It was unclear whether Mr. Erdogan planned to be among some 500 worshippers set to attend Friday prayers. | Photo Credit: AFP
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan paid a surprise visit to Hagia Sofia on Sunday just days before the first Muslim prayers are due to be held at the Istanbul landmark since it was reconverted to a mosque last week.
In a lightning visit billed as an inspection, Mr. Erdogan took stock of the conversion work, the president’s office said, providing pictures showing scaffolding inside the building.
Diyanet, the country’s religious authority, said Christian icons would be curtained off and unlit “through appropriate means during prayer times”.
“Our goal is to avoid harming the frescoes, icons and the historic architecture of the edifice,” Mr. Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said in a television interview on Sunday.
It was unclear whether Mr. Erdogan planned to be among some 500 worshippers set to attend Friday prayers.
Turkey’s top court paved the way for the conversion in a decision to revoke the edifice’s museum status conferred nearly a century ago.
The sixth-century building had been open to all visitors, regardless of their faith, since its inauguration as a museum in 1935.
Earlier this week, Diyanet said the building would continue to be open to all visitors outside the hours given over to prayer.
The UNESCO World Heritage site was built as a cathedral during the Byzantine empire but converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453.
It was designated a museum in a key reform of the post-Ottoman authorities under the modern republic’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Mr. Erdogan said last year it had been a “very big mistake” to convert the Hagia Sophia into a museum.
The reconversion sparked anger among Christians and tensions between historic foes and uneasy NATO allies Turkey and Greece.
The coronavirus that is menacing the world right now is not the same as the coronavirus that first emerged in China.
University College Hospital in London, where the changing virus is being studied | Photo Credit: GETTY IMAGES
Sars-Cov-2, the official name of the virus that causes the disease Covid-19, and continues to blaze a path of destruction across the globe, is mutating.
But, while scientists have spotted thousands of mutations, or changes to the virus’s genetic material, only one has so far been singled out as possibly altering its behaviour.
The crucial questions about this mutation are: does this make the virus more infectious – or lethal – in humans? And could it pose a threat to the success of a future vaccine?
This coronavirus is actually changing very slowly compared with a virus-like flu. With relatively low levels of natural immunity in the population, no vaccine and few effective treatments, there’s no pressure on it to adapt. So far, it’s doing a good job of keeping itself in circulation as it is.
The notable mutation – named D614G and situated within the protein making up the virus’s “spike” it uses to break into our cells – appeared sometime after the initial Wuhan outbreak, probably in Italy. It is now seen in as many as 97% of samples around the world.
Evolutionary edge
The question is whether this dominance is the mutation giving the virus some advantage, or whether it’s just by chance.
Viruses don’t have a grand plan. They mutate constantly and while some changes will help a virus reproduce, some may hinder it. Others are simply neutral. They’re a “by-product of the virus replicating,” says Dr Lucy van Dorp, of University College London. They “hitch-hike” on the virus without changing its behaviour.
The mutation that has emerged could have become very widespread just because it happened early in the outbreak and spread – something known as the “founder effect”. This is what Dr van Dorp and her team believe is the likely explanation for the mutation being so common. But this is increasingly controversial.
A growing number – perhaps the majority – of virologists now believe, as Dr Thushan de Silva, at the University of Sheffield, explains, there is enough data to say this version of the virus has a “selective advantage” – an evolutionary edge – over the earlier version.
Though there is still not enough evidence to say “it’s more transmissible” in people, he says, he’s sure it’s “not neutral”.
When studied in laboratory conditions, the mutated virus was better at entering human cells than those without the variation, say professors Hyeryun Choe and Michael Farzan, at Scripps University in Florida. Changes to the spike protein the virus uses to latch on to human cells seem to allow it to “stick together better and function more efficiently”.
But that’s where they drew the line.
Prof Farzan said the spike proteins of these viruses were different in a way that was “consistent with, but not proving, greater transmissibility”.
Lab result proof
At the Genome Technology Center at New York University, Dr Neville Sanjana, who normally spends his time working on gene-editing technology Crispr. has gone one step further.
His team edited a virus so that it had this alteration to the spike protein and pitted it against a real Sars-CoV-2 virus from the early Wuhan outbreak, without the mutation, in human tissue cells. The results, he believes, prove the mutated virus is more transmissible than the original version, at least in the lab.
Dr van Dorp points out “it is unclear” how representative they are of transmission in real patients. But Prof Farzan says these “marked biological differences” were “substantial enough to tilt the evidence somewhat” in favour of the idea that the mutation is making the virus better at spreading.
Outside a Petri dish, there is some indirect evidence this mutation makes coronavirus more transmissible in humans. Two studies have suggested patients with this mutated virus have larger amounts of the virus in their swab samples. That might suggest they were more infectious to others.
They didn’t find evidence that those people became sicker or stayed in hospital for longer, though.
In general, being more transmissible doesn’t mean a virus is more lethal – in fact the opposite is often true. There’s no evidence this coronavirus has mutated to make patients more or less sick.
But even when it comes to transmissibility, viral load is only an indication of how well the virus is spreading within a single person. It doesn’t necessarily explain how good it is at infecting others. The “gold standard” of research – a controlled trial – hasn’t yet been carried out. That might involve, for example, infecting animals with either one or the other variant of the virus to see which spreads more in a population.
One of the studies’ leads, Prof Bette Korber, at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US, said there was not a consensus, but the idea the mutation increased patients’ viral load was “getting less controversial as more data accrues”.
The mutation is the pandemic
When it comes to looking at the population as a whole, it’s difficult to observe the virus becoming more (or less) infectious. Its course has been drastically altered by interventions, including lockdowns.
But Prof Korber says the fact the variant now appears to be dominant everywhere, including in China, indicates it may have become better at spreading between people than the original version. Whenever the two versions were in circulation at the same time, the new variant took over.
In fact, the D614G variant is so dominant, it is now the pandemic. And it has been for some time – perhaps even since the start of the epidemic in places like the UK and the east coast of the US. So, while evidence is mounting that this mutation is not neutral, it doesn’t necessarily change how we should think about the virus and its spread.
On a more reassuring note, most of the vaccines in development are based on a different region of the spike so this should not have an impact on their development. And there’s some evidence the new form is just as sensitive to antibodies, which can protect you against an infection once you’ve had it – or been vaccinated against it.
But since the science of Covid-19 is so fast-moving, this is something all scientists – wherever they stand on the meaning of the current mutations – will be keen to keep an eye on.
Bangladesh arrests three over Dubai sex trafficking operation
Bangladesh police said on Monday they have arrested three men over the trafficking of hundreds of young women taken to Dubai on the promise of jobs in hotels and then forced into sex work.
Bangladesh police produces Azam Khan, 42, ringleader of the trafficking syndicate, and his two associates | Photo Credits: Dhaka Tribune
The victims were paid a month’s salary up front and told they would work as housekeepers or dancers. But when they got to Dubai, many were forced to have sex for money and beaten if they refused, police said.
Among the three arrested was a man suspected to be the group’s leader, who had been in hiding in Bangladesh since being deported from Dubai earlier this year.
He was arrested on trafficking charges while trying to leave the country earlier this month, said police, who described the other two men as “brokers” and said they were still looking for others.
“We have arrested the leader of the syndicate. But there are other members who are continuing this business. We will arrest them as soon as possible. Only 20 percent of the job has been done,” said Imtiaz Ahmed, deputy inspector general of the Criminal Investigation Department.
“The girls they targeted were aged between 18 to 25. Some of them were garment workers, some were on the hunt for jobs. The traffickers have been working for at least eight years and we estimate that they sent hundreds of women,” he added.
Bangladesh has ramped up its efforts against traffickers after 24 citizens were killed in Libya in May. Last month at least 50 people were arrested in a single operation.
But experts have warned that the country needs to increase its trafficking conviction rate if it is to curb the crime.
More than 4,000 trafficking cases were still awaiting investigation or prosecution at the end of last year and the conviction rate stood at just 1.7% in 2019, according to the latest United States Trafficking in Persons report.
“Because of poor investigation and lack of evidence, many of those who are arrested are not punished under the law,” said Shakirul Islam, head of migrant rights group Ovibashi Karmi Unnayan Program.
“There needs to be more examples of traffickers being punished.”
At least six Bangladeshis were jailed in Dubai last year for trafficking women, including minors.
Ahmed said the cross-border nature of the crime made it difficult to contain.
“We are demotivating the local traffickers by arresting them. But there’s not much that we can do about those who live abroad,” he said.
Shah Mehmood Qureshi on July 3 announced that he had tested positive for coronavirus
PTI
Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Friday said he has recovered from COVID-19 and resumed official activities, two weeks after testing positive for the disease.
“Thank you all for your good wishes and support. I am fortunate to be back in the office today (Friday) post #COVID, he tweeted.
Mr. Qureshi praised Pakistan’s healthcare system for fighting against the pandemic.
“I pay tribute to Pakistan’s healthcare and frontline workers for being our backbone in the fight against this pandemic with unyielding commitment and dedication. I salute you,” the minister said.
Mr. Qureshi on July 3 announced that he had tested positive for the coronavirus, joining a long list of Pakistani lawmakers who have contracted the deadly virus.
Later, he was shifted to Military Hospital in Rawalpindi. He was discharged a few days ago after passive immunisation treatment.
Pakistan’s coronavirus cases on Friday reached 259,999 after 2,085 more people tested positive for the COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, the health ministry reported.
According to the Ministry of National Health Services, another 49 patients died in the last 24 hours, taking the death toll to 5,475.
Police fire tear gas to disperse demonstrators in Behbahan
REUTERS
Iran promised on Friday to deal “decisively” with further protests over economic hardship, a day after security forces fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators in the southwestern city of Behbahan.
Supporters of Iranian leader Maryam Rajavi protesting in Berlin | Photo Credit: Fabrizio Bensch
Iran’s clerical rulers have tried to prevent a revival of last November’s anti-government protests, when over 1,000 people are believed to have been killed in the deadliest street violence since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Tehran says 225 people were killed, including members of the security forces.
On Tuesday, the judiciary said the death sentences of three men involved in that unrest had been upheld, sparking a surge of online protests. In a statement on Friday, the police urged people to “vigilantly refrain from any gathering that could provide a pretext for the counter-revolutionary movement”, accusing “enemies” of whipping up discontent. “The police force has an inherent and legal duty to deal decisively with these desperate moves,” the statement added.
Videos posted on social media from inside Iran on Thursday showed protesters chanting, “Fear not, fear not, we are in this together!”. Some chanted slogans against top officials.
Videos posted on Twitter showed a heavy presence of security forces in several cities. Reuters was unable to verify the videos, or reports of arrests.
“People are angry. The economy is so bad that we cannot survive,” an Iranian man said by phone from Tehran on Thursday.
There were calls on social media for demonstrations across the country on Friday to protest against the three death sentences.
U.S. officials have “lost their minds and gone mad” in their dealings with Beijing, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday, in the latest verbal salvo between the two superpowers.
Tensions between Washington and Beijing have run high this year and some of the most outspoken critics of China in American Congress were this week hit with sanctions, days after the U.S. imposed visa bans and asset freezes on several Chinese officials.
U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr added fuel to the fire on Thursday when he accused Beijing of mounting an “economic blitzkrieg” to replace Washington as the world’s pre-eminent power and spread its political ideology around the world.
Comments that distract
But Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Mr. Barr and other American officials were criticising China to distract from domestic political problems. “These people, for self-interest and political gain, do not hesitate to hijack domestic public opinion… to the point where they have lost their minds and gone mad,” she said. Ms. Hua added that China had no intention of challenging or replacing the U.S. and said she hoped that Washington could “return to rationality” in its China policy. “A sparrow cannot understand the ambition of a swan,” she said. “This is a serious misjudgment and misunderstanding of China’s strategic intent.”
U.S. officials have “lost their minds and gone mad” in their dealings with Beijing, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday, in the latest verbal salvo between the two superpowers.
Tensions between Washington and Beijing have run high this year and some of the most outspoken critics of China in American Congress were this week hit with sanctions, days after the U.S. imposed visa bans and asset freezes on several Chinese officials.
U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr added fuel to the fire on Thursday when he accused Beijing of mounting an “economic blitzkrieg” to replace Washington as the world’s pre-eminent power and spread its political ideology around the world.
China and Bangladesh has established a new joint venture company (JVC), titled “Bangladesh-China Power Company (Pvt) Ltd (Renewable),” to implement renewable energy projects having a target to generate around 500 MW of electricity.
State-run North-West Power Generation Company Ltd (NWPGCL) and China National Machinery Import and Export Corporation (CMC) inked a joint venture agreement on Tuesday to form the JVC where both the companies will have equal stakes.
Authorised capital of the JVC is Tk 10 billion, while its paid-up capital is Tk 160 million.
State minister for the Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources (MPEMR) Nasrul Hamid was the chief guest at the virtual JVA signing ceremony chaired by power secretary Dr Sultan Ahmed.
Representational Picture | Photo Credit: Reuters
Speaking on the occasion Mr Hamid said the government will continue providing incentives to increase the use of renewable energy.
Net metering system has been introduced to encourage renewable energy-based distributed generation, he said.
Steps have been taken to expand further the use of solar home system, said Mr Hamid.
The lack of non-agro land is impeding implementation of large scale solar power plant projects in the country, he said.
Works are being carried out to implement floating and roof top solar power plants, said Mr Hamid.
Steps have also been taken to generate electricity from wastes, he said.
Some 23 projects to generate around 1,220 MW of electricity are now in operation across the country, he added.
Principal Secretary of Prime Minister’s Office Dr Ahmad Kaikaus, China’s Ambassador to Bangladesh Li Jiming, Bangladesh Power Develoipment Board (BPDB) Chairman Md Belayet Hossain, chief executive officer of NWPGCL A M Khurshedul Alam, and CMC chairman Ruan Guang also spoke on the occasion.
New York: Russia and China vetoed a last-ditch attempt by Western members of the U.N. Security Council to extend approval – which expires on Friday – for humanitarian aid to be delivered across two border crossings into Syria from Turkey for the next six months.
The United Nations says millions of Syrian civilians in the country’s northwest depend on the humanitarian aid delivered from Turkey, describing it as a “lifeline.” The remaining 13 council members voted in favor of the resolution on Friday.
The 15-member council has been split, with most members pitted against Syrian allies Russia and China, who want to cut the number of border crossings to one, arguing those areas can be reached with humanitarian help from within Syria.
Later on Friday the council voted on a Russian draft text to approve aid deliveries for one Turkish crossing for one year, but it failed after only garnering four votes in favor.
Diplomats said work would continue to see if a compromise could be reached among council members.
The council has now unsuccessfully voted four times on the issue and Russia and China have cast two vetoes this week.
The Security Council first authorized the cross-border aid operation into Syria six year ago, which also included access from Jordan and Iraq. Those crossings were cut in January due to opposition by Russia and China.
On Tuesday, Russia and China vetoed a bid to extend for a year approval of the two Turkey crossings. The remaining 13 members voted in favor of the resolution, drafted by Germany and Belgium. Russia then failed to win enough support on Wednesday for its proposal to authorize one crossing for six months.
Russia has now vetoed 16 council resolutions on Syria since Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad cracked down on protesters in 2011, leading to civil war. For many of those votes, Moscow has been backed in the council by China.
New York Times reports amid US sanctions on Iran, the partnership would entail trade, investment, military cooperation and possibly Chinese military bases.
New Delhi: China and Iran are reported to have quietly drafted a comprehensive military and trade partnership. The deal would make way for about $400 billion worth of Chinese investments into Iran’s key sectors, such as energy and infrastructure, over the next 25 years.
According to US officials, the agreement could also make way for Chinese military bases in Iran, fundamentally changing the region’s geopolitics.
ThePrint looks at the proposed deal, what led to it and its implications for the Middle East.
China’s more pronounced interest in Iran should alert the US to review its past approach towards Tehran
The deal
An 18-page draft of the proposed agreement was accessed and reported by the New York Times (NYT), and it talks about expanding Chinese presence in Iran’s “banking, telecommunications, ports, railways and dozens of other projects”. In return, Iran is to provide regular and “heavily discounted” supply of oil to China for 25 years.
In the strategic realm, the proposed draft talks about deepening military cooperation, with “joint training and exercises”, “joint research and weapons development”, and intelligence sharing.
This deepening military cooperation would be intended to fight the “the lopsided battle with terrorism, drug and human trafficking and cross-border crimes”.
The deal is reported to have been first proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping during his 2016 visit to Tehran, and the proposed draft was approved by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif over the last couple of weeks.
These moves come at a time when the Iranian economy has been crippled by sweeping US sanctions, which have ensured that any company in the world that deals with Iran would be cut off from the global financial system.
The deal has not been presented to the Iranian parliament yet, and Beijing is still to disclose the terms of the deal, though Iranian officials have publicly acknowledged that there is a “pending agreement with China”.
What does it entail?
The opening sentence of the proposed draft says: “Two ancient Asian cultures, two partners in the sectors of trade, economy, politics, culture and security with a similar outlook and many mutual bilateral and multilateral interests will consider one another strategic partners.”
There are nearly 100 projects cited in the document that would have Chinese investments, and are expected to be a part of Xi’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which aims to extend China’s strategic influence across Eurasia.
These 100 projects include “airports, high-speed railways and subways”, effectively touching the lives of most Iranian citizens.
“China would (also) develop free-trade zones in Maku, in northwestern Iran; in Abadan, where the Shatt al-Arab river flows into the Persian Gulf, and on the gulf island Qeshm,” notes the NYT report.
The draft agreement also talks about China building infrastructure for 5G telecommunications network in Iran. This would see Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei — a company that has come under severe US sanctions and been banned by many countries across the world such as the United Kingdom and Australia — enter the Iranian market.
Chinese global positioning system BeiDou is also proposed to assist Iran’s cyber authorities in regulating what is shared in the country’s cyberspace, potentially paving the way for Iran to develop a China-like “great firewall”.
US ‘pushed’ Iran into China’s arms
Since coming to power in 2017, US President Donald Trump has withdrawn from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which froze the country’s nuclear programme, and enforced comprehensive sanctions on Iran, devastating its economy. Now “Tehran’s desperation has pushed it into the arms of China”, remarks the NYT report.
“Iran and China both view this deal as a strategic partnership in not just expanding their own interests but confronting the US. It is the first of its kind for Iran, keen on having a world power as an ally,” said Ali Gholizadeh, who works at University of Science and Technology of China in Beijing.
Until now, Iran used to seek European cooperation for trade and investment, but it has reportedly grown increasingly frustrated with it.
“The draft agreement with Iran shows that unlike most countries, China feels it is in a position to defy the United States, powerful enough to withstand American penalties, as it has in the trade war waged by President Trump,” said the NYT report.
The US State Department spokesperson said the US would continue to “impose costs on Chinese companies that aid Iran”.
Middle East geopolitics
For decades now, the US forces have dominated the Middle East’s security paradigm, but this agreement could now provide China with a foothold in the region, according to unnamed US officials in the NYT report.
Analysts contend that when China develops strategic ports in various countries, there is a possibility that it might militarise them at some point.
In the proposed draft, China plans to build several ports in Iran, one of them at Jask, just outside the Gulf of Hormuz, which is the entrance to the Persian Gulf.
The Gulf of Hormuz is among the nine key maritime chokepoints across the world. All of these chokepoints are controlled by the US, which many security analysts believe is a marker of US strategic hegemony over the world.
Now, a Chinese port at Jask “would give the Chinese a strategic vantage point on the waters through which much of the world’s oil transits. The passage is of critical strategic importance to the United States, whose Navy’s Fifth Fleet is headquartered in Bahrain in the gulf,” the NYT report states.
The U.S. closed five military bases in Afghanistan as part of an agreement signed with the Taliban more than four months ago, a U.S. official confirmed to Fox News.
The deal promised to withdraw all U.S. forces from the bases in the first 135 days, a milestone met on Tuesday, President Trump’s special representative to the talks, Zalmay Khalilzad, said.
“The U.S. has worked hard to carry out the 1st phase of its commitments under the Agreement, including to reduce forces & depart five bases. NATO troops have come down in proportional numbers,” Khalilzad said on Twitter.
We have reached Day 135, a key milestone in implementation of the U.S.-Taliban Agreement. The U.S. has worked hard to carry out the 1st phase of its commitments under the Agreement, including to reduce forces & depart five bases. NATO troops have come down in proportional numbers
Afghan media outlet Tolo reported the five U.S. bases that closed are located in Helmand, Uruzgan, Paktika and Laghman provinces, in southern and eastern Afghanistan.
The larger U.S. bases in Bagram, located outside Kabul, and Kandahar Air Field in southern Afghanistan remain open.
U.S. troops patrol at an Afghan National Army (ANA) Base in Logar province, Afghanistan August 7, 2018. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani
Another major stipulation of the proposed peace deal brokered in Doha in February between the Taliban and the U.S. is the large-scale withdrawal of American troops in Afghanistan.
The U.S. slashed the number of troops in the region to 8,600, down from a high of over 100,000 in 2010.
Despite the reduction in U.S. troops as part of the agreement, violence between the Taliban and Afghan forces has spiked in recent months, according to the Afghan government.
Just a day before the base closures, the Taliban detonated a car bomb at a government facility in Samangan province’s capital Aybak, near the office of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), a key intelligence agency, killing 11 security personnel and wounding at least 63 civilians, including children.
Afghan security personnel inspect the site of a car bomb blast on an intelligence compound in Aybak, the capital of the Samangan province in northern Afghanistan, Monday, July 13, 2020. Taliban insurgents launched a complex attack on the compound that began with a suicide bombing, officials said. (AP Photo)
ARMY’S ‘CAPTAIN AMERICA’ DIES BY SUICIDE AFTER NEARLY A DOZEN COMBAT TOURS
The surge in violence across the nation targeting Afghan forces is likely a tactic to strongarm the government into releasing nearly 600 additional Taliban prisoners before the group considers measures to end the nearly two-decades-old war in the region.
“We condemn today’s attack. The use of major explosives to detonate a vehicle in a provincial capital is unacceptable and will strengthen those who oppose peace and plays into the hands of spoilers. All sides must reduce violence” Khalilzad tweeted on Monday.
“Violence has been high, especially in recent days & weeks. Afghans continue to die in large numbers for no reason. The Taliban’s attack today in a provincial capital contradicts their commitment to reduce violence until a permanent ceasefire is reached in intra-Afghan talks,” he added.
The government has released 4,199 Taliban prisoners and the Taliban 779 members of pro-government forces, according to figures provided by both sides, Al Jazeera reported.
Despite the prisoner exchanges on both sides as called for in the U.S.-Taliban deal, talks for a mutual peace agreement have been at a standstill, delaying its kickoff that was supposed to begin in March.
Bangladesh police produces Azam Khan, 42, ringleader of the trafficking syndicate, and his two associates | Photo Credits: Dhaka Tribune
Representational Picture | Photo Credit: Reuters
