Category: World

New Zealand will ban the sale of tobacco to its next generation, in a bid to eventually phase out smoking.
Anyone born after 2008 will not be able to buy cigarettes or tobacco products in their lifetime, under a law expected to be enacted next year.
“We want to make sure young people never start smoking,” Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verall said.
The move is part of a sweeping crackdown on smoking announced by New Zealand’s health ministry on Thursday.
Doctors and other health experts in the country have welcomed the “world-leading” reforms -which will reduce access to tobacco and restrict nicotine levels in cigarettes.
“It will help people quit or switch to less harmful products, and make it much less likely that young people get addicted to nicotine,” said Prof Janet Hook from the University of Otago.

New Zealand is determined to achieve a national goal of reducing its national smoking rate to 5% by 2025, with the aim of eventually eliminating it altogether.
Currently, about 13% of New Zealand adults smoke, down from 18% about a decade ago. But the rate is much higher – about 31%- among the indigenous Maori population who also suffer a higher rate of disease and death.

New Zealand’s health ministry says smoking causes one in four cancers and remains the leading cause of preventable death for its five million strong population. The industry has been the target of legislators for more than a decade now.
As part of the crackdown announced on Thursday, the government also introduced major tobacco controls – including significantly restricting where cigarettes can be sold to remove them from supermarkets and corner stores.
The number of shops authorised to sell cigarettes will be drastically reduced to under 500 from about 8,000 now, officials say.
In recent years, vaping – smoking e-cigarettes which produce a vapour that also delivers nicotine – has become far more popular among younger generations than cigarettes.
New Zealand health authorities warn however, that vaping is not harmless. Researchers have found hazardous, cancer-causing agents in e-cigarette liquids as well.
But in 2017 the country adopted vaping as a pathway to helping smokers quit tobacco.

UAE princess Hend bint Faisal Al Qasim has lashed out at an organiser for inviting Zee News anchor Sudhir Chaudhary to her country despite the latter’s role in promoting Islamophobia through his TV broadcasts.

Addressing Chaudhary as a ‘terrorist,’ the UAE princess reminded the organiser how the controversial TV anchor had been routinely defaming Islam and its followers.

On twitter she wrote “how dare how dare you invite an Islamophobe to my peaceful country”

In her subsequent social media post, she tweeted, “In 2019 & 2020, Sudhir Chaudhry ran shows on Zee News where he spewed venom against Muslims for leading anti-citizenship protests. He ran fake stories, targeting Muslim students and women for leading the citizenship protest in Shaheen Bagh, New Delhi & other parts of the country.”

She asked the organiser, the Indian Charter Accountants Association’s Abu Dhabi chapter, why they were ‘bringing an Islamophobe and hater to my peaceful country?’

She wrote, “Sudhir Chaudhary is a Hindu rightwing anchor known for his deeply Islamophobic shows that target India’s 200 million Muslims. Many of his prime time shows have directly contributed to real world violence against Muslims across the country.”

She tagged Institute of Chartered Accountants of India to ask, “Why are you bringing an intolerant terrorist to the UAE?!”

Chaudhary has been at the forefront of Indian TV anchors, often referred to as lapdogs or TV criminals, in fuelling hatred against Muslims in India. He had led a campaign to defame Indian Muslims by blaming them for spreading coronavirus in 2020. Several Indian high courts later concluded that blaming the members of the Tablighi Jamaat for the spread of the virus was part of propaganda.

One of the bills passed by the joint session of the Pakistan Parliament provides for the punishment of “chemical castration” of a habitual rapist, Dawn news reported.

The Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill 2021 seeks to amend the Pakistan Penal Code, 1860, and the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898.

According to the bill passed on Wednesday, “chemical castration is a process duly notified by rules framed by the Prime Minister, whereby a person is rendered incapable of performing sexual intercourse for any period of his life, as may be determined by the court through administration of drugs which shall be conducted through a notified medial board”.

Jamaat-i-Islami Senator Mushtaq Ahmed protested over the bill and termed it un-Islamic and against Sharia.

He said a rapist should be hanged publicly, but there was no mention of castration in Sharia, the Dawn report said.

The Anti-Rape (Investigation and Trial) Bill, 2021, providing for the establishment of special courts and use of modern devices during the investigation and trial of rape cases was also among those bills passed during the joint sitting.

NPR

The app you use will still be called Facebook

Facebook’s new corporate name is Meta, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Thursday, in an apparent effort to recast the company’s public image from battered social network to tech innovator focused on building the next generation of online interaction, known as the “metaverse.”

The Facebook app used by almost 3 billion people around the world every month will keep its name. But speaking at the company’s Connect virtual reality conference, Zuckerberg said it’s time to overhaul the corporation’s identity to reflect its broader ambitions.

“It is time for us to adopt a new company brand to encompass everything that we do,” he said. “From now on, we’re going to be metaverse first, not Facebook first.”

Seventeen years after Zuckerberg founded Facebook in his Harvard University dorm room, the company’s brand has been badly dented by a succession of crises, from Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election to the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal, which became public in 2018, to last month’s damaging revelations from former Facebook employee turned whistleblower Frances Haugen.

But even as the company has been pummeled by a wave of critical news coverage about its platforms’ harms, based on Haugen’s trove of internal documents, Zuckerberg has unapologetically kept his focus on the metaverse, describing it on Thursday as the company’s new “North Star.”

He says the metaverse is the next big computing platform to which people’s attention — and dollars — will shift in the coming years. And he wants the newly christened Meta to play a prime role in creating it and turning it into big business.

“Building our social media apps will always be an important focus for us. But right now, our brand is so tightly linked to one product that it can’t possibly represent everything that we’re doing today, let alone in the future,” Zuckerberg said.

So just what is the metaverse anyway?

Zuckerberg announced the new name, Meta, in a glitzy video presentation that served as an explainer about the metaverse, a futuristic and vaguely defined concept that has become a Silicon Valley buzzword in recent years.

The term “metaverse” was coined by science fiction writer Neal Stephenson in his 1992 novel, Snow Crash. Enthusiasts use it to refer to immersive virtual spaces where people can play games, attend concerts, meet with colleagues and buy all kinds of digital goods and services.

Facebook demonstrated many of those experiences in Thursday’s slickly produced video, showing Zuckerberg riding a virtual reality electric hydrofoil (in a nod to his real-life hobby), fencing with a hologram and walking through a 3D rendering of his “home space.”

This week, Facebook told investors its spending on virtual reality and other next-generation products and services will take a $10 billion bite out of its overall operating profit this year. It also announced plans to hire 10,000 workers in Europe over the next five years to build the metaverse.

On Thursday, Zuckerberg said he expects to invest “many billions of dollars for years to come,” painting a vision of the future where a billion people will use the metaverse and it will generate hundreds of billions of dollars in digital commerce — while acknowledging it remains “a long way off.”

“We are fully committed to this,” Zuckerberg said. “It is the next chapter of our work and, we believe, for the internet overall.”

In a nod to Facebook’s long run of crises, Zuckerberg devoted part of the presentation to emphasizing that the company will center privacy and safety as it builds its new virtual services and hardware.

“Privacy standards will be built into the metaverse from Day 1,” he said. “One of the lessons I’ve internalized from the last five years is we need to emphasize these principles from the start.”

With inputs from NPR

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Prime Minister of Pakistan visited Masjid Al Nabawi, Madinah today

JEDDAH: The Saudi city of Madinah has been acknowledged by the World Health Organization (WHO) as among the world’s healthiest cities.

The holy city gained accreditation after a visiting WHO team said that it met all the global standards required to be a healthy city.

Madinah is believed to be the first city with a population of more than 2 million to be recognized under the organization’s healthy cities program.

A total of 22 government, community, charity and volunteer agencies helped prepare for the WHO accreditation.

The city’s integrated program included a strategic partnership with Taibah University to record government requirements on an electronic platform for the organization’s review.

The WHO also recommended that the university provide training to other national city agencies interested in taking part in the healthy cities program.

A committee chaired by the university’s president, Dr. Abdul Aziz Assarani supervised 100 members representing the 22 government, civil, charity, and volunteer agencies.

Criteria included meeting goals set by the Madinah Region Strategy Project and the launch of a “Humanizing Cities” program.

According to WHO, “a healthy city is one that is continually creating and improving those physical and social environments and expanding those community resources which enable people to mutually support each other in performing all the functions of life and developing to their maximum potential.”

An Arab News Report

Scientists are utilising the same technology used in the creation of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 jab to develop a vaccine to treat cancer.

Researchers at the University of Oxford and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research have designed a two-dose therapeutic cancer vaccine using Oxford’s viral vector vaccine technology. The cancer vaccine, which has already been tested in mouse tumour models, has been shown to increase the levels of anti-tumour T cells infiltrating the tumours and improve the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy.
The study has been published in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer.

Immunotherapy

The process of cancer immunotherapy involves turning a patient’s own immune system against a tumour. PD-1 is a checkpoint protein on immune cells called T cells. It normally acts as a type of ‘off switch’ that helps to prevent the T cells from attacking other cells in the body. Anti-PD-1 immunotherapy works by taking the brakes off these anti-tumour T cells, enabling them to kill cancer cells. Although this therapy has proved hugely successful in some cancer patients, it is ineffective for most.
Researchers have sighted low levels of anti-tumour T cells in some patients as one of the reasons for the poor efficacy of anti-PD-1 cancer therapy. The vaccine technology behind the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine generates strong CD8+ T cell responses, which are required for good anti-tumour effects.
In this study, the researchers developed a two-dose therapeutic cancer vaccine with different prime and boost viral vectors, one of which is the same as the vector in the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. To create a vaccine that specifically targets cancer cells, it was designed to target two MAGE-type proteins that are present on the surface of many types of cancer cells. Known as MAGE-A3 and NY-ESO-1, these two targets were previously validated by the Ludwig Institute.

Reduction in tumour size

When trialled in preclinical experiments using mouse tumour models, the vaccine increased the levels of tumour-infiltrating CD8+ T cells and enhanced the response to anti-PD-1 immunotherapy. The combined vaccine and anti-PD-1 treatment resulted in a greater reduction in tumour size and improved the survival of the mice compared to anti-PD-1 therapy alone.
Benoit Van den Eynde, Professor of Tumour Immunology at the University of Oxford, Member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and Director of the de Duve Institute, Belgium, said: “We knew from our previous research that MAGE-type proteins act like red flags on the surface of cancer cells to attract immune cells that destroy tumours.
“MAGE proteins have an advantage over other cancer antigens as vaccine targets since they are present on a wide range of tumour types. This broadens the potential benefit of this approach to people with many different types of cancer.
“Importantly for target specificity, MAGE-type antigens are not present on the surface of normal tissues, which reduces the risk of side effects caused by the immune system attacking healthy cells.”
In the next step of this research, scientists will carry out a Phase 1/2a clinical trial of the cancer vaccine in combination with anti-PD-1 immunotherapy in 80 patients with non-small cell lung cancer. This trial is due to take place later this year as a collaboration between Vaccitech Oncology Limited (VOLT) and Cancer Research UK’s Centre for Drug Development.
Adrian Hill, Lakshmi Mittal and Family Professorship of Vaccinology and Director of the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford, said: “This new vaccine platform has the potential to revolutionise cancer treatment. The forthcoming trial in non-small cell lung cancer follows a Phase 2a trial of a similar cancer vaccine in prostate cancer undertaken by the University of Oxford that is showing promising results.
“Our cancer vaccines elicit strong CD8+ T cell responses that infiltrate tumours and show great potential in enhancing the efficacy of immune checkpoint blockade therapy and improving outcomes for patients with cancer.”
Tim Elliott, Kidani Professor of Immuno-oncology at the University of Oxford and co-Director of Oxford Cancer, said: “In Oxford, we are combining our fundamental scientific expertise in immunology and antigen discovery with translational research on vaccine platforms.
“By bringing these teams together, we can continue to address the significant challenge of broadening the positive impact of immunotherapy to benefit more patients.”

With the help of China, the Taliban will fight for an economic comeback in Afghanistan, Zabihullah Mujahid tells Italian newspaper.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has told an Italian newspaper that the group will rely primarily on financing from China following the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan and its takeover of the country.

In his interview published by La Repubblica on Thursday, Mujahid said the Taliban will fight for an economic comeback with the help of China.

The Taliban seized control of Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, on August 15 as the country’s Western-backed government melted away, bringing an end to 20 years of war amid fears of an economic collapse and widespread hunger.

Following the chaotic departure of foreign troops from Kabul airport in recent weeks, Western states have severely restricted their aid payments to Afghanistan.

“China is our most important partner and represents a fundamental and extraordinary opportunity for us, because it is ready to invest and rebuild our country,” the Taliban spokesperson was quoted as saying in the interview.

He said the New Silk Road – an infrastructure initiative with which China wants to increase its global influence by opening up trade routes – was held in high regard by the Taliban.

There are “rich copper mines in the country, which, thanks to the Chinese, can be put back into operation and modernised. In addition, China is our pass to markets all over the world.”

Mujahid also confirmed that women would be allowed to continue studying at universities in future. He said women would be able to work as nurses, in the police or as assistants in ministries, but ruled out that there would be female ministers.

Andrew Small, senior transatlantic fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States Asia programme, said China’s engagement in Afghanistan would be dependent on political stability.

“China doesn’t do large scale aid; it will provide aid in modest terms, it will provide humanitarian assistance and it’s not going to bail out a new government,” he told Al Jazeera.

“It might do some smaller scale investments but those longer term investments will depend on there being enough stability in the country and enough security in the country for these to turn into something that’s economically viable,” he added.

“So there’s still some limitations to what Cina’s going to be willing to do economically, even if it continues to be happy and the Taliban are keen to be able to send these signals that China’s willing to swing in on scale.”

Afghanistan desperately needs money, and the Taliban is unlikely to get swift access to the roughly $10bn in assets here mostly held abroad by the Afghan central bank.

Earlier this week, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres warned of a looming “humanitarian catastrophe” in Afghanistan and urged countries to provide emergency funding as severe drought and war have forced thousands of families to flee their homes.

Guterres expressed his “grave concern at the deepening humanitarian and economic crisis in the country”, adding that basic services threatened to collapse “completely”.

“Now more than ever, Afghan children, women and men need the support and solidarity of the international community,” he said in a statement on Tuesday as he pleaded for financial support from nations.

“I urge all member states to dig deep for the people of Afghanistan in their darkest hour of need. I urge them to provide timely, flexible and comprehensive funding,” the UN secretary-general said.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the current $1.3bn UN humanitarian appeal for Afghanistan is only 39 percent funded.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Kashmir Today staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, centre, said the New Silk Road – a Chinese infrastructure initiative – was held in high regard by the Taliban [File: Wakil Kohsar/AFP

Washington: America’s 20-year-old military presence in Afghanistan has ended, President Joe Biden announced, hours after the United States withdrew all of its soldiers from the war-ravaged country.

“Now, our 20-year military presence in Afghanistan has ended,” he said, thanking armed forces for their execution of the dangerous retrograde from Afghanistan as scheduled — in the early hours of Tuesday (August 31) – with no further loss of American lives.

Biden said he will address the nation on Tuesday. “For now, I will report that it was the unanimous recommendation of the Joint Chiefs and of all of our commanders on the ground to end our airlift mission as planned. Their view was that ending our military mission was the best way to protect the lives of our troops, and secure the prospects of civilian departures for those who want to leave Afghanistan in the weeks and months ahead.”

The president said he has asked the Secretary of State to lead the continued coordination with US international partners to ensure safe passage for any Americans, Afghan partners and foreign nationals who want to leave Afghanistan.

This will include work to build on the UN Security Council Resolution that sent the clear message of what the international community expects the Taliban to deliver on moving forward, notably freedom of travel, he added.

“The Taliban has made commitments on safe passage and the world will hold them to their commitments. It will include ongoing diplomacy in Afghanistan and coordination with partners in the region to reopen the airport allowing for continued departure for those who want to leave and delivery of humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan,” Biden said.

He urged all Americans to join him in “grateful prayer for three things”.

“First, for our troops and diplomats who carried out this mission of mercy in Kabul and at tremendous risk with such unparalleled results: an airlift that evacuated tens of thousands more people than any imagined possible”.

“Second, to the network of volunteers and veterans who helped identify those needing evacuation, guide them to the airport, and provide support along the way. And third, to everyone who is now – and who will – welcome our Afghan allies to their new homes around the world, and in the United States.”

Earlier, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that Biden stands by his decision to bring troops home from Afghanistan.

“Because if he had not, his view and the view of many experts in military out there is we would have sent tens of thousands, potentially — or thousands, at least — more troops back into harm’s way, risking more lives and more people to fight a war the Afghans were not willing to fight themselves. Nothing has changed in that regard,” she said.

“Our current plan is not to have an ongoing presence in Afghanistan as of September 1st, but we will have means and mechanisms of having diplomats on the ground, being able to continue to process out those applicants and facilitate passage of other people who want to leave Afghanistan. We will have more details for that, I expect, in the coming days,” she added. PTI

Taliban Claims that they have recovered Alcohol from the Governor’s House and Police Headquarters in Aibak capital of Samangan and they later on set the same on fire.

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