Tehran had gone ahead with the important transit project on its own citing delays in funding
Iran dropped India from the Chabahar rail project because of “absence of active Indian engagement,” Iranian sources said on Tuesday, confirming The Hindu’s report. Iran remains open to all including India for collaboration and investment but Tehran expects future projects should be safeguarded from third party unilateral sanctions.
“It was expected that in addition to the investment in Chabahar Port, India could also play a more crucial role in funding and constructing this strategic transit route from Chabahar to Zahedan and from Zahedan to Sarakhs at the border with Turkmenistan which in the absence of an active Indian engagement and partnership, currently is under construction by Iranian funding and engineering capacities,” said Iranian sources. The Hindu reported on Tuesday that Iran had gone ahead with the important transit project on its own citing delays from the Indian side in funding.
U.S. sanctions
The delay has also indicated at possible impact of U.S. sanctions on India’s projects with Iran. Though India secured exemption for the Chabahar port from U.S. sanctions, bilateral ties with Iran took a hit in February after the riots in Delhi drew condemnation from Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. That apart India-Iran energy trade was hit when India shut energy imports from Iran because of the threat of U.S. sanctions, which also affected the IRCON-Iranian Rail Ministry MoU for the construction of the Chabahar-Zahedan rail project.
India had firmed up the railway plans in May 2016 during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Tehran to sign the Chabahar agreement with Iranian President Rouhani and Afghan President Ghani. Iran’s latest action drew attention as it came in the backdrop of Tehran finalising a 25-year strategic partnership agreement with Beijing which was negotiated in secrecy. Iran, however, said the agreement was a “road map for future cooperation” between the two sides.
“Such agreements are fully in the line with Iran’s publicly declared ‘Look East Policy’ and suggest that Iran is determined to expand its relations with all Asian partners and in particular China and India as two friendly countries,” said the Iranian source, promising that India will remain among Iran’s friends and “would be welcomed as a friend.”
The United States has pushed Johnson to reverse his January decision to grant Huawei a limited role in 5G, while London has been dismayed by a crackdown in Hong Kong and the perception China did not tell the whole truth over the Coronavirus
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to ban Huawei from Britain’s 5G network on Tuesday, angering China but delighting U.S. President Donald Trump by signalling that the world’s biggest telecoms equipment maker is no longer welcome in the West.
The United States has pushed Johnson to reverse his January decision to grant Huawei a limited role in 5G, while London has been dismayed by a crackdown in Hong Kong and the perception China did not tell the whole truth over the Coronavirus.
Now, as Britain prepares to cast off from the European Union, Johnson will risk the ire of the world’s second largest economy by ordering a purge of Huawei equipment which the United States says could be used to spy on the West.
Britain’s National Security Council (NSC), chaired by Johnson, will meet on Tuesday morning to discuss Huawei. Media Secretary Oliver Dowden will then announce a decision to the House of Commons at around 1130 GMT.
The immediate excuse for the about turn in policy is the impact of new U.S. sanctions on chip technology, which London says affects Huawei’s ability to remain a reliable supplier.
“Obviously the context has changed slightly with some of the sanctions that the U.S. has brought in,” Environment Secretary George Eustice told Sky News when asked about Huawei.
In what some have compared to the Cold War antagonism with the Soviet Union, the United States is worried that 5G dominance is a milestone towards Chinese technological supremacy that could define the geopolitics of the 21st century.
5G’s faster data and increased capacity will make it a foundation of industries and driver of economic growth. As the West’s most powerful intelligence power after the United States, Britain is being watched over the Huawei issue by allies.
Telecoms firms already had to cap Huawei’s role in 5G at 35% by 2023. Reducing it to zero over another two to four years is now being discussed, though operators say going too fast could disrupt services and prove costly.
End of a ‘golden era’?
Hanging up on Huawei, founded by a former People’s Liberation Army engineer in 1987, marks the end of what former Prime Minister David Cameron cast as a “golden era” in ties, with Britain as Europe’s top destination for Chinese capital.
Cameron toasted the relationship over a beer with President Xi Jinping in an English pub, which was later bought by a Chinese firm.
Trump, though, has repeatedly asked London to ban Huawei which Washington calls an agent of the Chinese Communist state — an argument that has support in Johnson’s Conservative Party.
Huawei denies it spies for China and has said the United States wants to frustrate its growth because no U.S. company could offer the same range of technology at a competitive price.
China says banning one of its flagship global technology companies would have far-reaching ramifications. Its ambassador has said a U-turn on Huawei would damage Britain’s image and it would have to bear consequences if it treated China as hostile.
In January, Johnson defied Trump by allowing so-called high-risk companies’ involvement in 5G, capped at 35%. He excluded them from the sensitive 5G “core” where data is processed, as well as critical networks and locations such as nuclear and military sites.
Huawei and customers including BT, Vodafone and Three are waiting to see how extensive the new ban will be and how quickly it will be implemented, with hundreds of millions of pounds riding on the outcome.
The other large-scale telecoms equipment suppliers are Sweden’s Ericsson and Finland’s Nokia. British lawmakers have lamented that no Western company offers the same value equipment, though there have been calls to create a Western consortium to compete with China.
The new coronavirus pandemic raging around the globe will worsen if countries fail to adhere to strict healthcare precautions, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned on Monday.
“Let me be blunt, too many countries are headed in the wrong direction, the virus remains public enemy number one,” WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual briefing from the UN agency’s headquarters in Geneva.
“If basics are not followed, the only way this pandemic is going to go – it is going to get worse and worse and worse.”
Global infections stand at 13 million, according to a Reuters tally, with more than half a million deaths.
Tedros, whose leadership has been heavily criticised by US President Donald Trump, said that of 230,000 new cases on Sunday, 80 per cent were from 10 nations, and 50 per cent from just two countries.
The US and Brazil are the countries worst hit.
“There will be no return to the old normal for the foreseeable future … There is a lot to be concerned about,” Tedros added, in some of his strongest comments of recent weeks.
Tedros said the WHO had still not received formal notification of the US pullout announced by Trump. The US president says the WHO pandered to China, where the Covid-19 disease was first detected, at the start of the crisis.
Trump, who wore a protective face mask for the first time in public at the weekend, has himself been accused by political opponents of not taking the coronavirus seriously enough, something he denies.
A WHO advance team has gone to China to investigate the origins of the new coronavirus, first discovered in the city of Wuhan. The team’s members are in quarantine, as per standard procedure, before they begin work with Chinese scientists, WHO emergencies head Mike Ryan said.
London: Some 9.7 million children worldwide “could be forced out of school forever” by the end of this year, as a result of increasing poverty and budget cuts incurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, London-headquartered charity Save the Children warned Monday.
In 12 countries, mainly in West and Central Africa but also including Yemen and Afghanistan, children are at extremely high risk of not going back to school after the lockdowns are lifted, while in another 28 countries, they are at high or moderate risk, the charity said in a report published on its website.
Lockdown measures during the pandemic saw a peak of 1.6 billion children out of school globally, according to the report.
Calling this an unprecedented education emergency, Inger Ashing, CEO of Save the Children, said: “We know the poorest, most marginalized children who were already the furthest behind have suffered the greatest loss.”
In a mid-range budget scenario, some of the poorest countries in the world will see a shortfall of 77 billion U.S. dollars in education spending during the next 18 months, while in those countries where governments use education spending to tackle COVID-19, the figure could soar to 192 billion dollars by the end of 2021, the report said.
Ashing expressed worries that the impending budget crunch let existing inequality grow even wider between the rich and the poor, and between boys and girls.
Girls are at increased risk of gender-based violence, child marriage and teen pregnancy during school shutdown, the report said.
To address this education emergency, Save the Children, which has 29 national members worldwide, urges governments and donors to increase funding of education, with 35 billion dollars to be made available by the World Bank.
The agency also in its report calls on commercial creditors to suspend debt repayments by low-income countries, which could free up 14 billion dollars for investment in education. XINHUA
The clinical trials of the world’s first vaccine for the novel Coronavirus has been completed by Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University in Russia.
All clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccine produced by Gamalei Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology started on June 18.
COVID-19 vaccine: The clinical trials of the world’s first vaccine for the novel Coronavirus has been completed by Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University in Russia. The information has been confirmed by Vadim Tarasov, the director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Biotechnology, according to a report by Sputnik News. The report highlighted that all clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccine produced by Gamalei Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology started on June 18.
The report said that both groups of volunteers for clinical trials will be discharged soon. The first group will be permitted to leave in two-three days and the second group will be discharged on July 20. Citing Alexander Lukashev, the director of the Institute of Medical Parasitology, Tropical, and Vector-Borne Diseases at Sechenov University, the report mentioned that the study has been done to check vaccine’s safety when given to humans and that has now been successfully done.
Lukashev said that now the safety has been confirmed, it means that the vaccines that are already in the market are safe too.
Further, the vaccine manufacturer is readying a plan for development of this vaccine that will include the “complexity of the epidemiological situation with the virus” and how to ramp up the vaccine’s production, the report added.
Tarasov noted that Sechenov University has emerged as a scientific and technological research centre for this vaccination rather than just acting as an educational institution at a time when countries are reeling under the pressure from the novel Coronavirus transmission. He, according to the report, said that the Institute for Translational Medicine and Biotechnology has worked with preclinical studies, protocol development as well as clinical trials of this vaccine.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation had last month announced that Oxford’s vaccine was most advanced. It is expected to bed rolled out soon as AstraZeneca by Oxford is in the third phase of clinical trials.
The Chinese embassy in Kazakhstan has issued a warning of deadly ‘unknown pneumonia’ after more than 600 people died of pneumonia in June, a report has said.
According to the South China Morning Post, authorities in Kazakhstan — the central Asian country, have reimposed Covid-19 lockdown in some parts of the country amid a spike in pneumonia cases last month.
The country as a whole saw 1,772 pneumonia deaths in the first part of the year, 628 of which happened in June, including some Chinese nationals, the Chinese embassy said in a statement.
“The death rate of this disease is much higher than the novel coronavirus. The country’s health departments are conducting comparative research into the pneumonia virus, but have yet to identify the virus,” the embassy was quoted as saying to the South China Morning Post.
While the Chinese embassy described the illness as ‘unknown pneumonia’, Kazakhstani officials and media have only said it is pneumonia.
The embassy’s website, citing local media reports, said the provinces of Atyrau and Aktobe and the city of Shymkent have reported significant spikes in pneumonia cases since the middle of June.
“The Chinese embassy in Kazakhstan reminds Chinese nationals here to be aware of the situation and step up a prevention to lower the infection risks,” the embassy said.
“Some 300 people diagnosed with pneumonia are being hospitalised every day,” Saule Kisikova, the health care department chief in the capital Nur-Sultan, was quoted as saying to the local media.
It was also not known if the WHO had been informed about the ‘unknown pneumonia’.
A controversial photoshoot involving international supermodels was allowed by Saudi Arabia in the province of Madina raising questions about the inappropriateness of the entire exercise involving women dressed in tight-fitted, skimpy clothes.
Photo source: Instagram handle of Lebanese designer Eli Mizrahi
Middle East Monitor (MEMO) reported that the Saudi regime, controlled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, gave permission for Vogue Arabia to conduct a raunchy photoshoot of international supermodels within the historical site of Al-Ula in the province of Madina.
Photo source: Instagram (Lebanese designer Eli Mizrahi)
Vogue Arabia, the Arab edition of the renowned US-based fashion magazine, released its 24-hour campaign photoshoot for the New York-based label Mônot on Wednesday, which featured models such as Kate Moss, Mariacarla Boscono, Candice Swanepoel, Jourdan Dunn, Amber Valletta, Xiao Wen and Alek Wek.
Photo source: Instagram (Lebanese designer Eli Mizrahi)
In the photoshoot, named ‘24 hours in AlUla,’ the models were seen wearing tight dresses with thigh-slits while they posed and walked around the UNESCO World Heritage site, known as the world’s largest open air museum consisting of carved rock structures similar to Jordan’s Petra.
The Lebanese designer Eli Mizrahi, who organised and directed the shoot, was quoted by MEMO: “I convinced the talent that they would look back on this moment — 24 hours in AlUla — as something special. Kate Moss not only came, but she was the first one on set at 5 a.m. and the last to leave.”
Photo source: Instagram (Lebanese designer Eli Mizrahi)
The nature of the shoot and the dresses worn in them are classed as immodest by many Muslims, and despite the fact that the distance of the site is around 300 kilometres from the holy city of Madina, it is within the same province which many see as inappropriate for the Saudi authorities to have allowed.
Photo source: Instagram (Lebanese designer Eli Mizrahi)
The controversial photoshoot is part of a series of ‘reforms’ that the kingdom has been implementing in recent years in order to open up its economy to international tourism and modernisation. Such reforms, which include the decrease in authority of the religious police, the lifting of restrictions in gender mixing, and the stripping of the requirement for women to wear the abaya or loose gown, are also part of the Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030.
WHO admits Coronavirus may be airborne, issues new guidelines, calls for further research
The coronavirus is finding new victims worldwide, in bars and restaurants, offices, markets and casinos, giving rise to frightening clusters of infection that increasingly confirm what many scientists have been saying for months: The virus lingers in the air indoors, infecting those nearby.
If airborne transmission is a significant factor in the pandemic, especially in crowded spaces with poor ventilation, the consequences for containment will be significant. Masks may be needed indoors, even in socially-distant settings. Health care workers may need N95 masks that filter out even the smallest respiratory droplets as they care for coronavirus patients.
Ventilation systems in schools, nursing homes, residences and businesses may need to minimize recirculating air and add powerful new filters. Ultraviolet lights may be needed to kill viral particles floating in tiny droplets indoors.
The World Health Organization has long held that the coronavirus is spread primarily by large respiratory droplets that, once expelled by infected people in coughs and sneezes, fall quickly to the floor.
But in an open letter to the W.H.O., 239 scientists in 32 countries have outlined the evidence showing that smaller particles can infect people, and are calling for the agency to revise its recommendations. The researchers plan to publish their letter in a scientific journal next week.
Even in its latest update on the coronavirus, released June 29, the W.H.O. said airborne transmission of the virus is possible only after medical procedures that produce aerosols, or droplets smaller than 5 microns. (A micron is equal to one millionth of a meter.)
Proper ventilation and N95 masks are of concern only in those circumstances, according to the W.H.O. Instead, its infection control guidance, before and during this pandemic, has heavily promoted the importance of handwashing as a primary prevention strategy, even though there is limited evidence for transmission of the virus from surfaces. (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now says surfaces are likely to play only a minor role.)
Dr. Benedetta Allegranzi, the W.H.O.’s technical lead on infection control, said the evidence for the virus spreading by air was unconvincing.
“Especially in the last couple of months, we have been stating several times that we consider airborne transmission as possible but certainly not supported by solid or even clear evidence,” she said. “There is a strong debate on this.”
But interviews with nearly 20 scientists — including a dozen W.H.O. consultants and several members of the committee that crafted the guidance — and internal emails paint a picture of an organization that, despite good intentions, is out of step with science.
Whether carried aloft by large droplets that zoom through the air after a sneeze, or by much smaller exhaled droplets that may glide the length of a room, these experts said, the coronavirus is borne through air and can infect people when inhaled.
Most of these experts sympathized with the W.H.O.’s growing portfolio and shrinking budget, and noted the tricky political relationships it has to manage, especially with the United States and China. They praised W.H.O. staff for holding daily briefings and tirelessly answering questions about the pandemic.
But the infection prevention and control committee in particular, experts said, is bound by a rigid and overly medicalized view of scientific evidence, is slow and risk-averse in updating its guidance and allows a few conservative voices to shout down dissent.
“They’ll die defending their view,” said one longstanding W.H.O. consultant, who did not wish to be identified because of her continuing work for the organization. Even its staunchest supporters said the committee should diversify its expertise and relax its criteria for proof, especially in a fast-moving outbreak.
“I do get frustrated about the issues of airflow and sizing of particles, absolutely,” said Mary-Louise McLaws, a committee member and epidemiologist at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.
“If we started revisiting airflow, we would have to be prepared to change a lot of what we do,” she said. “I think it’s a good idea, a very good idea, but it will cause an enormous shudder through the infection control society.”
In early April, a group of 36 experts on air quality and aerosols urged the W.H.O. to consider the growing evidence on airborne transmission of the coronavirus. The agency responded promptly, calling Lidia Morawska, the group’s leader and a longtime W.H.O. consultant, to arrange a meeting.
But the discussion was dominated by a few experts who are staunch supporters of handwashing and felt it must be emphasized over aerosols, according to some participants, and the committee’s advice remained unchanged.
Dr. Morawska and others pointed to several incidents that indicate airborne transmission of the virus, particularly in poorly ventilated and crowded indoor spaces. They said the W.H.O. was making an artificial distinction between tiny aerosols and larger droplets, even though infected people produce both.
“We’ve known since 1946 that coughing and talking generate aerosols,” said Linsey Marr, an expert in airborne transmission of viruses at Virginia Tech.
Scientists have not been able to grow the coronavirus from aerosols in the lab. But that doesn’t mean aerosols are not infective, Dr. Marr said: Most of the samples in those experiments have come from hospital rooms with good air flow that would dilute viral levels.
In most buildings, she said, “the air-exchange rate is usually much lower, allowing virus to accumulate in the air and pose a greater risk.”
The W.H.O. also is relying on a dated definition of airborne transmission, Dr. Marr said. The agency believes an airborne pathogen, like the measles virus, has to be highly infectious and to travel long distances.
People generally “think and talk about airborne transmission profoundly stupidly,” said Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
“We have this notion that airborne transmission means droplets hanging in the air capable of infecting you many hours later, drifting down streets, through letter boxes and finding their way into homes everywhere,” Dr. Hanage said.
Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist of the World Health Organization, at a recent news conference. “We don’t shy away from being challenged — it’s good for us to be challenged,” she said in an interview | Photo Credit: Fabrice Coffrini
Experts all agree that the coronavirus does not behave that way. Dr. Marr and others said the coronavirus seemed to be most infectious when people were in prolonged contact at close range, especially indoors, and even more so in superspreader events — exactly what scientists would expect from aerosol transmission.
Precautionary principle
The W.H.O. has found itself at odds with groups of scientists more than once during this pandemic.
The agency lagged behind most of its member nations in endorsing face coverings for the public. While other organizations, including the C.D.C., have long since acknowledged the importance of transmission by people without symptoms, the W.H.O. still maintains that asymptomatic transmission is rare.
“At the country level, a lot of W.H.O. technical staff are scratching their heads,” said a consultant at a regional office in Southeast Asia, who did not wish to be identified because he was worried about losing his contract. “This is not giving us credibility.”
The consultant recalled that the W.H.O. staff members in his country were the only ones to go without masks after the government there endorsed them.
Many experts said the W.H.O. should embrace what some called a “precautionary principle” and others called “needs and values” — the idea that even without definitive evidence, the agency should assume the worst of the virus, apply common sense and recommend the best protection possible.
“There is no incontrovertible proof that SARS-CoV-2 travels or is transmitted significantly by aerosols, but there is absolutely no evidence that it’s not,” said Dr. Trish Greenhalgh, a primary care doctor at the University of Oxford in Britain.
“So at the moment we have to make a decision in the face of uncertainty, and my goodness, it’s going to be a disastrous decision if we get it wrong,” she said. “So why not just mask up for a few weeks, just in case?”
After all, the W.H.O. seems willing to accept without much evidence the idea that the virus may be transmitted from surfaces, she and other researchers noted, even as other health agencies have stepped back emphasizing this route.
“I agree that fomite transmission is not directly demonstrated for this virus,” Dr. Allegranzi, the W.H.O.’s technical lead on infection control, said, referring to objects that may be infectious. “But it is well known that other coronaviruses and respiratory viruses are transmitted, and demonstrated to be transmitted, by contact with fomite.”
The agency also must consider the needs of all its member nations, including those with limited resources, and make sure its recommendations are tempered by “availability, feasibility, compliance, resource implications,” she said.
Aerosols may play some limited role in spreading the virus, said Dr. Paul Hunter, a member of the infection prevention committee and professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia in Britain.
But if the W.H.O. were to push for rigorous control measures in the absence of proof, hospitals in low- and middle-income countries may be forced to divert scarce resources from other crucial programs.
“That’s the balance that an organization like the W.H.O. has to achieve,” he said. “It’s the easiest thing in the world to say, ‘We’ve got to follow the precautionary principle,’ and ignore the opportunity costs of that.”
In interviews, other scientists criticized this view as paternalistic. “‘We’re not going to say what we really think, because we think you can’t deal with it?’ I don’t think that’s right,” said Don Milton, an aerosol expert at the University of Maryland.
Even cloth masks, if worn by everyone, can significantly reduce transmission, and the W.H.O. should say so clearly, he added.
Several experts criticized the W.H.O.’s messaging throughout the pandemic, saying the staff seems to prize scientific perspective over clarity.
“What you say is designed to help people understand the nature of a public health problem,” said Dr. William Aldis, a longtime W.H.O. collaborator based in Thailand. “That’s different than just scientifically describing a disease or a virus.”
The W.H.O. tends to describe “an absence of evidence as evidence of absence,” Dr. Aldis added. In April, for example, the W.H.O. said, “There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from Covid-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection.”
The statement was intended to indicate uncertainty, but the phrasing stoked unease among the public and earned rebukes from several experts and journalists. The W.H.O. later walked back its comments.
In a less public instance, the W.H.O. said there was “no evidence to suggest” that people with H.I.V. were at increased risk from the coronavirus. After Joseph Amon, the director of global health at Drexel University in Philadelphia who has sat on many agency committees, pointed out that the phrasing was misleading, the W.H.O. changed it to say the level of risk was “unknown.”
But W.H.O. staff and some members said the critics did not give its committees enough credit.
“Those that may have been frustrated may not be cognizant of how W.H.O. expert committees work, and they work slowly and deliberately,” Dr. McLaws said.
Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, the W.H.O.’s chief scientist, said agency staff members were trying to evaluate new scientific evidence as fast as possible, but without sacrificing the quality of their review. She added that the agency will try to broaden the committees’ expertise and communications to make sure everyone is heard.
“We take it seriously when journalists or scientists or anyone challenges us and say we can do better than this,” she said. “We definitely want to do better.”
News agency ANI also quoted Nepali cable TV providers to report that signals for Indian news channels have been switched off in the country.
At a time when Nepal is going through political turbulence and India-Nepal relations remain strained, Kathmandu has banned all Indian news channels except the state broadcaster Doordarshan starting today evening.
The report was carried in Nepalese publication The Himalayan Times, while in India, Free Press Journal carried a report and India Today foreign affairs editor put out a tweet confirming the same. News agency ANI also quoted Nepali cable TV providers to report that signals for Indian news channels have been switched off in the country.
Big #Breaking#Nepal All Indian news channels except Doordharshan banned in Nepal effective this evening. Nepal's information and broadcasting Minister Yuba Raj Khativada announced. Decision after certain channels indulged in character assassination of leaders. pic.twitter.com/Wcexu3p3nB
According to The Himalayan Times, the move comes after some TV channels indulged in “defamatory” reportage about Nepal’s prime minister KP Sharma Oli and the Chinese envoy to Nepal Hou Yanqi.
“These measures follow the events wherein an Indian news channel, Zee Hindustan, broadcasted an imaginative and defamatory programme linking PM Oli with Chinese ambassador to Nepal Hou Yanqi,” The Himalayan Times said.
Hou’s involvement in internal politics of Nepal has been widely reported in the Indian media. She courted fresh controversy after she held meetings with Nepalese political leaders at a time when the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) was dealing with internal strife, and the now finalised divide was still impending. Over the past few months she has met, Oli, Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda”, President Bidya Bhandari and key NCP leaders, Hindustan Times reported.
On Sunday, the Chinese ambassador met with senior NCP leader and former prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal and discussed the current political situation, PTI reported.
The meetings come at a time when the ruling party has seen deep rifts, with a faction led by Prachanda and Madhav Kumar pressing Oli to resign both as party chair and prime minister.
Hou had made similar rounds to ruling party leaders’ residences back in May as well when the ruling party was in a deep trouble. Meeting with Oli, Prachanda, Nepal and other senior party leaders, Hou had then advised party unity.
A number of political party leaders have termed the Chinese envoy’s series of meetings with the ruling party leaders as interference in Nepal’s internal political affairs. “Will the democratic republic operated through a remote control benefit Nepalese people?” former foreign minister and Rastriya Prajatantra Party chairman Kamala Thapa tweeted, in an apparent reference to the Chinese envoy’s meeting with the NCP leaders.
Thapa, however, was also critical of the Indian media’s coverage of Oli as he pointed out that disparaging remarks against the sovereign nation’s prime minister will do little to improve ties between the two countries.
We have serious differences with PM @kpsharmaoli on many issues, including his conduct of international relations. But deliberate/sustained campaign of mudslinging against PM Oli by some Indian media cannot be acceptable.That doesn't do Nepal-India relations any good. pic.twitter.com/bdJMN80y5Y
This is not the first time that Nepal has blacked out Indian media. Kathmandu had blocked Indian news and entertainment channels in 2015 as well, when relations hit a rock-bottom after a blockade at India-Nepal border.
The differences between the two factions of the Nepal Communist Party recently intensified after the prime minister unilaterally decided to prorogue the budget session of Parliament and over to the government’s lackluster response to the COVID-19 pandemic and his unilateral actions, bypassing the party.
There were sporadic demonstrations across the country on Wednesday in support of Oli, despite an agreement with Prachanda not to direct any street protests. The Prachanda faction has been demanding Oli’s resignation, saying his recent anti-India remarks were “neither politically correct nor diplomatically appropriate.”
Washington: The Trump administration has formally notified the United Nations of its withdrawal from the World Health Organization, although the pullout won’t take effect until next year, meaning it could be rescinded under a new administration or if circumstances change. Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said he would reverse the decision on his first day in office if elected.
The withdrawal notification makes good on President Donald Trump’s vow in late May to terminate U.S. participation in the WHO, which he has harshly criticized for its response to the coronavirus pandemic and accused of bowing to Chinese influence.
The move was immediately assailed by health officials and critics of the administration, including numerous Democrats who said it would cost the U.S. influence in the global arena.
Biden has said in the past he supports the WHO and pledged Tuesday to rejoin the WHO if he defeats Trump in November. “Americans are safer when America is engaged in strengthening global health. On my first day as president, I will rejoin the WHO and restore our leadership on the world stage,” he said.
Trump is trailing Biden in multiple polls and has sought to deflect criticism of his administration’s handling of the virus by aggressively attacking China and the WHO.
The withdrawal notice was sent to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday and will take effect in a year, on July 6, 2021, the State Department and the United Nations said on Tuesday.
The State Department said the U.S. would continue to seek reform of the WHO, but referred to Trump’s June 15 response when asked if the administration might change its mind. “I’m not reconsidering, unless they get their act together, and I’m not sure they can at this point,” Trump said.
Guterres, in his capacity as depositary of the 1946 WHO constitution, “is in the process of verifying with the World Health Organization whether all the conditions for such withdrawal are met,” his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said.
Under the terms of the withdrawal, the U.S. must meet its financial obligations to the WHO before it can be finalized. The U.S., which is the agency’s largest donor and provides it with more than $450 million per year, currently owes the WHO some $200 million in current and past dues.
On May 29, less than two weeks after warning the WHO that it had 30 days to reform or lose U.S. support, Trump announced his administration was leaving the organization due to what he said was its inadequate response to the initial outbreak of the coronavirus in China’s Wuhan province late last year.
The president said in a White House announcement that Chinese officials “ignored” their reporting obligations to the WHO and pressured the organization to mislead the public about an outbreak that has now killed more than 130,000 Americans.
“We have detailed the reforms that it must make and engaged with them directly, but they have refused to act,” Trump said at the time. “Because they have failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms, we will be today terminating the relationship.”
The withdrawal notification was widely denounced as misguided, certain to undermine an important institution that is leading vaccine development efforts and drug trials to address the COVID-19 outbreak.
The Republican chairman of Senate health committee, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, said he disagreed with the decision.
“Certainly there needs to be a good, hard look at mistakes the World Health Organization might have made in connection with coronavirus, but the time to do that is after the crisis has been dealt with, not in the middle of it,” he said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned the move.
“The President’s official withdrawal of the U.S. from the World Health Organization is an act of true senselessness,” she said in a tweet. “With millions of lives at risk, the president is crippling the international effort to defeat the virus.”
And the top the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, said calling Trump’s “response to COVID chaotic and incoherent doesn’t do it justice. This won’t protect American lives or interests — it leaves Americans sick and America alone.”
UN Foundation President Elizabeth Cousens called the move “short-sighted, unnecessary, and unequivocally dangerous. WHO is the only body capable of leading and coordinating the global response to COVID-19. Terminating the U.S. relationship would undermine the global effort to beat this virus — putting all of us at risk.”
The ONE Campaign, which supports international health projects, called it an “astounding action” that jeopardizes global health.
“Withdrawing from the World Health Organization amidst an unprecedented global pandemic is an astounding action that puts the safety of all Americans and the world at risk. The U.S. should use its influence to strengthen and reform the WHO, not abandon it at a time when the world needs it most,” ONE president Gayle Smith said.
Photo source: Instagram handle of Lebanese designer Eli Mizrahi
