The Holy Month of Ramadan is expected to begin in less than 100 days, according to a renowned Arab astronomer.
Ibrahim Al Jarwan, member of the Arab Union for Astronomy and Space Sciences, said that the Ramadan crescent is expected to form on April 12, 2021, at 6.31pm UAE time.
Ramadan 2021, hence, is expected to begin on Tuesday, April 13.
The above dates are subject to moon sighting.
Islamabad: Prime Minister Imran Khan has arrived in Quetta to meet the Hazara community and get a briefing on the law and order situation in the province after the Machh tragedy, Geo News reported Saturday.
According to the TV report, PM Imran will meet with the leaders and religious scholars of the Hazara community to share their grief and condole over the last week incident in which 10 miners were killed by the militants in Balochistan’s remote area.
Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed is with the prime minister on his daylong visit to the provincial capital.
The concerned authorities will also apprise the prime minister on the progress made in the investigation.
PM Imran had on Friday said that he will not visit Quetta till the miners are buried. His statement that the prime minister can not be blackmailed invited strong criticism from all the major Opposition parties.
Meanwhile, the funeral prayers of the victims were offered in the Hazara Town. SAPM Zulfi Bukhari and National Assembly Deputy Speaker Qasim Suri and other provincial ministers were also present.
Earlier, Shuhda Action Committee announced to end protests across the country after the government accepted their demands.
Qasim Suri had said that “right after the burial”, PM Imran Khan will leave for Quetta and will be accompanied by Chief of Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa.
Minister for Maritime Affairs Ali Haider Zaidi who had been spearheading talks in Quetta on behalf of the government had said such incidences of violence must now come to an end. “We are making amends for the last 70 years,” he noted.
Zaidi said that a written agreement had been reached with the Shuhda Action Committee. “No such written accord has ever been struck before with any other government,” he remarked.
“The demands put before us were difficult,” said Zaidi, adding that the “officers that must be removed have been decided”.
The minister said that if governance in Pakistan “had not been so poor, poverty like this would not have existed”.
“People would not have been massacred like this,” he said, adding: “Foreign elements wish to create sectarian division in Pakistan.”
Zaidi also announced scholarships on behalf of his ministry for the children of all the victims.
With the agreement reached, the sit-in by the families of the victims of the massacre, which had been staged for the past six days in freezing cold temperatures, came to an end and the bodies were carried away to be buried.
Ten colliers were killed and four others were seriously injured on Sunday after armed men attacked them at a coal field in Balochistan’s Bolan district.
The coal miners, according to police, were taken to nearby mountains where they were shot.
According to AFP, the 10 miners were kidnapped before dawn on Sunday as they slept near the remote coal mine in the southwestern mountainous Machh area — 60 kilometres southeast of Quetta city, local government official Abid Saleem said.
Security officials who did not want to be named told AFP the attackers first separated the miners before tying their hands and feet and taking them into the hills to kill them. Most were shot, however, some were beheaded, said officials who did not want to be named.
Officials on Monday clarified ten people had died in the attack, revising a previous death toll of 11, AFP reported.
The militant group Daesh claimed the attack, according to SITE Intelligence, which monitors militant activities worldwide.
Protests over the carnage of Shia Hazara mine workers in Pakistan’s Quetta has finally ended as the families declared the burial after two central ministers along with the chief minister of Balochistan again visited the site and assured the Hazara community that PM Imran Khan had accepted their demands.
The mourning families were notified that PM Imran Khan, Interior Minister Shaikh Rashid Ahmed and Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa were expected to visit Quetta on Saturday according to reports.
Hazara community in Balochistan’s Quetta had been protesting the brutal killing of 11 of their community members by ISIS on Sunday.
The protests have further spread to the other cities of the country, including Karachi. The protesters are demanding the dissolution of the provincial government of Balochistan and strong action by Islamabad to find and punish the culprits.
Khan has appealed to the Hazara community to bury those who were killed in the attack. “I am using this platform to say that if you bury them today, I will go to Quetta to meet the families of the deceased,” he said.
“This should be clear. All of your demands have been met but you can’t impose a condition which has [no logic]. So first, bury the dead. If you do it today then I guarantee you that I will come to Quetta today,” Khan said.
WhatsApp, the messaging platform owned by Facebook, has updated its Privacy Policy. All users received a notice, saying that the service will now be sharing user data with other Facebook companies.
This comes in stark contrast with what the company initially promised back in 2014 during the acquisition by Facebook when WhatsApp assured its goal is to know “as little as possible”.
While users were able to opt out until now, starting February 8, they will have only one solution, if they don’t want their data to be owned by the parent company – uninstall the app and stop using the service.
Some of the info WhatsApp is collecting and will be sharing includes location data, IP addresses, phone model, OS, battery level, signal strength, browser, mobile network, ISP, language, time zone, and even IMEI. There’s also the information about how you are messaging, calling, what groups you are attending, the Status, the profile photo, last time the you were online, etc.
WhatsApp even added a separate section called “Transactions and Payments data” specifying the platform will process additional information even for payments, made through the app. The company claims this is for analytics purposes, although it would provide its unique identifiers to other Facebook Companies.
The Privacy Policy is rolling out globally, however, users located in the European Union received only one bullet point in their notification. Thanks to tighter privacy legislation better known as GDPR, the WhatsApp users in 27 European countries will not have their data shared with third parties.
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Islamabad: Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that he is ready to go to Quetta immediately if the protesting Hazara community buries their dead.
Speaking at a launch ceremony of Special Technology Zones Authority in Islamabad, the premier said making the burial conditional on his visit is inappropriate.
The prime minister said he wanted to start by clearing his position on the matter. “All the demands put forth by the protesters have been accepted; therefore, making the burial [of the dead] conditional on the prime minister’s visit is not appropriate,” he said. “This is akin to blackmailing the prime minister.”
PM Imran Khan said when he learned about the killing of 11 coal miners in Machh, he first sent Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed to Quetta then two federal ministers [Sayed Zulfikar Bukhari and Ali Zaidi] to assure the Hazara community that the government stood behind them.
“I assured them that they would be compensated and looked after as the affected families have lost their breadwinners.”
PM Imran Khan said the federal government has accepted all demands put forth by the Hazara protestors but they are adamant that they would not bury the dead until the prime minister visits Quetta.
“Nowhere in the world can you blackmail a prime minister like this. Because then [it opens the door for] every crook to stage a sit-in and demand corruption cases against them be withdrawn. This is very important.”
“The Hazara community has faced the most cruelty,” said the prime minister. “They have been persecuted in ways no other [community] has been persecuted. I have visited them and seen their fear.”
“India is trying its best to create chaos [in Pakistan],” he continued. “I had already told the cabinet that Shia ulema may be targeted in a bid to spread unrest. A Sunni alim was murdered in Karachi — we put out that fire with great difficulty.”
“I have told them that if they bury the victims today, I will go to Quetta today. However, their demand to bury their relatives only if I visit them is not appropriate and not acceptable,” he said. “I want to make it clear that we have accepted all the demands but this is not appropriate that you put forth a condition that does not make sense.”
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei banned Iran’s government on Friday from importing COVID-19 vaccines from the United States and Britain.
“Imports of US and British vaccines into the country are forbidden. I have told this to officials and I’m saying it publicly now,” Khamenei said in a live televised speech.
“I have no confidence in them. Sometimes they want to test vaccines on other nations … If the Americans were able to produce a vaccine, they would not have such a coronavirus fiasco in their own country.”
Iran, the country that has been worst hit by the novel coronavirus in the Middle East, launched human trials of its first domestic COVID-19 vaccine candidate late last month, saying it could help Iran defeat the pandemic despite US sanctions that affect its ability to import vaccines.
However, Khamenei praised Iran’s efforts to develop domestic vaccines but said Iran could obtain vaccines “from other reliable places”. He gave no details but China and Russia are both allies of Iran.
“I’m not optimistic about France either because of their history of infected blood,” Khamenei said, referring to the country’s contaminated blood scandal of the 1980s and 1990s.
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.
IANS
Washington: More than 4,000 adverse events were reported after people received the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in the US, with 21 cases determined to be anaphylaxis, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The US Food and Drug Administration issued an Emergency Use Authorization for Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine on December 11, 2020, administered as two doses separated by 21 days, reports Xinhua news agency.
As of December 23, 2020, a total of 1,893,360 first doses of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine had been administered in the US, according to the CDC report.
Reports of 4,393 adverse events had been submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System in the country.
Among those, 175 case reports were identified for further review as possible cases of severe allergic reaction, including anaphylaxis.
Twenty-one cases were determined to be anaphylaxis, including 17 in persons with a documented history of allergies or allergic reactions, seven of whom had a history of anaphylaxis, according to the CDC.
Anaphylaxis is a life-threatening allergic reaction that does occur rarely after vaccination, with onset typically within minutes to hours, said the CDC.
Locations administering Covid-19 vaccines should adhere to CDC guidance for use of the jabs, including screening recipients for contraindications and precautions, having the necessary supplies available to manage anaphylaxis, implementing the recommended post-vaccination observation periods, and immediately treating suspected cases of anaphylaxis with intramuscular injection of epinephrine, said the CDC.
Two days after being administered the Pfizer coronavirus jab, a Portugese health worker suffered a ‘sudden death’ at home on New Year’s day.
Sonia Acevedo, a 41-year old woman who worked in paediatrics at the Portuguese Institute of Oncology in Porto, had posted a picture of herself after getting the shot on Facebook.
Acevedo’s daughter Vania Figueredo said her mother had only complained about ‘normal’ discomfort in the area where she was jabbed but was otherwise fine.
The deceased’s father Abilo Acevedo told Portugese daily Correio da Manha: “She was okay. She hadn’t had any health problems.”
“She had the Covid-19 vaccine but she didn’t have any symptoms. I don’t know what happened. I just want answers.”
Acevedo’s employers confirmed that she received the vaccine on December 30 and said they had not been notified of any “undesirable effect”.
The Portuguese Institute of Oncology said in a statement: “With regards to the sudden death of an operational assistant from the Porto IPO on January 1, 2021, the Board of Directors confirms the event and expresses sincere regret to family and friends in the certainty that this loss is also felt here.”
The statement further said, “The explanation of the cause of death will follow the usual procedures in these circumstances.”
Acevedo was one of the 538 Porto IPO workers who received the Pfizer/BioNTech jab.
Portugal’s Ministry of Health has been informed.
In his first order of the new year to the country’s armed forces, Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed the need for “full-time combat readiness” and said the People’s Liberation Army must use frontline frictions to polish troop capabilities.
Xi, who also chairs China’s Central Military Commission (CMC), the top command body, said the PLA must be ready to “act at any second” as the country’s armed forces kicked off the year’s military training and exercises on Monday.
He also ordered the PLA to “substantially increase” the use of technology in its exercises, and to keep up with the latest developments in military and hi-tech knowledge. These included the use of computer simulations and online combat in drills, as well as exploration of more opportunities to add hi-tech and the internet – known as tech+ and web+ – in training.
“[The PLA must] increase the integration of new equipment, new forces and new combat realms into training and combat systems,” he said.
Notably, Xi’s remarks about the PLA’s current “frontline military struggles” were a departure from previous year-opening orders – including 2020 – which instructed the armed forces to “manage crises and deter war”.
While he did not specify the frontline struggles, 2020 saw the worst conflict in decades with India, in the southwestern border region, which led to more than 20 Indian deaths and an undisclosed number of Chinese casualties. The two sides remain locked in a prolonged stand-off in the frozen Himalayas.
The PLA also stepped up exercises and air force fly-by operations targeting Taiwan during 2020, as its navy continued to counter US navy patrols in the South China Sea while military tensions between Beijing and Washington reached a new high.
Since taking over as president and head of the CMC in late 2012, Xi has consistently pushed the PLA to be prepared for war. He also initiated a massive overhaul of the PLA in 2015 to modernise the Chinese military, planned for completion in 2020.
Hong Kong-based military commentator Song Zhongping said Xi’s 2021 order showed the leadership was intending to take all measures to upgrade the PLA’s capability of winning a war. “China is indeed facing a great risk of war, which has been seriously implied in this order,” he said.
The PLA had increasingly adopted the use of simulators to imitate real equipment, connecting them online so that a drill could be as “real” and intense as possible, under its tech+ and web+ strategy.
“Exercises in a new era must be diversified and equipped with hi-tech, even war games,” Song said.
In the order, Xi also emphasised that military exercises must highlight cooperation across forces to forge joint operation capabilities, and the safety of soldiers in training must be well managed.
The PLA, as the military force of the Communist Party of China, must “resolutely implement” the orders from the CMC and CPC, to mark the 100th anniversary of the party’s founding on July 1 with “excellent performances”, he said.
Chicken and other poultry are safe to eat if cooked properly, according to a joint statement by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) issued to national food safety authorities.
However, no birds from flocks with disease should enter the food chain.
In areas where there is no avian influenza outbreak in poultry, there is no risk that consumers will be exposed to the virus via the handling or consumption of poultry or poultry products.
Cooking of poultry (e.g. chicken, ducks, geese, turkeys and guinea-fowl) at or above 70°Celsius throughout the product, so that absolutely no meat remains raw and red, is a safe measure to kill the H5N1 virus in areas with outbreaks in poultry, FAO/WHO said.
This ensures that there is no active virus remaining if the live bird has been infected and has mistakenly entered the food chain.
(All details as per WHO’s statement on ‘No bird flu risk for consumers from properly cooked poultry and eggs’ on 5 DECEMBER 2005 | GENEVA)