Junior Digest

Elected Bolivia’s first indigenous president in 2005, Morales has won his previous elections in the first round, never having to contest a run-off.

The former coca farmer and leftist union leader has led the poor but resource-rich Latin American country for the past 13 years, though his popularity has waned amid allegations of corruption and authoritarianism.

He will face a stiff challenge from Mesa, a 66-year-old former president who led Bolivia from 2001-2005.

Mesa celebrated “an unquestionable triumph” in getting to the second round, amid cheers from his supporters at his La Paz headquarters.

His support is likely to be influential during campaigning for the second round on December 15.

Morales obtained Constitutional Court permission in 2017 to run again for president even though the constitution allows only two consecutive terms.

A new mandate would keep him in power until 2025.

Across the country, demonstrators chanted the popular refrain of the 2011 Arab Spring protests: “The people demand the fall of the regime.”

Protesters in the capital blocked the road to the airport with burning tyres, while others massed near the interior ministry in central Beirut, NNA said.

“We elected them and we will remove them from power,” one protester told a local TV station.

Public anger has simmered since parliament passed an austerity budget in July with the aim of trimming the country’s ballooning deficit.

The situation worsened last month after banks and money exchange houses rationed dollar sales, sparking fears of a currency devaluation.

The government is assessing a series of further belt-tightening measures it hopes will rescue the country’s ailing economy and secure $11 billion in aid pledged by international donors last year.

And it is expected to announce a series of additional tax hikes in the coming months as part of next year’s budget.

On Wednesday, the government approved tax hikes on tobacco products.

The mission was originally planned for earlier this year but had to be aborted due to a lack of properly fitting spacesuits, leading to allegations of sexism.

Koch and Meir began the walk with standard safety checks on their suits and tethers, before making their way to the repair site on the station’s port side, as the sunlit Earth came into view.

In a call to reporters just a few minutes before, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine emphasized the symbolic significance of the day.

“We want to make sure that space is available to all people, and this is another milestone in that evolution,” he said.

“I have an 11-year-old daughter, I want her to see herself as having all the same opportunities that I found myself as having when I was growing up.”

When Koch and Meir had been outside the space station for about five hours, President Donald Trump reached them in a video call and told them they had made history.

“You are very brave, brilliant women,” Trump said.

“You represent this country so well,” the president added. “We are very proud of you.”

Meir, a 42-year-old marine biologist who was recruited by NASA in 2013, answered by paying tribute to female pioneers of the past.

“We don’t want to take too much credit because there have been many other female spacewalkers before us,” she said.

“That is a view,” one of them — it was not clear which — said at one point, as the earth was lit up in bright light from the sun.

Koch, an electrical engineer who is leading the mission, was carrying out her fourth spacewalk and was hooked up to the station’s robotic arm.

Meir, making her first spacewalk, carefully made her way using handles.

The two were working to replace a faulty battery charge/discharge unit, known as a BCDU.

The station relies on solar power but is out of direct sunlight for much of its orbit and therefore needs batteries. The BCDUs regulate the amount of charge that goes into them.

The current task was announced Monday and is part of a wider mission of replacing aging nickel-hydrogen batteries with higher-capacity lithium-ion units.

The US sent its first female astronaut into space in 1983, when Sally Ride took part in the seventh space shuttle mission, and has now had more women astronauts than any other country.

But the first woman in space was Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova in 1963, followed by compatriot Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982, who was also the first woman spacewalker two years later.

The Group of 20 economies also warned Friday of “serious” risks of money laundering, fraud and illicit finance posed by Libra, the social media network’s digital currency.

Italy, Germany and France will take unspecified steps in the coming weeks “to show clearly that Libra is unwelcome in Europe because our sovereignty is at stake,” Le Maire told reporters on the sidelines of the annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington.

“We will not allow a private company to have the same power, the same monetary power as sovereign states,” he added.

“The major difference between Facebook and governments is that we are subject to democratic control, that is the control of the people.”

The Group of Seven economies on Thursday had said any reserve-backed digital currency like Libra — known as a stablecoin — would require a sound legal framework before entering circulation.

But European officials say they want to go even further by blocking the currency outright.

Like Le Maire, German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz also said Friday he was “very skeptical” about Libra.

“I favor not allowing the establishment of such a global currency because that is the responsibility of democratic states,” he said.

But Scholz said he recognized the need for banking reforms to make cross-border payments more simple, cheap and speedy.

Riyadh, Oct 17 : At least 35 were killed and four others were wounded in a bus accident in the west of Saudi Arabia, media reported, citing police, early on Thursday.
The SPA news agency reported, citing a police spokesperson, that the bus had crashed into a heavy vehicle in the settlement of Al Akhal in the Medina region.
The police spokesperson said that there were citizens of several Arab and Asian countries inside the bus.
The probe into the accident is underway.

“Parc des Princes”, painted in 1952, was estimated to be worth between 18 and 25 million euros ($20 and $27 million) and was on the market for the first time.

The piece was owned by the artist’s family and was exhibited only a handful of times.

Between 1953 to 2003 it was displayed in New York, various galleries in Paris, such as the Pompidou Centre, as well as in London and Madrid.

The painting, which features a rich array of colours from teal to bright white, depicts an international friendly match between Sweden and France in 1952 during a golden generation of French football players.

Parc des Princes is the name of a stadium that has since been replaced and now hosts the Paris Saint-Germain club.

Christie’s said the picture represents “the height of Nicolas de Stael’s art, as well as a decisive moment in the history of post-war Western art”.

Other avant-garde artists and masterpieces from the 20th century were also up for grabs at the Christie’s auction in Paris.

Works by Rene Magritte, Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, Yves Klein, Serge Poliakoff, Paul Klee, Alberto Giacometti, Jean Dubuffet and Joan Miro were all being auctioned.

Under the deal reached after Pence flew to Ankara, Kurdish forces will have to withdraw from an area 32 kilometres (20 miles) deep, becoming a “safe zone” long sought by Turkey, which brands the fighters as “terrorists”.

Trump paved the way for the week-long Turkish incursion by withdrawing US troops but he later imposed sanctions and threatened to destroy the NATO ally’s economy as he came under fire at home.

After talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that stretched hours longer than expected, Pence told reporters that Turkey’s operation “will be halted entirely on completion” of the pullout of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and, following that, the US would withdraw sanctions.

Pence said the United States would work with the PG, the Kurdish fighters who dominate the SDF, “to facilitate an orderly withdrawal in the next 120 hours.”

SDF chief Mazlum Abdi said the forces were “ready to abide by the ceasefire” covering the area from Ras al-Ain to Tal Abyad.

But James Jeffrey, the US pointman on Syria, acknowledged that the Kurdish fighters were not happy and that Washington was using “a carrot and a stick” with threats of sanctions to enforce the deal.

“There’s no doubt that the YPG wishes that they could stay in these areas,” he told reporters travelling from Ankara with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said more than 300,000 civilians had been displaced within Syria since the start of the assault, calling it one of the largest upheavals since Syria’s civil war began in 2011.

The monitor said nearly 500 people have been killed including dozens of civilians, the majority on the Kurdish side.

New Delhi, Oct 18: India on Thursday stuck to its ground that Pakistan needs to give up its stand on levying a fee of USD 20 on pilgrims visiting Kartarpur Sahib Gurudwara and said broad agreement on all other issues have been reached.
“After several rounds of discussion with Pakistan, we have reached an agreement on all other issues, except the matter of Service Fee. Pakistan insists on levying a fee of USD 20 (approx. Rs. 1420) on all pilgrims. We have urged Pakistan not to do so in the interests of devotees, and also because this is a people to people initiative,” MEA spokesman Raveesh Kumar said in response to queries from the media on whether Agreement on Kartarpur Sahib Corridor has not yet been finalized due to the Pakistani insistence that a service fee will be charged on all devotees.
“We hope that the Agreement can be concluded and signed in time for the great event,” he said.
He further said: “The Kartarpur Sahib Corridor is an important people to people initiative taken by India to commemorate the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Devji”.

US sportswear designer Under Armour “worked day and night for about two years on this project” said Branson, who himself served as a model at the presentation at a skydiving simulator near New York.

The 69-year-old British billionaire donned the personalized royal blue suit that he plans to wear during his company’s inaugural flight — sometime in 2020.

“Spacesuits are a part of the iconography of the first space age. Our visual impressions of human spaceflight and what astronauts wear are inextricably linked,” Branson explained. “I love the way the spacewear looks and I love the way it feels.”

“I also love the fact that the next time I put it on, I will be on my way to space.”

Under Armour president Kevin Plank said the suits’ creators approached the design the same way they would think about clothing for extreme sports.

“They approached it just like one of our typical uniform deals,” Park said. “They started with… understanding the sport, understanding the needs of the athlete, understanding the extreme conditions they go through.”

The material for the suits, undergarments and boots were chosen for their ability to aid in the body’s temperature and moisture regulation.

A transparent interior pocket was added so space-exploring customers can keep pictures of their loved ones “literally… close to the heart,” according to a statement from Virgin Galactic.

And they are designed so wearers can fit perfectly into the spacecraft’s seats.

Every space tourist will get their own custom suit that they can take home with them back on Earth, complete with a label of their name and their country’s flag.

HONG KONG : Rights group Amnesty International has urged Hong Kong authorities to urgently investigate a bloody attack on the leader of one of the biggest pro-democracy groups in the Chinese-ruled city, ahead of a march planned for the weekend.

It was the second such attack on Jimmy Sham, head of the Civil Human Rights Front, since protests escalated in the Asian financial hub in mid-June and which, photographs on social media showed, left him in a pool of blood on the street.

As many as five masked men wearing black and believed to be of non-Chinese origin had attacked Sham with hammers and knives for more than 10 seconds in the gritty Mong Kok district on the Kowloon peninsula, police said late on Wednesday.

Police condemned what they called a planned attack and vowed to investigate. Sham was in stable condition, a government spokesman said.

Kabul, Oct 19 : At least 62 people were killed and nearly 60 others were injured in two blasts inside a mosque in Nangarhar province of Afghanistan during prayers, the provincial government said.
The spokesman for the Nangarhar governor, Attaullah Khogyani said that the incident took place at approximately 1330 hrs on Friday at a mosque in the Jaw Dara area of the Haska Meyna district of Nangarhar.
According to officials, the explosives were placed inside the mosque and detonated when the worshipers were busy in prayer, Tolo News reported.
Sediq Sediqqi, President Ghani’s spokesman, in a tweet strongly condemned the blasts and called out the Taliban for continuing to target civilians.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack so far, but both the Taliban and Islamic State are active in eastern Afghanistan, especially Nangarhar province.
However, the Taliban’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid condemned the attack in a statement and called it a serious crime.
Zahir Adil, spokesman for the public health department in Nangarhar province, said 23 of the wounded were transferred to Jalalabad, the provincial capital, and the rest were being treated in the Haskamena district clinic.
The violence comes a day after a UN report said Afghan civilians were dying in record numbers in the country’s increasingly brutal war, noting that more civilians died in July than in any previous month since the UN began keeping statistics.

Paris , Oct 18 : Britain and the European Union (EU) on Thursday finally struck a new Brexit deal after days of intense back-and-forth negotiations, setting the stage for another major parliamentary showdown over the United Kingdom’s bid to leave the bloc after months of political chaos.
President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, announced the agreement just hours before EU leaders were due to meet in Brussels, whom he called on to back the deal, Al Jazeera reported.
“Where there is a will, there is a deal – we have one! It’s a fair and balanced agreement for the EU and the UK and it is testament to our commitment to find solutions,” Juncker said in a post on Twitter.
Shortly after the deal was brokered, French President Emmanuel Macron said it was “good news” that a deal had been reached, and it was now down to Johnson to deliver a vote in the British Parliament on the Brexit deal agreed with the EU.
Reiterating similar sentiments, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said that the divorce agreement would now allow the UK to leave the EU in an “orderly way”.
Varadkar added that the agreement is good for both EU member Ireland and Northern Ireland, and protects the EU’s single market and Ireland’s place within it.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas also described the agreement as “nothing less than a diplomatic feat”.
Speaking to reporters in Berlin, Maas said the agreement “is proof that we all worked very responsibly together”, adding a reminder that it still needs to be discussed by EU leaders and the European Parliament.
The new agreement – which sets out a revised plan for Northern Ireland, a major stumbling block in the previous deal – must still be formally approved by all of the EU’s member states and ratified by the European and UK Parliaments.
The deal proposes that Northern Ireland will remain in the UK customs area but tariffs will apply on goods crossing from mainland Britain to the territory if they are deemed to be headed further, to Ireland and the bloc’s single market.
The House of Commons is set to vote on the agreement during a special sitting on Saturday.
However, Johnson is expected to face an uphill battle to get his revised withdrawal agreement signed off as Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has said it would not support what was being proposed in the new deal regarding customs and consent issues for Northern Ireland’s border with Ireland post-Brexit.
Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of Britain’s main opposition Labour party, meanwhile called on legislators to reject the deal delivered by Johnson.
“From what we know, it seems the prime minister has negotiated an even worse deal than Theresa May’s,” Corbyn said.
“This sell-out deal won’t bring the country together and should be rejected. The best way to get Brexit sorted is to give the people the final say in a public vote,” he added.
Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the Scottish National Party also said that her party will not vote for the new deal.
In a written statement, she said that the agreement “would take Scotland out of the European Union, out of the single market and out of the customs union against the overwhelming democratic will of the people of Scotland”.
The new agreement was brokered just two weeks before the UK is scheduled to depart the 28-member bloc on October 31.
The ruling Conservative Party has been struggling to finalise a Brexit agreement which has faced opposition and rejection by British lawmakers in the Parliament for the past several months.
Since taking office in July, Johnson has vowed to take his country out of the EU on October 31, with or without a deal.

Washington DC , Oct 20 : The trade negotiations between India and the United States are going in full swing, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said, expressing hope that the two sides will reach a trade deal soon.
Responding to a question by ANI on where the trade negotiations between the two countries stand, Sitharaman said, “That is something on which Robert Lightizher, the US Trade Representative, and Wilbur Ross, US Commerce Secretary, are working on. My inputs are that (the) negotiations are going in full speed and there’s a great intensity with which both the sides are engaging.
“Hopefully, the deal will be struck soon,” she said on Saturday.
Tensions on the trade front between the two countries had emerged in June after US President Donald Trump revoked preferential trade privileges, in response to which India imposed tariffs on 28 US products, including almonds and apples.
India had been the biggest beneficiary of the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP), a programme designed to help developing countries sell to US consumers.
The Finance Minister stated that US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is expected to visit India soon. “I expect to have a lot more detailed discussion with him then,” she said.
The Finance Minister’s remarks came following her address at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Washington.
Sitharaman said that she will prepare a blueprint for the businesses contemplating to move out of China are considering India as their preferential investment destination.
“India is one of the biggest options to consider for investors. Vietnam is getting saturated. They do not have enough manpower to address expansionary programs of investment There is saturation,” she said.
“Businesses getting out of China are certainly looking at India. It’s now important for the government to meet up with them,” she added. “I will design a blueprint and approach them, put forward to them why India is a more preferable destination.”
That could also be in specific areas in which India has common capacity ecosystem building, whether it’s electronics, lithium-ion battery or any other semiconductors and so on, she added.
The Finance Minister said that the government’s decision regarding the same is not just going to be purely on the basis of what is happening presently between the United States and China.
“That could either aggravate the situation or probably just influence at some level. But the fact remains that there are companies which are looking at relocating for various other reasons also,” she said.
“That is why I gave that little fine line that I’m drawing about companies which would want to locate elsewhere outside of China. Even as I said that, I said that not every company wants to lock, stock and barrel get out of China, there are companies which will remain there to service the Chinese market.
“After all, China has a very big domestic market. Their purchasing power and consumption style may be very different from what it is in India. But I’m making that margin already. Companies will probably be there to service the Chinese market, tension or no tension,” the Union minister said referring to the tensions between US and China.
The minister emphasised that the government wants to create an ecosystem to invite these companies.
Sitharaman said that the global economic slowdown and the estimates for growth next year are largely dependent on India and China’s growth estimates.
“I’m saying this with a sense of responsibility that the global economic slowdown and the estimates about the growth for the next year are largely pegging on India and China’s growth estimates. On their performance depends the rest of the global growth also,” she said.
“The slowdown, while it is affecting the rest of the world in a particular fashion, at least in India and China, the slowdown is not so bad. In fact, when you talk about next year, the impact of India’s growth is much better than even that is shown (in the IMF ‘s World Economic Outlook report) of China’s,” she added.

Hyderabad , Oct 18: Keeping with the growing demands of environment-friendly products for serving and packaging food products and beverages, a Hyderabad-based company has introduced cups which can be eaten after consuming cold or heat beverages.
Made from natural grains, the product is completely edible and is capable of holding all kind of beverages, the manufacturing company claims.
Named as ‘Eat Cup’, the product has been introduced by Hyderabad-based private limited company, which says that it is aimed at reducing the usage of other disposable alternatives which either require cutting of trees or are harmful to the human body.
Ashok Kumar, Executive Director, of the company producing these cups says, “Eat Cup is made from natural grain products and presents a viable alternative to both plastic and paper cups, and is a step forward in reducing their negative ecological impact and massive carbon footprint.”
According to the manufacturers, Eat Cup is suitable for all kinds of hot and cold beverages, soups, desserts, yoghurt etc. and stays crispy, without getting soggy, for up to 40 minutes.
Since no artificial lining or coating is used, Eat Cup does not alter the taste of the contents, the company claims.

WASHINGTON: Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday attacked the rapidly growing Chinese short-video app, saying it censored political protest, including in the United States.

While delivering an address on free speech at Georgetown University in Washington, Zuckerberg said Facebook social media platforms like WhatsApp were used by protesters and activists everywhere because of its encryption and privacy protection.

But “on TikTok, the Chinese app growing quickly around the world, mentions of these same protests are censored, even here in the U.S.,” he said.

TikTok denied China censors its content, saying it is “not influenced by any foreign government.”

Facebook competes directly with TikTok, especially among younger audiences. The app enable users to create and share short singing and dancing videos that are set to well-known songs, with numerous special effect filters.

Zuckerberg, in a recently leaked recording of him speaking with company employees, noted that TikTok was the first successful Chinese internet product worldwide. “It’s starting to do well in the U.S., especially with young folks.”

Zuckerberg’s Thursday comments came just two weeks after Senator Marco Rubio asked a U.S. national security panel to review TikTok owner Beijing ByteDance Technology Co Ltd’s acquisition of Musical.ly Inc, arguing TikTok is used by the Chinese government to censor politically sensitive content.

In a letter requesting the review, Rubio noted that despite Hong Kong protests dominating international headlines for months, “the app only had a few videos” of the protests.

Rubio said Chinese-owned apps “are increasingly being used to censor content and silence open discussion on topics deemed sensitive by the Chinese Government and Communist Party.”

ByteDance is one of China’s fastest growing startups. It owns the country’s leading news aggregator, Jinri Toutiao, as well as TikTok, which has attracted celebrities like Ariana Grande and Katy Perry along with legions of U.S. teenagers.

Asked whether they had a message for the 48 percent of British voters who backed staying in the EU in the June 2016 Brexit referendum, Juncker simply said: “I would like to say to the 48 that they were right.”

And Tusk said: “I regret that it was 48 and not 52.”

But despite their misgivings, both men argued that the deal would protect the rights of remaining EU citizens and the integrity of the bloc’s single market.

WASHINGTON: The European Union, China, India and several other countries teamed up on Friday to coordinate rules and standards for trillions of dollars of private and public “green” investment needed over decades to prevent irreversible climate change.

The initiative, called the International Platform on Sustainable Finance (IPSF), also involves Argentina, Chile, Canada, Kenya and Morocco – a group responsible for 44% of the world’s GDP and the same amount of carbon dioxide emissions.

Its aim is not to raise money, but to harmonize rules on what is sustainable, or “green” investment, across the world so that private capital can flow into it more freely.

“To deal with climate change Europe can only do so much, because Europe generates only around 9% of emissions,” European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis told Reuters on the sidelines of International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington where the initiative was launched.

“While public funding will be vital for the transition, it cannot pay the massive bill alone. We also have to tap into private capital to raise the trillions needed,” he said.

The European Union’s executive arm, the European Commission, in June sought to boost the flow of private money to tackle climate change by publishing guidelines on what qualifies as environmentally friendly investment.

But China and some others also have their own rules on that, which shows the need for a joint initiative to keep them harmonized to avoid market fragmentation, Dombrovskis said.

The European Union has agreed to substantial reductions of carbon emissions by 2030 and the Commission wants the bloc to reduce them to zero by 2050 to help stop global warming, the rise of average worldwide temperatures.

To cut emissions by 2030, many sectors of the economy, such as manufacturing, agriculture and energy, require an extra annual investment of between 180 and 290 billion euros and even more is needed to achieve zero emissions by 2050.

“We need to have the international community on board and that is why we are launching the international platform for sustainable finance to exchange best practices, to coordinate our approach,” Dombrovskis said.

The United States, the world’s biggest economy which is also second biggest in terms of CO2 emissions after China, was conspicuously absent from the initiative as President Donald Trump maintains that global warming is a “hoax.”

“The U.S. it is not among the founding members, but we see lots of interest from U.S. states, from the industry, from the financial sector,” Dombrovskis said.

Almost all public transport was paralyzed in Santiago, with shops shuttered and many flights canceled at the international airport, leaving thousands of people stranded and unable to leave due to the curfew.

After an emergency meeting late Sunday, President Sebastian Pinera defended his decision to call a state of emergency and deploy troops onto the streets for the first time since Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship between 1974-1990.

“Democracy not only has the right, it has the obligation to defend itself using all the instruments that democracy itself provides, and the rule of law to combat those who want to destroy it,” Pinera said.

Earlier, Chadwick said two women burned to death after a store owned by US retail chain Walmart was set alight in the early hours of Sunday.

One victim, who authorities initially said had died in hospital, suffered burns on 75 percent of her body.

The fresh clashes came on the eve of a huge protest planned in the Catalan capital. Separatists have called a general strike and a rally on Friday against the Supreme Court’s decision to jail the separatist leaders for their role in a referendum banned by Madrid and a short-lived declaration of independence.

Earlier on Thursday, around 25,000 striking students and their supporters took part in a midday rally outside Barcelona city hall, according to municipal police. Thousands more are on a cross-country march towards Barcelona for Friday’s rally.

Around half a million people rallied in Barcelona earlier on Friday, police said, in the biggest gathering since Monday’s court ruling as separatists also called a general strike in the major tourist destination.

But while most marchers appeared peaceful, hordes of young protesters went on the rampage near the police headquarters, igniting a huge blaze that sent plumes of black smoke into the air, as police fired teargas to disperse them, an AFP correspondent said.

Other fires raged near Plaza de Catalunya at the top of the tourist hotspot Las Ramblas, where hundreds of demonstrators rallied in defiance of the police, who tried to disperse them with water cannon.