noida darpan- advt

 

rahul-tarun

 

rews- tarun bhardwaj

 

happy makar sakranti- tarun bhardwaj

 

China forcing birth control on Uighurs to suppress population

 China is imposing draconian measures to slash birth rates among ethnic Uighurs as part of a sweeping campaign to curb its Muslim population, according to a new investigation. China’s foreign ministry spokesman responded on Monday by calling the news report “fake news”. While individual women have spoken out before about forced birth control, the practice is far more widespread and systematic than previously known, according to an AP news agency investigation based on government statistics, state documents, and interviews with 30 ex-detainees, family members, and a former detention-camp instructor.

The campaign over the past four years in the far west region of Xinjiang is leading to what some experts are calling a form of “demographic genocide”.

China regularly subjects minority women to pregnancy checks and forces intrauterine devices, sterilisation, even abortion on hundreds of thousands, the interviews and data show.

The population-control measures are backed by mass detention both as a threat and as punishment for failure to comply. Having too many children is a major reason people are sent to detention camps, AP found, with parents of three or more children ripped away from their families unless they can pay huge fines.

Uighurs Muslims forced to eat pork in China

 It has been more than two years since Sayragul Sautbay was released from a re-education camp in China’s westernmost region of Xinjiang. Yet the mother of two still suffers from nightmares and flashbacks from the “humiliation and violence” she endured while she was detained.

Sautbay, a medical doctor and educator who now lives in Sweden, recently published a book in which she detailed her ordeal, including witnessing beatings, alleged sexual abuse and forced sterilisation. In a recent interview with Al Jazeera, she shed more light on other indignities to which the Uighurs and other Muslim minorities were subjected, including the consumption of pork, a meat that is strictly prohibited in Islam.

According to Zenz, the documents and state-approved news articles support talk within Uighur communities that there is an “active” effort to promote and expand pig farming in the region.

In November 2019, Xinjiang’s top administrator, Shohrat Zakir, that the autonomous region would be turned into a “pig-raising hub”; a move that Uighurs say is an affront to their way of life.

US wants release of Uighur doctor sentenced to 20 years’ jail

 The United States called on Wednesday for the release of a Uighur Muslim medical doctor whose relatives say was sentenced to 20 years in jail in China because of family members’ human rights activism in the United States.

The daughter of Gulshan Abbas told a briefing organised with the bipartisan US Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) that the family had recently learned her mother received the sentence in March last year on terrorism-related charges after disappearing in September 2018.

US bans all cotton, tomato products from China’s Xinjiang

 The United States is imposing a region-wide ban on all cotton and tomato products from China’s western Xinjiang region over allegations that they are made with forced labour from detained Uighur Muslims, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said on Wednesday.

The action applies to raw fibres, apparel and textiles made from Xinjiang-grown cotton, as well as tomato-based food products and seeds from the region. The ban, known as a withhold release order, also applies to products processed or manufactured in third countries, CBP officials told a news briefing.

Singapore confirms first case of new COVID variant found in UK

 Singapore has confirmed its first case of the new coronavirus variant found in the United Kingdom.

Singapore’s health ministry said it has been conducting viral genomic sequencing for travellers with confirmed COVID-19 cases who arrived from Europe recently.

Fauci warns US COVID-19 outbreak may worsen after holidays

 The United States’ top infectious disease expert has warned that holiday travel could push the country to a “critical point” in the coronavirus pandemic and that the worst may be yet to come. Biden, who will take office on January 20, cautioned on Wednesday that the nation’s “darkest days are ahead of us – not behind us”.

In recent weeks, there has been a surge in COVID-19 cases, hospitalisations and deaths across the country.

The US has recorded an average of 185,903 new infections over the past seven days, while the number of people in hospital with the disease reached 117,344, according to COVID Tracking Project data.

On Sunday, the number of cases recorded in the US topped 19 million as the death toll from the disease surpassed 332,000, both by far the highest totals in the world.

US sees record COVID hospitalisation

 More Americans were hospitalised with COVID-19 on Wednesday than at any time since the pandemic began, as total coronavirus infections crossed the 21 million mark, deaths soared across much of the United States and a historic vaccination effort lagged.

US COVID-19 hospitalisations reached a record 131,215 on Wednesday, according to a tally by The COVID Tracking Project, while 3,664 died on Tuesday according to Johns Hopkins University, one of the highest single-day death tolls of the pandemic.

4,327 daily COVID deaths reported in US

 The daily COVID-19 death toll in the United States hit a record 4,327 on Tuesday, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally, as the Trump administration moved to accelerate the roll-out of vaccinations across the country.

The US daily death toll first surpassed 4,000 on January 8, amid a marked increase following a holiday season that saw widespread travel. With a total of 382,624 deaths, the US has the highest toll in the world and it has also reported the highest number of infections, with 22,959,610 confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins.

In an effort to speed up the distribution and administration of vaccines, the Trump administration on Tuesday released the rest of the doses it had been keeping in reserve and recommended states immediately open inoculations to those aged 65 and over.

Federal and state health officials have scrambled in recent days to step up vaccination programmes that had given shots to only 9.3 million Americans as coronavirus infections remain at record highs in many US states nearly two weeks into the new year.

VENUE FOR PARTY

 

VENUE FOR PARTIES

 

ramesh chander sharma- puniya tithi- advt

 

Under pandemic pressure, drugmakers raise prices : Report

Drugmakers including Pfizer Inc, Sanofi SA, and GlaxoSmithKline Plc plan to raise prices on more than 300 medications in the United States on January 1, according to pharmaceutical companies and data analysed by healthcare research firm 3 Axis Advisors.

The hikes come as pharma giants are reeling from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has reduced doctor visits and demand for some medicines. They are also fighting new drug-pricing rules from the Trump administration, which would reduce the industry’s profitability. The companies kept their price increases at 10 percent or below, and the largest pharmaceutical companies to raise prices so far, Pfizer and Sanofi, kept nearly all of their increases 5 percent or less, 3 Axis said. 3 Axis is a consulting firm that works with pharmacists groups, health plans and foundations on drug pricing and supply-chain issues.

Sudan regains full control of border with Ethiopia: Ministry

 Sudan’s foreign minister says the army has restored control over all lands along the border that had been taken over by Ethiopian farmers.

“The armed forces have now fully recovered all Sudanese territory,” Minister Omar Qamareddine told a Khartoum news conference on Thursday. “The borders have already been demarcated, all that’s remaining in our talks … is increasing the border signs,” Qamareddine said.

Tensions have flared between the two countries over the al-Fashqa region of the border, where Ethiopian farmers have been cultivating fertile land which is claimed by Sudan.

The region has seen sporadic clashes over the years but new fighting erupted in November when the federal government sent troops into the neighbouring Tigray region of Ethiopia against the regional authorities.

Canada receives first shipment of COVID vaccines

 Canada has received its first shipment of Moderna Inc’s COVID-19 vaccines, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday, as the country urged people to limit their contacts during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

Trudeau said the first shipment of Moderna vaccines is part of the 168,000 doses that Canada expects to receive before the end of December.

COVID ‘shutdown’ coming into effect in Canada’s largest province

 Canada’s most populous province is imposing tighter COVID-19 restrictions on Saturday in an effort to curb rising infections, deaths and hospitalisations linked to the novel coronavirus.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced the “provincewide shutdown” earlier this week, saying daily COVID-19 case numbers are putting the healthcare network and long-term care homes at risk. The restrictions, which come into effect at 00:01am local time (05:01 GMT) on Saturday, include a ban on indoor gatherings between people from different households and a 10-person limit outdoors, as well as limits on non-essential businesses.

Countries that have reported new variants of COVID-19

 Three new variants of COVID-19 have been detected in recent weeks, leading to increased vigilance across the world as officials say a variant found in the United Kingdom could be up to 70 percent more transmissible.

However, none of the variants so far has been found to be more fatal, or more likely to be able to evade vaccines or treatments. A new variant was first reported in the United Kingdom on December 14. Named VUI-202012/01 (the first Variant Under Investigation in December 2020), it is thought to have first appeared in mid-September.

Referred to by some experts as the B117 lineage, this has rapidly become the dominant strain in cases of COVID-19 in many parts of the UK. Last week, South Africa reported another new strain which appears to have mutated further than the UK variant.

Known as 501.V2, this variant is dominant among new confirmed infections in South Africa. On December 24, the head of Africa’s disease control body said another COVID-19 strain, known as the P681H was identified in Nigeria. It is of a separate lineage from the other mutations but does not seem to be spreading as fast as the other two new variants.

WHO lists Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine for emergency use

 The World Health Organization has listed Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, a critical step that the United Nations health agency said aims to make the vaccine more readily available in developing nations.

In a statement on Thursday, WHO said its validation of the vaccine – the first since the start of the pandemic – “opens the door for countries to expedite their own regulatory approval processes to import and administer the vaccine”.

The vaccine, which must be kept at ultra-low temperatures, is already being administered in several countries, including the United States, Canada, Qatar, Bahrain and Mexico.

Human rights groups have raised concerns about richer countries “hoarding” vaccines at the expense of developing nations.

A recent report by Amnesty International found that all of Moderna Inc’s COVID-19 vaccines and 96 percent of Pfizer-BioNtech’s doses had been secured by rich countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom and the US.

“Rather than work together, we’ve had a ‘me first’ attitude in many countries and there’s been a lack of multilateralism and global coordination in the world.”

After divisive Brexit vote, UK formally leaves the EU

 The United Kingdom has left the European Union’s economic and political orbit in an historic departure that has split Britons politically and marked the country’s greatest shift on the global stage in modern times.

As the clock struck 11pm in London on Thursday (23:00 GMT), December 31, the Brexit transition period came to an end and the UK exited the bloc’s single market and customs union. Supporters claim the move will set the country free to pursue new opportunities as an independent global power.

But critics say it reverses decades of integration with its closest neighbours and threatens to break up the UK, harm the country’s economy and diminish its international standing. “This is an amazing moment for this country,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in his New Year’s Eve message. “We have our freedom in our hands and it is up to us to make the most of it.”