 students from Milan landed in Delhi. All will be quarantined for 14 days. GoI is committed to reach out to Indians in distress, wherever they are ! Appreciate Govt. of Italy for their support and team,’ MoS External Affairs said in a tweet.
On Saturday after completing requisite quarantine period and being tested negative twice in 16 days of stay, 112 Wuhan evacuees, including 36 foreigners, left the ITBP facility, Chhawla, New Delhi in different batches.

Mar 11,2020: The Amazon rainforest is nearing a threshold which, once crossed, would see one of the world’s largest and richest ecosystems morph into arid savannah within half-a-century, scientists said Tuesday.

Another major ecosystem, Caribbean coral reefs, could die off in only 15 years were it to pass its own point-of-no-return, the scientists reported in the journal Nature Communications.

Each of these so-called “regime changes” would have dire consequences for humanity and other species with which we share habitat, they warned.

In both cases the projected tipping point for irreversible change results from global warming and environmental damage — deforestation in the case of the Amazon, and pollution and acidification for corals.

The UN’s climate science advisory panel, the IPCC, has said that 1.5 degrees Celsius of atmospheric warming above preindustrial levels would doom 90 percent of the world’s shallow-water corals. A 2C rise would spell their near-complete demise.

Earth’s surface has already heated up more than 1C.

The temperature tipping point for the Amazon is less clear, but scientists estimate that clearing 35 percent of its surface would trigger its eventual demise.

About 20 percent of the Amazon basin rainforest — straddling seven nations and covering more than five million square kilometres (two million square miles) — has been wiped out since 1970, mostly for the production of lumber, soy, palm oil, biofuels and beef.
“Humanity needs to prepare for changes far sooner than expected,” said lead author Simon Willcock, a professor at Bangor University’s School of Natural Science.

Recent out-of-control fires in the Amazon and Australia — both made more likely and more intense by climate change — suggest that many ecosystems are “teetering on the edge of this precipice,” he added.

– From ‘sink’ to ‘source’ –

Scientists not involved in the research endorsed its methodology and sounded an alarm at its conclusions.

“The implications of the study for the Amazon are terrifying,” said Alexandre Antonelli, director of science at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew, London.

“Unless urgent action is taken now, we may be on the brink of losing the world’s largest and most biodiverse rainforest, which has evolved for at least 58 million years and sustains the lives of tens of millions of people.”

The Amazon ecosystem could pass a point-of-no-return as soon as next year, Willcock and colleagues reported.

Another study, published last week, showed that the world’s tropical forests are rapidly loosing their capacity to absorb planet-warming carbon dioxide emitted by burning fossil fuels, with the Amazon in the process of flipping from a CO2 “sink” to “source”.
Global forests — and especially the tropics — soak up 25 to 30 percent of the CO2 humanity spews into the atmosphere. Oceans take up another 20 to 25 percent.

The Amazon’s dense tropical canopy — the largest in the world — also stores a huge amount of carbon, roughly equivalent to 10 times the amount discharged into the atmosphere every year.

“The new findings are a further reminder that this ecosystem … is at risk over a timescale of no more than a few decades,” Georgina Mace, a professor or biodiversity and ecosystems at University College London, commented.

It has long been known that ecosystems can shift, sometimes quickly, under stress.

The researchers analysed such transformations in more than 40 natural environments on land and in water, ranging in size from small ponds to the Black Sea.

One of these — the Sahel in Africa — changed from forested landscape to desert, though over a longer timescale.

“Big systems collapse much faster than you might expect,” said co-author John Dearing, a professor at Southampton University in England.

The modular structure of large ecosystems initially provides resilience against changes such as global warming or forest destruction, he explained.

But once a certain threshold is crossed, the same modularity causes the rate at which the system unravels to accelerate.

Imphal (Manipur), Mar 10,2020: Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Tuesday said that the international border with Myanmar has been closed as a precautionary measure to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
“As a precautionary measure of transmission of Coronavirus /COVID-19, the international border with Myanmar has been closed including gate no 1 and 2 in Moreh until further orders,” Singh said in a tweet along with a picture of the official order.
According to the order issued on March 9, 2020, the Manipur government has prohibited the movement of people across the border and thereby closed the gates along the border until further orders.
“Concerned authorities, including district magistrates, IGAR(S), Assistant Commissioner/Imphal Customs Division, State police are instructed to take necessary action immediately, including keeping the concerned gates closed,” the order read.
This comes as several cases of the deadly COVID-19, a new virus of the coronavirus family, have spread in various countries across the world.

Mar 9,2020: Nuclear-armed North Korea on Monday fired what Japan said appeared to be ballistic missiles, a week after a similar weapons test by Pyongyang.

Analysts say the North has been continuing to refine its weapons capabilities during its long-stalled nuclear discussions with the US, which have been at a standstill since the collapse of the Hanoi summit between leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump more than a year ago.

The North “appeared to have carried out joint firing drills involving various types of multiple rocket launchers”, the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, expressing “strong regret” over Pyongyang’s actions. Initially they said three projectiles were involved, before changing the description to “multiple”.

The devices were fired northeastwards into the sea from South Hamgyong province and flew 200 kilometres (124 miles) at a maximum altitude of 50 kilometres, the JCS said.

That was slightly shorter but also slightly higher than last Monday’s firing.

A Japanese defence ministry spokesman said North Korea had launched what appeared to be “ballistic missile(s)” — which it is banned from doing under UN Security Council resolutions.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told parliament: “Repeated launches of items such as ballistic missiles have been a serious issue for the international community, including our country.
In an emergency meeting, South Korea’s security ministers said the North’s continued firing drills were “not helpful” to efforts for lasting peace on the Korean peninsula.

Three projectiles fired successfully from a single Transporter Erector Launcher (TEL) would be “a new milestone” for the North’s short-range ballistic missile programme, tweeted Ankit Panda, senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists.

Vipin Narang of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology added: “Kim continues to test, improve, and operationalize his force.”

After last week’s launch the North’s state media said Kim had overseen a “long-range artillery” drill, carrying images of multiple launch rocket systems and several of a larger calibre rocket being fired in a forest.

The South’s military had said that launch appeared to be two short-range ballistic missiles.

Mar 10,2020:Italy imposed unprecedented national restrictions on its 60 million people Tuesday over the deadly coronavirus that US President Donald Trump said had “blindsided the world”.

The outbreak, combined with a crash in oil prices, has caused carnage on financial markets, erasing billions of dollars globally.

The World Health Organization warned there is a “very real” threat of a pandemic, but its chief said the planet was “not at the mercy” of an illness that has killed more than 4,000 people so far.

In China, where the virus emerged, the outbreak appeared to be coming under control, with authorities announcing just 17 deaths on Tuesday and the lowest number of new infections since reporting began in late January.

But elsewhere, COVID-19 has been spreading rapidly, particularly in Italy, where more than 9,000 cases and 463 deaths have been reported.
In a desperate bid to stem the spread, Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte went on television to announce the entire country would effectively be placed on lockdown from Tuesday.

“I am going to sign a decree that can be summarised as follows: I stay at home,” Conte said.

“Travel must be avoided across the entire peninsula unless it is justified by professional reasons, by cases of need or for health reasons,” he told Italians.

– ‘Blindsided the world’ –

The measures extend a quarantine zone that Italy had imposed for its industrial northern heartland around Milan and Venice on Sunday.
The national restrictions will run until April 3 and mean that schools and universities will all immediately close.

Serie A football matches and all other sporting events are also being suspended for the coming month.

But it was not immediately clear how the measures would be enforced.

Trains and numerous flights continued to operate into and out of Milan on Monday despite the earlier set of restrictions for its Lombardy region.
Since COVID-19 first emerged in China late last year, Italy has become Europe’s hardest-hit country.

An AFP count showed the country had recorded more than half of the 862 deaths reported outside China as of Monday night.

Worldwide more than 110,000 cases have been recorded in over 100 countries.

It has disrupted global travel, cancelled sporting events and sent markets into meltdown.

In Washington, President Donald Trump said he would propose “very substantial” economic measures to Congress on Tuesday, adding that the coronavirus has “blindsided the world.”

However, some epidemiologists have accused the White House of a strategy concerned more with the political narrative than domestic readiness.
Chief among the complaints has been the lack of testing caused by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developing its own flawed kits.

Uncertainty over the spread of the virus, coupled with a collapse in oil prices, created panic on the markets during what some dubbed “Black Monday,” with the Dow Jones index losing more than 2,000 points.

There were signs of a slight recovery on Tuesday morning trade in Asia, with oil making back some of its losses.

– Pandemic threat ‘very real’: WHO’

The run on stock market prices has robbed Trump of one of his main talking points ahead of the November presidential election.
And there was further alarm after at least two Republican lawmakers who recently met with the president announced they were going into self-quarantine, fearing that they were exposed to the virus at a conservative conference.

There are concerns that the United States could become another hotspot for the virus, with at least 26 deaths and 605 confirmed infections so far.

On Monday, passengers were taken ashore from a cruise ship docked in California after at least 21 people on board were diagnosed with the virus.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned that “the threat of a pandemic has become very real.”

But he told reporters Monday that “even if we call it a pandemic, still we can contain it and control it.

“It would be the first pandemic in history that can be controlled,” he said. “We are not at the mercy of the virus.”

He said China appeared to be bringing the epidemic under control, but warned that “the disease has not run its course.”

Mar 12,2020:The US Congress on Wednesday gave its final approval to a bid to restrain President Donald Trump from attacking Iran, a sign of lawmakers’ alarm after soaring tensions.

A month after the resolution cleared the key hurdle of the Senate, which is controlled by Trump’s Republican Party, the Democratic-led House of Representatives voted 227-186 to approve the measure that bars any military action against Iran without an explicit vote from Congress.

But the resolution is virtually certain to be vetoed by Trump, and the coalition of most Democrats and a handful of war-skeptic Republicans lacks the votes to override him.

Mar8,2020: Air India will operate 52 flights including eight on overseas routes with all-women crew to mark the International Women’s Day today.

The national carrier tweeted that it would operate 8 international and 44 domestic momentous flights with all women crew to mark the International Women’s Day.

Air India is perhaps the only single airline to operate so many domestic and international flights, operated and supported by women employees.

Mar 12,2020: Greenland and Antarctica are shedding six times more ice than during the 1990s, driving sea level rise that could see annual flooding by 2100 in regions home today to some 400 million people, scientists have warned.

The kilometres-thick ice sheets atop land masses at the planet’s extremities sloughed off 6.4 trillion tonnes of mass from 1992 through 2017, adding nearly two centimetres (an inch) to the global watermark, according to an assessment by 89 researchers, the most comprehensive to date.

Last summer’s Arctic heatwave will likely top the 2011 record for polar ice sheet loss of 552 billion tonnes, they reported in a pair of studies, published Wednesday in Nature.

That is roughly the equivalent of eight Olympic pools draining into the ocean every second.

While less visible than climate-enhanced hurricanes, sea level rise may ultimately prove the most devastating of global warming impacts.

Indeed, it is the added centimetres — perhaps added metres by the 22nd century — that make storm surges from climate-enhanced tropical cyclones so much more deadly and destructive, experts say.
“Every centimetre of sea level rise leads to coastal flooding and coastal erosion, disrupting lives around the planet,” said University of Leeds professor Andrew Shepherd, who led the analysis along with Erik Ivins from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“If Antarctica and Greenland continue to track worst-case climate warming scenarios, they will cause an extra 17 centimetres of sea level rise by the end of the century,” he said in a statement.

– ‘Irrefutable evidence’ –

That’s about a third of the rise forecast for 2100 by the UN’s climate science advisory panel (IPCC) under a scenario midway between a rapid drawdown of global greenhouse gases — seen by many as overly optimistic — and the unbridled expansion of fossil fuel use, also seen as unlikely.

Melting glaciers and the expansion of ocean water as it warms accounted for most sea level rise through the 20th century, but ice sheet melt-off has become a major driver over the last decade.
Almost all of the ice lost from Antarctica, and half of that from Greenland, has been triggered by warming ocean water speeding the movement of glaciers toward the sea.

Oceans help humanity by absorbing more than 90 percent of the excess heat from global warming.

The remainder of Greenland’s ice losses is due to rising air temperature, which creates roaring rivers of ocean-bound melt-water in summer.

The combined rate of mass loss from both ice sheets rose six-fold from 81 to 475 billion tonnes per year over less than three decades, the studies reported.

The findings are grounded in decades of satellite data, in situ measurements, and computer modelling.

“Satellite measurements provide prima facie, irrefutable evidence,” said Ivins.

– Point of no return –

The IPCC forecasts about half-a-metre of sea level rise by 2100 under the middle-of-the-road emissions scenario known as RCP4.5.

If humanity defies the odds and achieves “carbon neutrality” by mid-century — which means any remaining emissions are somehow offset — sea level will likely be capped at 43 cm.

The “worst case” pathway — which assumes carbon emissions continue unabated, or that Earth itself will begin to boost greenhouse gas concentrations — would see an 84 cm increase, according to an IPCC special report on oceans released in September.
Over the last decade, sea level has risen about four millimetres per year. But moving into the 22nd century, the waterline is likely to go up ten times faster, even under an optimistic emissions scenario.

Earth’s average surface temperature has warmed one degree Celsius over preindustrial levels, but polar regions have heated up twice as much.

Greenland and West Antarctica — which many scientists say has already passed a point-of-no-return and will shed all its ice eventually — together support enough frozen water to lift oceans about 13 metres.

The rest of Antarctica, which is more stable, sits underneath more than 50 metres-worth of sea level rise.

Srinagar, Mar 13,2020: Jammu and Kashmir government on Friday revoked the detention of former chief minister Farooq Abdullah with immediate effect, Principal Secretary Planning said in a tweet.
“In exercise of powers conferred under Section 19(1) of the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978, the government hereby revokes the detention order bearing No DMS/PSA/120/2019 issued by District Magistrate, Srinagar,” a statement issued by the government said.
Mr Abdullah, who has been in detention for over seven months under the J&K Public Safety Act (PSA), will be released after over six months in detention, the government order further notified.
The 83-year-old politician was placed under detention along with other political leaders including his son Omar Abdullah on August 5, when the government ended special status to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 and imposed massive restrictions.

Mar 07, 2020: Chennai : K Anbazhagan, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) General Secretary for 43 years, passed away here on Saturday at the age of 97.
He breathed his last at Apollo Hospitals in Chennai, following a prolonged illness.
Anbazhagan was the General Secretary of DMK for nine times from 1977. He was a nine-time MLA, one-time Lok Sabha member and former finance minister of Tamil Nadu and a close friend of former Chief Minister late Karunanidhi.
He was called Peraasiriyar (professor) as he worked as a lecturer in Pachayappa college from 1944 to 1957, later he resigned and contested election.
DMK President MK Stalin released a statement on DMK Anbazhagan’s death on Saturday.
“DMK condoles the demise of General Secretary K. Anbazhagan. DMK postpones all its party functions for 1 week and all DMK flags to fly half-mast for a week,” the statement read.

Mar 15,2020: Syria’s brutal conflict enters its 10th year Sunday with President Bashar al-Assad’s regime consolidating its hold over a war-wracked country with a decimated economy where foreign powers flex their muscle.

When Syrians took to the streets on March 15, 2011, they could scarcely have imagined their anti-government protests would turn into a complex war entangling rebels, jihadists and outside forces.

At least 384,000 people have since died, including more than 116,000 civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Saturday.

The conflict has displaced more than 11 million people internally and abroad.

“Nine years of revolution illustrate the extent of the suffering we have known, between exile, bombings and deaths,” said Hala Ibrahim, a rights activist who now lives in the town of Dana, in Idlib province.

“I left my university, my house which was bombed,” the woman in her 30s said. “We’ve lost everything.”

Originally from the northern city of Aleppo, Ibrahim left in late 2016 after the regime retook rebel-held areas and she sought refuge in Idlib.

The northwestern region — Syria’s last rebel stronghold — is the regime’s latest target.

Thanks to the military support of Russia, Iran and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Assad has clawed back control of over 70 percent of the war-torn country.

A fragile ceasefire came into effect in the northwest earlier this month, and Turkish and Russian officials have agreed to start joint patrols in Idlib.

Syrian forces and Russian warplanes have heavily bombarded the region since December, killing nearly 500 civilians, the Observatory says, and forcing nearly a million to flee, according to the United Nations.

Mar 9,2020:The founder of India’s Yes Bank was arrested on allegations of money laundering Sunday, amid efforts to formulate a rescue plan for the country’s fourth-largest private lender.

In a late-night move Friday, the Central Bank seized control and imposed withdrawal limits on Yes Bank, which has been struggling with bad loans.

Rana Kapoor was arrested at about 3:00 am Sunday after being questioned for more than 20 hours by officials from the Enforcement Directorate, India’s financial intelligence agency, in Mumbai.
Officials earlier raided Kapoor’s sea-facing residence in an upscale Mumbai neighbourhood.

The limit on withdrawals to 50,000 rupees ($678) every 30 days had sent customers rushing to Yes Bank ATMs and branches on Friday and Saturday in a desperate bid to retrieve their deposits.

The State Bank of India, the country’s largest lender, said Saturday it was ready to invest 24.5 billion rupees for a 49 percent stake in Yes Bank as part of a Reserve Bank of India-backed rescue plan.

New Delhi, Mar 10,2020: Indian Air Force’s (IAF) transport aircraft G-17 Globemaster carrying 58 Indian nationals from Tehran in Iran landed at Hindan air base in Ghaziabad on Tuesday morning.
“C-17 aircraft landed back at Hindan now on it’s return from Iran,” IAF spokesperson Group Capt Anupam Banerjee announced.
Minister for External Affairs S Jaishankar also tweeted before landing of IAF’s aircraft, “First batch of 58 Indian pilgrims being brought back from #Iran. IAF C-17 taken off from Tehran and expected to land soon in Hindon.”
Jaishankar also appreciated the effort put in by Indian Embassy in Iran.
“Thanks to the efforts of our Embassy @India_in_Iran and Indian medical team there, operating under challenging conditions. Thank you @IAF_MCC. Appreciate cooperation of Iranian authorities,” he said in his Twitter thread.
“We are working on the return of other Indians stranded there,” the minister added.
Iran is one of the countries which is worst affected by COVID-19.
“At least 194 of our compatriots who fell sick with the Covid-19 illness have passed away,” Iranian Health Ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said in a televised news conference.
Mr Jahanpour added that 743 new infections were confirmed within the past 24 hours, bringing the number of cases to 6,566 spread across all of Iran’s 31 provinces.
With 1,805 infections, the capital Tehran remains part of the province with the most cases, the spokesman added.

Mar 7,2020: Saudi authorities have detained three princes including King Salman’s brother and nephew on charges of plotting a coup, the US media reported Friday, signalling a further consolidation of power by the kingdom’s de facto ruler.

The detentions cast aside the last vestiges of potential opposition to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and come as the kingdom limits access to Islam’s holiest sites in a highly sensitive move to contain the fast-spreading coronavirus.

Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, a brother of King Salman, and the monarch’s nephew Prince Mohammed bin Nayef were accused of treason and taken from their homes early Friday by black-clad royal guards, the Wall Street Journal reported citing unnamed sources.

The Saudi royal court has accused the two men, once potential contenders for the throne, of “plotting a coup to unseat the king and crown prince” and could face lifetime imprisonment or execution, the newspaper said.

The New York Times also reported the detentions, adding that Prince Nayef’s younger brother, Prince Nawaf bin Nayef, had also been detained.

Saudi authorities did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The detentions mark the latest crackdown by Prince Mohammed, who has consolidated his grip on power with the imprisonment of prominent clerics and activists as well as princes and business elites.

Prince Mohammed has also faced a torrent of international condemnation over the murder of critic Jamal Khashoggi inside the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate in October 2018.

Already viewed as the de facto ruler controlling all the major levers of government, from defence to the economy, the prince is widely seen to be stamping out traces of internal dissent before a formal transfer of power from his 84-year-old father King Salman.

Mar 11,2020: Russian President Vladimir Putin laid out a path Tuesday to staying in power beyond 2024, as lawmakers approved sweeping reforms to the constitution.

In a surprise address to the lower house State Duma, Putin said there could be a presidential “reset” allowing him to run after his current term expires.

“This would be possible… if the constitutional court rules such an amendment would not go against (the constitution),” he said.

Putin appeared before the Duma after lawmakers proposed a series of amendments to a package of constitutional reforms he announced in January.

Among them was an amendment put forward by Valentina Tereshkova, an MP and Soviet-era cosmonaut who was the first woman in space, that would annul previous presidential terms.

This would allow 67-year-old Putin, who was first elected in 2000, to run again after his current six-year term expires, and potentially stay in power until 2036. “These amendments are long overdue, they are needed, and I am sure they will be useful for society, for our citizens,” he told lawmakers.

He said Russia needed evolutionary change, “because we have had enough of revolutions” while suggesting that the country may not yet be ready for a new leader.

Shortly after his address, Moscow’s mayor banned gatherings of more than 5,000 people through to April 10, justifying the move with the need to fight the spread of the coronavirus.

Lawmakers also proposed holding early parliamentary elections but Putin said that was not necessary and the amendment was withdrawn. He also rejected a call for a lifting of the overall two-term presidential limit.

Deputies then voted to approve the reforms in the key second reading, with 382 in favour, 44 abstentions and none against.

Opposition came outside the chamber, however, in the form of a protest by some 100 people in central Moscow while opposition groups called for rallies on Friday.

A third and final reading is due in the Duma on Wednesday, followed by approval in the upper house Federation Council and a public vote on the reforms planned for April 22.

Putin shocked Russia’s political establishment by announcing the package of reforms in January, the first major changes to the country’s basic law since 1993.

The political changes will also give parliament the power to choose the government and increase the role of the State Council, an advisory body.

Mar 9,2020:TOKYO: Oil prices plunged around 25% on Monday, heading towards their biggest daily loss since 1991 after Saudi Arabia slashed prices and set plans for a big increase in crude production in April.
Prices fell as much as 31% following the Saudi move to start a price war after Russia balked at making the further steep output cuts proposed by OPEC to stabilize oil markets hit by worries over the global spread of the coronavirus.

Brent crude futures were down $11.31, or 25%, at $33.96 a barrel by 0319 GMT, after earlier dropping to $31.02, their lowest since Feb. 12, 2016. Brent futures are on track for their biggest daily decline since Jan. 17, 1991, at the start of the first Gulf War.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude fell by $10.73, or 26%, to $30.55 a barrel, after touching $30, its lowest since Feb. 22, 2016. The U.S. benchmark is also heading for its biggest falling since January 1991.
The disintegration of the grouping called OPEC+ – made up of OPEC plus other producers including Russia – ends more than three years of cooperation on supporting the market, most recently to stabilize prices under threat from the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak.

Saudi Arabia plans to boost its crude output above 10 million barrels per day (bpd) in April after the current deal to curb production expires at the end of March, two sources told Reuters on Sunday.

The world’s biggest oil exporter is attempting to punish Russia, the world’s second-largest producer, for not supporting the production cuts proposed last week by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
Brent crude oil prices collapse by most since 1991 as ‘OPEC+’ disintegrates.
Saudi Arabia, Russia and other major producers last battled for market share like this between 2014 and 2016 to try to squeeze out production from the United States, which has grown to become the world’s biggest oil producer as flows from shale oil fields doubled its output over the last decade.