ALI IMRAN

CHAGAI: The Iranian authorities on Tuesday handed over 14 convicted Pakistani prisoners to officials on this side of the Taftan border after they were released on humanitarian grounds. According to official sources, due to not having valid passports, the prisoners were allowed after processing their manual immigration clearance at the FIA immigration centre in Taftan. While confirming the development, Chagai Deputy Com­missioner Agha Sher Zaman told news that the prisoners were handed over to the superintendent of Nushki District Jail, who later shifted them to Nushki Jail. Sharing the development on Twitter, the Pakistan’s ambassador to Iran Rahim Hayat Qureshi wrote: “Pursuant to PM @ImranKhanPTI’s visit to #Iran & request to Pres @Hass­anRouhani for amnesty to Pakistani prisoners on humanitarian grounds, 14 Pak prisoners released today.#Pakistan Iran signed agreement on transfer of sentenced prisoners in 2014”. Superintendent of Nushki District Jail Malik Samiul...

SEOUL: A pair of new statues in South Korea of a man kneeling in front of a girl symbolising a victim of sexual slavery by Japan's wartime military is the latest subject of diplomatic sensitivity between the countries, with Tokyo’s government spokesperson questioning whether the male figure represents the Japanese prime minister. Kim Chang-ryeol, owner of a botanic garden in the mountain town of Pyeongchang, said on Tuesday that he canceled an unveiling ceremony for the bronze statues that was to take place on Aug 10 because of what he described as unwanted controversy. Kim said the statues were his idea, but that he didn’t specifically intend the male figure to be Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Since his inauguration in 2012, Abe has stoked anger among South Koreans over his nationalistic stance on Japan's wartime past and his demands that South Korea remove similar statues symbolising sexual slavery victims in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul and other sites....

PARIS: Scientists have successfully revived microbes that had lain dormant at the bottom of the sea since the age of the dinosaurs, allowing the organisms to eat and even multiply after eons in the deep. Their research sheds light on the remarkable survival power of some of Earth’s most primitive species, which can exist for tens of millions of years with barely any oxygen or food before springing back to life in the lab. A team led by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology analysed ancient sediment samples deposited more than 100 million years ago on the seabed of the South Pacific. The region is renowned for having far fewer nutrients in its sediment than normal, making it a far-from-ideal site to maintain life over millennia. The team incubated the samples to help coax the microbes out of their epoch-spanning slumber. Astonishingly, they were able to revive nearly all of the microorganisms. “When I found them, I was first sceptical whether the findings ar...

TEHRAN: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards blasted a mock-up of a US aircraft carrier with missiles on Tuesday during military exercises in sensitive Gulf waters, state television reported. The exercises — dubbed “Prophet Mohammed 14th” — were held near the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane for a fifth of global oil output. The US Navy condemned the “irresponsible and reckless behaviour by Iran”, calling it an attempt “to intimidate and coerce”. The Iranian maritime manoeuvre was staged at a time of heightened tensions between Iran and its decades-old arch enemy the United States. Footage of the war games broadcast on state television showed the Guards’ air and naval forces readying for an attack off the country’s southwestern coast. Speedboats skimmed across the water in formation before ground forces fired cannons and a missile was launched from a helicopter. The mock-up of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier came into view with rows of dummy fighter jets on either side of its lan...

PARIS: Work has begun to assemble giant components to build an experimental nuclear fusion reactor in France that is expected to start up in 2035 and deliver energy in a process inspired by the Sun, the ITER project said on Tuesday. Launched in 2006 and based in southern France, the International Thermo­nuclear Experimental Reac­­­tor (Iter) had planned to test its first super-heated plasma by 2020 and achieve full fusion by 2023. But it has suffered massive budget overruns and multiple delays as the seven partners — Europe, United States, China, India, Japan, Russia and South Korea — struggle to coordinate financing and technological cooperation. At the end of 2016, Iter chief Bernard Bigot told reporters he expected first plasma in Dec 2025 and full power by 2035, although he said that schedule was challenging. “Constructing the mac­hine piece by piece will be like assembling a three-dimensional puzzle on an intricate timeline,” he said in a statement on Tuesday. “We have a c...

I am not sure what you mean by being poor.  As people perceive poverty in different ways. But I can tell you this, being raised in Pakistan, people who are actually very poor won't even be in Quora to answer this question. In our country, people with car or home are considered middle class depending on the size and cost of their home. But real poor people won't even have their daily food. I have been there, it is not always someone's mistake or lack of hard work. Sometimes shit happens beyond control. People fail. No matter how hard or smart they move, things go beyond control. They lose jobs. They lose homes. They lose business. There will be people who can't attend interviews just because they can't afford bus farebto reach the venue. It is no joke. At school, you can't even afford a decent bag , shoes or clothing. You feel low. What few people get very easily would be a dream for them. For example, a good lunch. Being poor at young age is a cruelty. Of course...

The United States announced on Friday it will not take in any new foreign students seeking online-only study, after rescinding a hotly contested order to expel those already here and preparing for that because of the pandemic. The policy change was announced in a statement by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. US President Donald Trump has made a tough line on immigration a cornerstone of his message and has suspended several kinds of visas for foreigners during the coronavirus crisis. The original policy change of revoking the visas of foreign students whose classes will move online in the autumn was taken to court by top universities including Harvard and MIT, teachers unions and at least 18 states. And on July 14 the administration reversed course and rescinded the decision. That measure had been seen as a move by Trump to put pressure on educational institutions that are adopting a cautious approach to reopening amid the global Covid-19 pandemic. Tr...

BRUSSELS: Europe crossed more than three million coronavirus cases on Thursday as EU lawmakers examined a massive aid package for their pandemic-ravaged economies and the UN called for a basic income for the poorest to help slow the spread. The continent now accounts for a fifth of the world’s total cases of more than 15 million and remains the hardest hit in terms of deaths, with 206,633 out of 627,307 worldwide. The European Parliament was meanwhile examining a massive recovery package hammered out at a hard-fought summit that saw fiscally disciplined nations oppose huge aid grants to coronavirus-hit countries such as Spain and Italy. The 750-billion-euro post-coronavirus recovery plan is tied with the EU’s long-term budget. EU chief Charles Michel said the total stimulus would reach 1.8 trillion euros ($2.2 trillion). “This moment, it’s my conviction, is pivotal in European history. We acted fast and with urgency,” Michel told the European Parliament. “Europe’s response ...

LONDON: Britain’s government announced on Wednesday that it will open a new special pathway to obtaining UK citizenship for eligible Hong Kongers as of January, taking another step towards solidifying a policy denounced by China. In a statement, the Home Office said holders of the British National Overseas passport and their immediate family members can move to the UK to work and study. The change to immigration rules was introduced after Beijing imposed a new, sweeping national security law on Hong Kong. "Today’s announcement shows the UK is keeping its word: We will not look the other way on Hong Kong, and we will not duck our historic responsibilities to its people," British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said. Britain announced in early July it was extending residency rights for up to 3 million people eligible for the British National Overseas passport in Hong Kong, stressing that it would uphold its duty to the former British colony after the new law was imposed. Eligibl...

WASHINGTON: Scien­tists have known for several months the new coronavirus can become suspended in micro droplets expelled by patients when they speak and breathe, but until now there was no proof that these tiny particles are infectious. A new study by scientists at the University of Nebraska that was uploaded to a medical pre print site this week has shown for the first time that SARS-CoV-2 taken from micro droplets, defined as under five microns, can replicate in lab conditions. This boosts the hypothesis that normal speaking and breathing, not just coughing and sneezing, are responsible for spreading Covid-19 — and that infectious doses of the virus can travel distances far greater than the six feet (two metres) urged by social distancing guidelines. The results are still considered preliminary and have not yet appeared in a peer-reviewed journal, which would lend more credibility to the methods devised by the scientists. The paper was posted to the  medrxiv.org  website, w...

WASHINGTON: Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden has said that he would overturn President Donald Trump’s Muslim ban on his first day in office and partner with Muslims to undo the social harms caused by such measures. In a speech to Engage Action, an advocacy group for Muslim Americans, on Monday afternoon, the former vice president also said that Muslims were the first to suffer attacks under the Trump administration. “Donald Trump has fanned the flames of hate in this country across the board through his words, his policies, his appointments and his deeds,” he said. “I will undo the Muslim ban on day one.” During his first month in office in January 2017, President Trump restricted travel from seven Muslim-majority countries. The restrictions were altered during a series of court challenges and some non-Muslim countries, such as North Korea and Venezuela, were also added to the list. The order was eventually upheld by the US Supreme Court. The US media dub...

LONDON: Britain on Monday risked worsening strained ties with China, as it suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong in protest at a controversial new security law in the territory. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab confirmed the widely expected move in parliament, despite Chinese warnings that Britain was making a grave foreign policy error and risked reprisals. He also announced an extension to Hong Kong of an arms embargo of “potentially lethal weapons” already in force against mainland China for the last three decades. Diplomatic ties between London and Beijing have been frayed by the security law, which Western powers see as an erosion on civil liberties and human rights in the financial hub. China threatened unspecified counter-measures after Britain relaxed immigration rules for Hong Kongers with British overseas passports, and the potential of citizenship. Adding to the tensions have been British criticisms about China’s treatment of the Uighur ethnic mino...

After being " dropped " from a key rail project in southeastern Iran along the border with Afghanistan, India is also set to lose an ambitious gas field project in the country that had been in the pipeline for past 10 years. India's Ministry of External Affairs in a statement on Thursday said Tehran would develop the Farzad-B gas field in the Persian Gulf region "on its own" and might engage India "appropriately at a later stage". Last week, Masoud Karbasian, managing director of National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), told reporters that a new operator had been roped in to develop the gas field, replacing India's ONGC. The field, estimated to possess 21.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves, 12.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 212 million barrels of gas condensates, was discovered in 2008 by a consortium of three Indian companies — ONGC, Oil India Limited and Indian Oil Corporation. According to the deal, the Indian side was supposed ...

WASHINGTON: The keenly-awaited full results from a UK trial of the steroid dexamethasone were published on Friday, confirming its life-saving benefits for Covid-19 patients on ventilators but suggesting it may cause harm if given too early. A total of 2,104 hospitalised patients were assigned to receive six milligram daily doses of the medicine for up to 10 days, and 4,321 to receive usual care, with the rate of deaths compared after 28 days. Among patients on ventilators, the rate of death for patients on the drug was 29.3 percent compared to 41.4 percent on those without. In other words, this group saw a 29 percent reduction in mortality, just under a third. In patients who were given oxygen but through less invasive means, the benefit was smaller — 23.3 percent on dexamethasone died versus 26.2 who were not on it. However, there was no benefit among the group who weren’t receiving any oxygenation at the time the trial started. In this cohort, 17.4 percent on the steroid died compare...

India on Friday became the third country in the world to record more than one million cases of the new coronavirus, behind only the United States and Brazil, as infections spread further into the countryside and smaller towns. Given India's population of around 1.3 billion, experts say, one million is relatively low — but the number will rise significantly in the coming months as testing increases, further straining a healthcare system already pushed to the brink. The pandemic has surged in the country in recent weeks as it spread beyond the biggest cities, pushing India past Russia as the third most infected country last week. Authorities imposed fresh lockdowns and designated new containment zones in several states this week, including the largely rural Bihar state in the east and the southern tech hub Bengaluru, where cases have spiked. But officials have struggled to enforce the lockdowns and keep people indoors. India recorded 34,956 new infections on Friday, taking ...

DUBAI: An oil tanker sought by the US over allegedly circumventing sanctions on Iran was hijacked on July 5 off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, a seafarers welfare organisation said on Wednesday. Satellite photos showed the vessel in Iranian waters on Tuesday and two of its sailors remained in the Iranian capital. It wasn’t immediately clear what happened aboard the Dominica-flagged MT Gulf Sky, though its reported hijacking comes after months of tensions between Iran and the US. David Hammond, the CEO of the United Kingdom-based group Human Rights at Sea, said he took a witness statement from the captain of the MT Gulf Sky, confirming the ship had been hijacked. Hammond said that 26 of the Indian sailors on board had made it back to India, while two remained in Tehran, without elaborating. We are delighted to hear that the crew are safe and well, which has been our fundamental concern from the outset,” Hammond told The Associated Press. Hammond said that he had no o...