Washington, Oct 27,2020 : A divided US Senate voted mostly along party line to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald Trump’s nominee, to the Supreme Court, succeeding late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
With 52 votes in favor and 48 against, the Republican-controlled Senate’s confirmation of the 48-year-old conservative judge to the high court drew opposition from all of the Democratic members in the chamber on Monday.
Susan Collins, Republican senator from Maine who faces a tough reelection battle, was the only GOP senator who crossed the political aisle to side with the Democrats.
The confirmation made Barrett, a devout Catholic and longtime law professor at Notre Dame University, the 115th justice of the Supreme Court and the fifth woman ever to sit on the bench.
Shortly after the Senate vote, Justice Clarence Thomas administered Barrett’s Constitutional oath during a nighttime ceremony at the White House South Lawn presided over by Trump.
ISLAMABAD,Oct26,2020: Pakistan’s prime minister has appealed to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to ban Islamophobic content on the site, warning of an increase in radicalisation amongst Muslims, the government said on Sunday.
In a letter, which the Pakistani government posted on Twitter, Imran Khan said that “growing Islamophobia” was encouraging extremism and violence across the world, especially through social media platforms such as Facebook.
“I would ask you to place a similar ban on Islamophobia and hate against Islam for Facebook that you have put in place for the Holocaust,” Khan said.
Facebook said this month it was updating its hate speech policy to ban any content that denied or distorted the Holocaust.
“One cannot send a message that while hate messages against some are unacceptable, these are acceptable against others,” Khan said, adding that this was “reflective of prejudice and bias that will encourage further radicalisation”.
In response to Khan’s appeal, a Facebook spokeswoman told Reuters the company was against all forms of hate and that it did not allow attacks based on race, ethnicity, national origin or religion.
“We’ll remove this hate speech as soon as we become aware of it,” the spokeswoman said in an emailed statement, adding that the company had “more work to do”.
Khan, in his letter, referred to the situation in France, where, he said, Islam was being associated with terrorism.
Earlier on Sunday, Khan said that French President Emmanuel Macron had “attacked Islam” by encouraging the display of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad.
Khan’s comments came after Macron paid tribute to a French history teacher beheaded by an Islamist radical who wanted to avenge the use of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad in a class on freedom of expression.
KUALA LUMPUR ,Oct26,2020: Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin faced calls to resign on Monday as doubts swirled over the support that he commands, after the king rejected his request to declare a state of emergency to fight the coronavirus epidemic.
Muhyiddin had requested emergency rule amid a fresh spike in infections in Malaysia and a global pandemic that has battered the economy. But critics accused him of using it as a pretext to suspend parliament and avoid a test of his razor-thin parliamentary majority.
King Al-Sultan Abdullah’s refusal is seen further eroding Muhyiddin’s grip on power, a month after opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim said he has majority support in parliament, including from defectors from the ruling alliance, to form a new government.
Turning down Muhyiddin’s request on Sunday, the king also asked politicians to end any politicking that could destabilise a government that he said has handled the pandemic well, and stressed the importance of the 2021 budget scheduled to be set before parliament on Nov. 6.
But leaders of other parties in Muhyiddin’s coalition and the opposition criticised his move to seek emergency powers and called on him to step down after the bid failed.
Opposition lawmaker Wong Chen said Muhyiddin’s “malicious” proposal was rightfully rejected by the king, and that the premier should resign or fire ministers who proposed the emergency.
The Southeast Asia nation was plunged into political instability in late February following the resignation of the previous prime minister, veteran politician Mahathir Mohamad, after his coalition broke apart, and former ally Muhyiddin forged a new alliance with UMNO to become prime minister.
Within weeks, Muhyiddin was faced with the coronavirus crisis, but the new ruling coalition is also beset with infighting, with UMNO seeking to exert more influence. And some of the UMNO’s corruption tainted leaders, notably former prime minister Najib Razak, have been trying to revive their political fortunes.
The country’s politicians, however, could be influenced by the king’s call to avoid politicking, and put the nation’s needs first, analysts said.
Muhyiddin is holding a cabinet meeting on Monday that is scheduled to start at 11:30 a.m. (0330 GMT). In a statement on Sunday, the premier said the cabinet would discuss the king’s rejection of his request.
MILAN Oct25,2020: Italy reported another daily record for COVID-19 cases on Saturday as the government planned further restrictions to contain a resurgence of the pandemic, despite a second night of street protests against curfews ordered this week.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has said he wants to avoid a repeat of the blanket lockdown earlier in the year. But a number of regions have imposed overnight curfews and the central government is expected to announce more measures soon.
After clashes in the southern city of Naples on Friday night, police faced off against dozens of masked protestors in the centre of Rome after the far-right Forza Nuova group called for a protest against the curfews.
Earlier, health ministry data showed 19,644 new COVID cases and 151 dead as the disease surged in areas like Lombardy, Milan, Campania and Lazio.
Conte pledged to speed up help for businesses suffering in the crisis but said the weeks ahead would be very difficult. “We cannot lower our guard,” he added.
According to a draft decree circulated on Saturday, public gyms and swimming pools may be closed and bars and restaurants told to shut from 6 p.m., while people will be encouraged not to travel outside their home districts.
Like many authorities across Europe, the Italian government is desperate not to close down the economy completely but is facing growing public anger at renewed restrictions being imposed to limit public gatherings.
Earlier in the week, overnight curfews were ordered by local governors in Campania, the area around Naples, Lazio around Rome, and Lombardy, the epicentre of the first wave where the financial capital Milan recorded more than 1,000 new cases on Saturday.
The northern region of Piedmont and Sicily in the south will follow next week and other regions are expected to match them.
With public health services coming under strain, authorities have reopened temporary intensive care facilities built during the first phase. Despite this, Italy’s top public health body warned on Friday services were approaching crisis point.
Oct 25,2020: Sudan’s former Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi on Saturday slammed an announcement by President Donald Trump that Sudan would start normalising ties with Israel.
Al-Mahdi, who is the country’s last democratically elected premier and heads the country’s largest political party, said he withdrew from a government-organised religious conference on Saturday in the capital, Khartoum, in protest against Friday’s announcement.
“This statement contradicts the Sudanese national law…and contributes to the elimination of the peace project in the Middle East and to preparing for the ignition of a new war,” al-Mahdi said in a letter to the conference.
He said the agreement with Israel would jeopardise the authority of Sudan’s transitional government, a fragile coalition of civilian and military leaders.
Sudan is on a thorny path to democracy after a popular uprising last year led the military to overthrow the longtime autocrat, Omar al-Bashir. The transitional government has promised elections as soon as 2022.
Al-Mahdi, who heads the National Umma Party, was overthrown in a 1989 Islamist-backed coup that brought al-Bashir to power. His party is allied with the pro-democracy movement that led the protests against al-Bashir.
Al-Mahdi accused Trump of being racist against Muslims and Black people, and described Israel as an “apartheid state”. Sudan has been the third Arab state to move toward normalising its relations with Israel among a series of Washington-brokered deals in the run-up to the US presidential elections.
The Trump administration engineered diplomatic pacts between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in August – the first since Jordan recognised Israel in the 1990s and Egypt in the 1970s.
Sudan hosted a landmark Arab League conference after the 1967 Mideast war where eight Arab countries approved the “three no’s”: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations with Israel.
Sudan’s recognition of Israel comes after the North African nation agreed to put 335 million in an escrow account to be used to compensate American victims of terror attacks.
Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok thanked Trump for signing the executive order to remove Sudan from the terrorism list and said in a statement that he hoped to complete the deal in a “timely manner”.
The removal of the terror designation opens the door for Sudan’s transitional government to get international loans and aid needed to revive its battered economy and rescue the country’s transition to democracy.
NEW DELHI:Oct 24,2020: The finance ministry has issued guidelines for a scheme for grant of ex-gratia payment of difference between compound and simple interest to borrowers of specified loan accounts from March 1-August 31. The benefit will be routed through lending institutions, the ministry said in a circular addressed to banks and other lending institutions on Saturday.
The lender has to credit the amount to the account of the borrower on or before 5 November, giving relief to borrowers ahead of Diwali. Thereafter, lenders will have to claim reimbursement by 15 December.
The benefit will be extended for loans availed by micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), education loans, housing, consumer durables, credit card dues, auto loans, personal and professional loans and consumption loans. The outstanding amount cannot exceed ₹2 crore, as on February 29, 2020. The loan should not be a non-performing asset as on 29 February.
The lending institution has to be either a banking company, or a public sector bank, co-operative bank or a regional rural bank, or All India Financial Institution, a non-banking financial institution, housing finance company or a micro finance institution.
The government will have to take a hit of ₹6,500 crore for the implementation of the scheme, a senior government official said.
WASHINGTON Oct24,2020: Israel and Sudan agreed on Friday to take steps to normalize relations in a deal brokered with the help of the United States, making Khartoum the third Arab government to set aside hostilities with Israel in the last two months.
U.S. President Donald Trump, seeking re-election on Nov. 3, sealed the agreement in a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and Transitional Council Head Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, senior U.S. officials said.
Trump’s decision this week to remove Sudan from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism paved the way for the accord with Israel, marking a foreign policy achievement for the Republican president as he seeks a second term trailing in opinion polls behind Democratic rival Joe Biden.
Netanyahu hailed it as a “new era” for the region, but the Palestinian leadership, watching as more of their Arab brethren appear to give their quest for statehood a lower priority, called it a “new stab in the back.”
“The leaders agreed to the normalization of relations between Sudan and Israel and to end the state of belligerence between their nations,” according to a joint statement issued by the three countries that also promised U.S. help for Khartoum to secure international debt relief.
Israel and Sudan plan to begin by opening economic and trade links, with an initial focus on agriculture, the joint statement said. A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said such issues as formal establishment of diplomatic ties would be resolved later.
Trump touted the deal to reporters in the Oval Office with the Israeli and Sudanese leaders on the line in a three-way phone call, saying at least five other countries wanted to follow suit and normalize relations with Israel.
In recent weeks the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain became the first Arab states in a quarter of a century to agree to formal links with Israel, forged largely through shared fears of Iran.
Sudan’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism dates to its toppled ruler Omar al-Bashir and has made it difficult for its transitional government to access urgently needed debt relief and foreign financing.
Many in Sudan say the designation, imposed in 1993 because Washington believed Bashir was supporting militant groups, has become outdated since he was removed last year.