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15 July 2020 The New York Times says it will move some of its Hong Kong staff to Seoul as concerns mount over the implications of a severe new security law for the city. The US news outlet said the law "unsettled news organizations and created uncertainty about the city's prospects as a hub for journalism". Reporters will remain, but the digital editing team will relocate over time. Global media organisations often face restrictions on the mainland but Hong Kong had been an exception so far. The controversial law criminalises subversion, secession and collusion with foreign forces. "China's sweeping new national security law in Hong Kong has created a lot of uncertainty about what the new rules will mean to our operation and our journalism," New York Times executives wrote in an email to staff, according to a report published on the paper's own website. "We feel it is prudent to make contingency plans and begin to diver...

Business Standard  March 23, 2020 IANS UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that without further efforts, between 3.5 and 4.4 billion people in the world will live with limited access to water, with more than 1 billion of them in major cities. In his message on World  Water   Day, which falls on March 22, the UN chief said on Sunday that "the world's  water   resources are under unprecedented threat",  Xinhua  news agency reported. "Today, some 2.2 billion people lack safe drinking  water  and 4.2 billion people live without access to adequate sanitation. Unless we act with urgency, the impacts of climate change are projected to exacerbate these figures," he said. Noting that this year's  World Water Day  focuses on water and climate change, the Secretary-General said that "with 2020 a make-or-break year for climate action, this focus is timely". "Water is the primary medium through which we perceive the ...

The Economist March 12, 2020 A s the number  of deaths among people infected by the new coronavirus mounts, it is tempting to divide that figure by the number of reported cases and conclude that the result is the fatality rate. Apply such maths to the world’s total of confirmed cases and deaths on March 11th and you get a fatality rate of 3.6%. But this figure, which epidemiologists call the “naive” case fatality rate, may be wrong in two different ways. First, many of the infections detected at this early stage of the epidemic are recent, so some will eventually result in deaths. That will push the fatality rate up. Second, many infections have not been spotted because testing for the virus has been patchy. Lots of mild cases of the disease have gone unnoticed. If all infections were actually counted, the result would be a bigger denominator. That would push the fatality rate down. As China began to trace infections more carefully, its fatality rate fell (see chart 1). ...

Written by Sun Weidong | Updated: January 29, 2020 China has written into its constitution the principle of adhering to the path of peaceful development and the win-win strategy of opening up. No matter which stage of development we reach, we will never seek hegemony, expansion or spheres of influence. History has just started on the third decade of the 21st century. There is a mixture of anticipation and confusion about the future. We live in an era full of opportunities and challenges. The dawn of the fourth industrial revolution illuminates the way forward for human progress, with the collective rise of emerging countries improving the lives of billions of people. At the same time, however, the international order and system on which all countries depend for their survival and development have been undermined. Unilateralism, hegemonism and power politics still haunt us. Some countries still take military risks in international relations, and the Sword of Damocles of wa...

PT Jyothi Datta  | Updated on January 28, 2020  Instead of culling animals once there is an outbreak, the more civilised thing to do is to examine the trade It was on an uninvited visit to a slaughterhouse many years ago, that a disturbing truth was revealed. That humans working and living in these areas lived in as despicable a condition as they kept the animals. The unmistakable stale stench that hung oppressively, the wet boggy ground and the lack of medical officers to check if the animals being brought in were sick or diseased. It was a classic recipe for disaster. The message from these squalor-filled human and animal co-habitations was ominous. Ensure hygiene and better farm practices in the meat industry, if you don’t want to have disease-ridden meat coming to your table or viruses jumping species and mutating dangerously to infect and kill humans. This grim truth has reared its head again as the international scientific community now investigates the...

PTI Brussels | Updated on January 28, 2020  The EU will not ban Chinese telecom giant Huawei in Europe, a top official said on Tuesday, despite intense pressure from Washington to shun the company over spying fears. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, will officially unveil its recommendations on Wednesday, but commissioner Thierry Breton told MEPs that Brussels will choose tight scrutiny over any blanket ban. “It is not a question of discrimination it is a question of laying down rules. They will be strict, they will be demanding and of course we will welcome in Europe all operators who are willing to apply them,” he said. Reference https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/world/eu-will-not-ban-huawei-but-impose-strict-5g-rules/article30674575.ece

Hindustan Times Isabel Reynolds The cancellation would be a blow to Abe’s policy of cultivating ties with India to balance out China’s growing power in the region. Abe had been scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Assam, one of the regions where demonstrations have turned violent. The talks would have been the 16th between the two leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is considering cancelling a trip to India that was to have started Sunday, Japan’s Jiji Press said, citing several government sources. The news came amid  violent protests in the Northeast  over a new citizenship law approved by Parliament. The cancellation would be a  blow to Abe’s policy of cultivating ties with India  to balance out China’s growing power in the region. Abe had been scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Assam, one of the regions where demonstrations have turned violent. The talks would have been the 16th between the two leaders. Ot...

Hindustan Times Published By: Anonymous Andrea Thompson, the then-undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, wrote a letter to Pakistani Air Force Chief Air Chief Marshal Mujahid Anwar Khan in August over the matter The US reprimanded Pakistan Air Force chief in August for misusing F-16 fighter jets by undermining their shared security platforms and infrastructures, a media report here has said, months after the Indian Air Force shot down an F-16 jet of Pakistan Air Force during an aerial combat over Kashmir. Andrea Thompson, the then-undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, wrote a letter to Pakistani Air Force Chief Air Chief Marshal Mujahid Anwar Khan in August over the matter, US News reported on Wednesday. While the letter written did not directly mention the incidents in the immediate aftermath of the February 26 Balakot airstrikes, US News quoted a source as saying that thse communication...