Junior Digest

The leaders of Italy’s anti-establishment and far-right parties on Monday proposed little-known lawyer Giuseppe Conte as prime minister of a nascent populist coalition government.

Conte, 54, was proposed to Italian President Sergio Mattarella during talks held at the head of state’s offices with Five Star Movement leader Luigi Di Maio and nationalist League chief Matteo Salvini.

“We have indicated the name of Giuseppe Conte to the President of the Republic,” Luigi Di Maio wrote on the official blog of Five Star (M5S), after meeting the president in Rome on Monday evening.

“I’m very proud of this name because he is the Five Star Movement in a nutshell — he won’t burden the Italian public.”

Salvini later confirmed that Conte was also the League’s pick for prime minister in a live video on Facebook to his more than two million followers.

“Conte is an expert in simplification, cutting of red tape and streamlining of the administrative machine, which is what many businesses ask of us,” Salvini said.

A specialist in administrative law, Conte was presented before March’s inconclusive general election as Di Maio’s ministerial pick to streamline Italy’s notorious bureaucracy.

Dhaka, May 22: Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra is now in Bangladesh. She is visiting the Rohingya camps as the global UNICEF goodwill ambassador for child rights. Priyanka on Monday tweeted a photograph of herself from an aircraft looking out of the window.
“Follow my Instagram to share my experiences as I visit the Rohingya refugee camps on this UNICEF field visit. Children uprooted, the world needs to care. We need to care,” she captioned the image.
Priyanka, 35, has worked with UNICEF for a decade and was appointed as the national and global UNICEF goodwill ambassador for child rights in 2010 and 2016 respectively.
She promotes causes such as environment, health and education and women’s rights among many others.
Almost 700,000 Rohingyas have fled violence in neighbouring Myanmar and arrived in Cox’s Bazar since August 2017, according to the UN. Last year, Priyanka had met Syrian refugee children in Jordan.

“We do not recognize this electoral process as valid, as true,” his main rival Henri Falcon told a news conference, even before the result was announced.

“For us, there were no elections. We have to have new elections in Venezuela.”

Maduro hailed his victory for another six-year term as a “historic record” in a speech to thousands of cheering supporters outside the official Miraflores Palace in Caracas.

“Never before has a presidential candidate taken 68 percent of the popular vote,” he said, to applause.

“We won again! We triumphed again! We are the force of history turned into a permanent popular victory,” said Maduro.

aduro, the political heir to the late leftist firebrand Hugo Chavez, has presided over an implosion of the once wealthy oil producer’s economy since taking office in 2013.

Hyperinflation, food and medicine shortages, rising crime and broken water, power and transportation networks have sparked violent unrest, and left Maduro with a 75 percent disapproval rating.

Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have fled the South American country in a mass exodus in recent years.

undreds of Venezuelans took to the streets in several Latin American capitals, including Bogota, Buenos Aires and Lima — as well as in Madrid — to denounce the vote.

The biggest protest was in Chile’s capital Santiago, where more than 1,000 demonstrated against the election. Chile granted 73,000 visas to Venezuelans fleeing the country last year.

Bengaluru, May 21: JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy, who is all set to take over as Karnataka Chief Minister,  dismissed reports about his party working out a power sharing formula of heading the government for 30 months each, with its coalition partner the Congress.

“No such talks have taken place,” he told reporters here when asked about reports on power-sharing formula of 30 months each being worked out with the Congress, with whom JDS has stitched up a post-poll alliance after the May 12 assembly elections delivered a fractured mandate.

There were reports in a section of the media about both parties heading the government for 30 months each on rotation power sharing agreement .

The JD(S) leader will meet UPA chief Sonia Gandhi and her son Congress President Rahul Gandhi in Delhi tomorrow to discuss the modalities of government formation and invite them for the swearing in ceremony on May 23.

Bengaluru, May 19 : The three-day-old BJP government in Karnataka collapsed today, minutes before the scheduled trust vote, with Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa resigning in a tame anticlimax to what promised to be on the edge of seat political thriller.

With defeat staring him in the face, Yeddyurappa announced his decision to quit on the floor of the Assembly after a brief emotion-laden speech.

Hours later, H D Kumaraswamy, the chief ministerial candidate of the newly formed JS(S)-Congress-BSP alliance, met Governor Vajubhai Vala, and said he has been invited to form the government.

“Today, the BJP government failed to show their strength in the House. On that basis governor invited me to form the next government,” Kumaraswamy told journalists.

The 58-year-old leader, son of JD(S) supremo and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, said the governor gave him 15 days to prove his majority, but asserted “we don’t need 15 days”.

The oath ceremony, he said, will be held between noon and 1 pm on Monday.

Though Yeddyurappa kept exuding confidence about winning the trust vote, as the D-day loomed he failed to muster support of 7 additional MLAs required to ensure the longevity of his government.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, attending the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Buenos Aires, said he was not surprised by Pompeo’s critique of the Iran deal, before adding: “We do not see at this time a better alternative.”

“We believe that without this agreement, we would take the risk that Iran resumes its nuclear program,” he said.

Maas said he will travel to Washington to talk with Pompeo this week.

New Delhi, May 20 : Delhi Daredevils on Sunday defeated Mumbai Indians by 11 runs in 11th season of the IPL tournament at Feroz Shah Kotla stadium here.
With this loss, three-time champions Mumbai Indians are now out of the IPL tournament.
Delhi stopped Mumbai Indians on a score of 163 in 19.3 overs. This was the eighth loss in 14 matches of Mumbai and was thrown out with 12 points. On the other hand, this was the fifth win in 14 matches of Delhi and ended his campaign with 10 points and was on eighth place in the table.
Delhi won last two match on their home ground at Feroz shah Kotla stadium.
When Mumbai started to chase target, the 17-year-old young leg-spinner Sandeep Lamichhane stopped them by sending their three batsmen to pavilion. Lamechhane already sent Suryakumar Yadav to the pavilion on a score of 12 runs.
In the 10th over, Lamechhane then took Pollard’s wicket and soon after that he sent Kuralal Pandya to pavilion. Pollard scored seven runs and Kuralal scored four runs.
Mumbai’s hopes went vain when Captain Rohit Sharma was also shown the way to pavilion. Rohit made 13 runs in 11 balls and his wicket dropped to a score of 121.
Ben Cutting scored two fours and a six in the 18th over and scored 15 runs and made the match exciting. However, Mumbai needed only 23 runs in the last two overs, but Mumbai had to face defeat.
Earlier, Risabh Pant made 64 runs and Vijay Shankar 43 runs (unbeaten) added 64 runs for the fourth wickets helped Delhi Daredevils to score a 174 in the 11th season of the IPL match against Mumbai Indians.
Pant scored 64 runs off 44 balls with the help of four fours and four sixes and also scored a total of 686 runs in this tournament. Vijay scored 43 runs off 30 balls with three fours and two sixes.
Delhi captain Shreyas Iyer won the toss and decided to bat first. Delhi lost their first wicket on a score of 30 runs, Prithvi Shaw was sent to pavilion when crossed the crease while playing a shot.
Prithvi scored 12 runs off eight balls with the help of two fours.
Maxwell hit four fours in 18 balls and scored 22 runs. Soon Captain Iyer left Pant and was caught by Mayank Markandey at the hands of Krupal. Iyer made six runs in 10 balls. Delhi’s third wicket fell to a score of 75 in the last ball of ninth over.
Delhi’s 150 runs were completed in 17.5 overs. At the end of 19 overs, Delhi managed to score 159 runs. Shankar hit a four and a six in the last over and score reached at 174 runs. Abhishek Sharma remained unbeaten on 15.

On behalf of Mumbai, Krishan took one wicket for 11 runs, Bumrah got one wicket for 29 runs and Markandey took one wicket for 21 runs.

 Washington, May 21  : According to a new study, babies with inherited intolerance of fructose face a risk of acute liver failure, if they are fed with certain formulas, containing fructose.
Baby formula manufacturers should remove fructose or sucrose, or explicitly label their products to allow parents to avoid those sweeteners if necessary, the doctors have demanded.
In a recent paper in Molecular Genetics and Metabolism, Emory Geneticists Hong Li, MD, PhD and Michael Gambello, MD, PhD together with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Paediatric Hepatologist Miriam Vos, MD and colleagues reported four cases of hereditary fructose intolerance (HFI), all diagnosed in early infants.
All had acute liver failure that resolved when the infants switched to formula without fructose, the report noted. HFI is estimated to occur in one out of 20,000 live births. It comes from mutations in the aldolase B gene, resulting in an inability to metabolise fructose, said the medicos.
Early symptoms include nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and failure of an infant to gain weight. If unrecognised, HFI can result in liver and kidney damage, seizures or death, they warned.
HFI-related problems do not appear if an infant is being breastfed exclusively. It is normally recognised when fructose-containing solid foods, such as fruit, are introduced into the diet several months after birth, the doctors explained.
However, some baby formulas, often soy-based, contain sweeteners such as high-fructose corn syrup or sucrose (table sugar), which is made of fructose and glucose linked together. Sometimes, the label only says ‘sugar,’ instead of sucrose.
“In some of the cases we describe in this article, the treating physician had to call the formula manufacturer to confirm that sucrose was a component. It underlines why accurate and explicit labeling is necessary,” said Dr Li, assistant professor of human genetics and pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine.
In babies with digestive problems or allergies, parents or paediatricians may seek to avoid formulas based on cows’ milk. However, in alternative formulas, there is a higher chance the manufacturer will add sucrose or fructose as a sweetener and carbohydrate source.
HFI is, in a sense, a mirror image of galactosemia, an inherited intolerance of lactose, which Li said, is better known.
“Most paediatricians are aware of galactosemia, and the liver symptoms that may bring an infant to see a doctor actually resemble galactosemia, even if they come from a different origin,” she said.
“In case of HFI, choosing formulas that avoid lactose, like soy-based formulas containing fructose or sucrose, can make things worse. Once parents switch formula, improvement happens very fast,” Dr Li told the Science Daily.

Jury president Cate Blanchett said the film, which explicitly links the 1970s tale and white nationalism in the Trump era, “blew us out of the cinema”.

But the most stunning moment of the night came when Italian star Asia Argento, who has said she was raped by Weinstein at Cannes in 1997, took the microphone and vowed to fight for justice for other victims.

Lebanese actress-director Nadine Labaki, one of three female filmmakers among the 21 contenders, earned the third-place Jury Prize for “Capernaum” set among the poorest of the poor in Beirut and featuring a devastating performance by a 13-year-old Syrian refugee boy.

Kazakhstan’s Samal Yeslyamova nabbed best actress for “Ayka” by director Sergey Dvortsevoy for her moving portrayal of a young jobless immigrant from post-Soviet Central Asia who abandons her baby in Moscow.

Polish Oscar winner Pawel Pawlikowski took the prize for best director for “Cold War”, a tragic love story set against the backdrop of the Iron Curtain.

Sochi (Russia), May 22: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin held their first informal Summit in the city of Sochi and both leaders discussed various issues of regional and global importance.
“The Summit provided an occasion for both leaders to deepen their friendship and to exchange views on international and regional issues, in keeping with the tradition of high level political exchanges between India and Russia,” a statement from MEA said.
The two leaders agreed that the Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership between India and Russia is an important factor for global peace and stability.
They shared the view that India and Russia have an important role to play in contributing to an open and equitable world order. In this regard, they recognized each other’s respective roles as major powers with common responsibilities for maintaining global peace and stability.
“The two leaders held in depth discussions on major international issues. They agreed on the importance of building a multipolar world order,” the statement said.
Both PM Modi and Mr Putin decided to intensify consultation and coordination with each other, including on the Indo-Pacific Region.
Prime Minister Modi and President Putin also agreed to continue working together through multilateral organisations such as the United Nations, SCO, BRICS and G-20.
Both leaders expressed their concern over terrorism and radicalization, and their determination to combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.
In this context, they endorsed the importance of restoring peace and stability in Afghanistan in an atmosphere free from the threat of terrorism, and agreed to work together towards achieving this objective.
Both leaders held detailed exchange of views on the national development plans and priorities.
They also expressed satisfaction over the deep trust, mutual respect and goodwill that characterizes relations between India and Russia.
While expressing their satisfaction at the positive momentum since the last bilateral Summit in St. Petersburg in June 2017, the two leaders directed their officials to prepare concrete outcomes for the forthcoming Summit in India later this year.
Both leaders agreed to institute a Strategic Economic Dialogue between NITI Aayog of India and the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, to identify greater synergy in trade and investment.
They noted with satisfaction the expanding cooperation in the energy sector and, in this regard, welcomed the arrival of the first consignment of LNG under a long-term agreement between Gazprom and GAIL, next month. The two leaders also reiterated the significance of longstanding partnership in the military, security and nuclear energy fields and welcomed the ongoing cooperation in these areas.
The two leaders welcomed the idea of holding informal Summits as an additional engagement at leadership level, besides the Annual Summits between the two leaders, the MEA said.
Prime Minister has invited President Putin for the 19th Annual Summit in India later in the year.

New Delhi, May 21 : Asserting that the mandate in Karnataka Assembly polls was against the Congress, BJP president Amit Shah today said the party has found a new way of portraying defeat as its victory.

Shah also asked the Congress to explain to the people of Karnataka why they were celebrating even when most of their ministers had lost election.

“Only Congress and JD(S) are celebrating, people of Karnataka are not (celebrating),” he told reporters.

The mandate given by people of Karnataka was against the Congress. There was no confusion about it, he said.

“If we had not staked claim to form government, it would have been against the mandate of Karnataka people,” he asserted

Damascus, May 21 : Syria’s army said today it was in full control of the capital Damascus and its outskirts after ousting the Islamic State group, marking a major milestone in the seven-year war.
“The Syrian army announces today that Damascus, its outskirts and surrounding towns are completely secure,” it said in a statement carried on official media.

The development came after troops had captured a key southern portion of Damascus from IS, the statement said, including the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmuk and the adjacent district of Hajar al-Aswad.

“The wheel of our progress on the battlefield will not stop until all Syrian land is purified,” it added.

Syria’s war erupted in 2011 with protests against President Bashar al-Assad, including in the capital.

The following year, the government began losing control of parts of Damascus and placed a crippling siege around Yarmuk, which lies in the capital’s south.

The army’s announcement came hours after a tenuous evacuation deal saw hundreds of IS fighters and their relatives quit Yarmuk, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The government has denied reaching a deal with IS. It said a brief ceasefire had allowed one convoy of women and children to leave the pocket in southern Damascus.

Since last year, Syria’s government has cleared swathes of territory around Damascus from its armed opponents through a blend of military pressure and evacuation deals.

The list concentrates on in vitro tests – i.e. tests of human specimens like blood and urine. It contains 113 products: 58 tests are listed for detection and diagnosis of a wide range of common conditions, providing an essential package that can form the basis for screening and management of patients.

The remaining 55 tests are designed for the detection, diagnosis and monitoring of “priority” diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, hepatitis B and C, human papillomavirus and syphilis.

Some of the tests are particularly suitable for primary health care facilities, where laboratory services are often poorly resourced and sometimes non-existent; for example, tests that can rapidly diagnose a child for acute malaria or glucometers to test diabetes. These tests do not require electricity or trained personnel. Other tests are more sophisticated and therefore intended for larger medical facilities.

“Our aim is to provide a tool that can be useful to all countries, to test and treat better, but also to use health funds more efficiently by concentrating on the truly essential tests,” says Mariangela Simao, WHO Assistant Director-General for Access to Medicines, Vaccines and Pharmaceuticals. “Our other goal is to signal to countries and developers that the tests in the list must be of good quality, safe and affordable.”

The satellites are scheduled to blast off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Tuesday at 12:47 pm Pacific time (1947 GMT).

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will propel the satellites to an orbit about 310 miles (500 kilometers) above the Earth.

The pair will fly 137 miles (220 kilometers) apart, or about the distance from Los Angeles to San Diego.

NASA has spent $430 million on the mission, and Germany has spent about $91 million.

The new pair of satellites will pick up where the first GRACE mission left off, having completed its 15-year mission in 2017.

“You can’t manage it well until you can measure it. GRACE-FO provides a unique way to measure water in many of its phases, allowing us to manage water resources more effectively.”

A Cuban state airways plane with 110 passengers and crew on board crashed shortly after taking off from Havana Friday, leaving a mass of twisted and smoldering fuselage, as the country’s president warned many people were feared dead.

Cuban state media reported that three people had been pulled alive from the mangled wreckage and were in critical condition in hospital.

There was no other official mention of survivors from a nearly 40-year-old Boeing 737 operated by Cubana de Aviacion, which crashed into a field close to a wooded area near Havana’s Jose Marti airport, sending a thick column of acrid smoke into the air.

The 110 aboard included six Mexican crew, said Aerolineas Damojh, the Mexican-based company that leased the plane to the Cuban carrier.

The plane — carrying 104 passengers — was almost completely destroyed in the crash and subsequent fire, which was put out by firefighters who raced to the scene along with a fleet of ambulances.

Emergency personnel combed through the wreckage, lending little hope that there could be other survivors.

Last month, troops and allied Palestinian militia launched a fierce offensive to oust IS from a cluster of districts in southern Damascus, including the Palestinian camp of Yarmuk.

After weeks of combat and heavy casualties, an apparent deal was reached for remaining IS fighters to leave Yarmuk and the adjacent district of Tadamun, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

IS jihadists burned their headquarters in Yarmuk before boarding buses with their relatives to leave the area, said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

“The six buses left at dawn, heading east for the Syrian desert,” he told AFP.

Abdel Rahman could not specify how many had left, but said a majority were relatives of jihadists and not armed. More than two dozen buses remained in Yarmuk for additional evacuations, he said.

Syrian state media and a Palestinian official have denied a deal was reached or that evacuations were taking place.

IS has had a presence in southern Damascus since 2015, expanding in recent years from Yarmuk to Tadamun and the nearby districts of Hajar al-Aswad and Qadam.

Yarmuk in particular has been devastated by Syria’s conflict, suffering a crippling government siege since 2012 and ruined by years of fighting.

It was once home to 160,000 Palestinian refugees, as well as Syrians, but just a few hundred remain.

Kathmandu, May 21: Nepal will close the Indian Embassy’s field office in the near future as it has “outlived its purpose”, Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli has said.

India was permitted to set up the temporary field office in 2008 to issue passes to vehicles for plying on Indian roads in the bordering regions after Koshi floods severely damaged a 17-km stretch of the east-west highway.

Initially set up in the eastern Sunsari district, it was later shifted to the nearby Biratnagar city, about 375 kms from here, along the Koshi Highway.

Speaking at the first parliamentary party meeting of the newly-formed Nepal Communist Party here, party’s co-chairman Oli said The office would be removed as it had “outlived its purpose”.

After repair of the damaged portion of the highway, Nepal had asked India to shut down the camp office but the Indian side did not comply.

The Indian flag was hoisted on the office building while India started distributing scholarships and got involved in various social activities using the facility, the Kathmandu Post reported.

India in 2014 sought the government’s permission to establish a Consulate General Office in Biratnagar by upgrading the field office, the report said.

The Nepali government had tried to remove the field office six years ago when then Maoist leader Narayan Kaji Shrestha was the foreign minister.

In 2011, then Baburam Bhattarai-led government issued two diplomatic notes to New Delhi seeking removal of the office, according to officials.

“The prime minister’s statement suggests that there is no need for such field offices in a small country,” Communist Party of Nepal leader Janardan Sharma was quoted as saying by the Post.