India Online Covid Update Ousted Afghan president Best Russia 2022 Hot Update

 

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani seen in Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 2, 2021. REUTERS/Stringer

Afghan president Ashraf Ghani spent months holed up in a five-star hotel in the United Arab Emirates after fleeing his country as the Taliban began to take control, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Ghani fled Kabul on August 15 following a months-long surge by the Taliban in which the militant group took over swathes of the country from his government after US forces left.

When they reached Kabul, the city was given up without a fight.

Ghani's whereabouts were unknown for several days. He eventually surfaced in the UAE, which said at the time that it had let in Ghani on humanitarian grounds. 

 

Once in the UAE Ghani took up residence in a luxury suite at the five-star St. Regis Hotel in Abu Dhabi along with his wife, according to The Journal.

Ghani stayed there for months, The Journal reported, while his wife selected a private villa for their permanent residence that was provided by the Emirati government.

The St Regis Hotel in Abu Dhabi. 

MARWAN NAAMANI/AFP via Getty Images)

After feeling Kabul, Ghani said in a statement that he fled to prevent bloodshed and "keep the guns silent."

However, Russia accused Ghani of fleeing with four cars and a helicopter, and alleged that he took large amounts of cash with him.

 

An investigation led by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said it could not say for sure whether Ghani took money with him.

But the official did confirm that at least $5 million went missing from the presidential palace and that tens of millions of dollars were taken from the National Directorate of Security.

How an unlikely pair of incumbents in South Carolina fare in Tuesday's primaries could go a long way toward defining survival strategies for Republicans -- at least so long as Donald Trump retains dominance.

Both Rep. Nancy Mace and Rep. Tom Rice earned themselves Trump-backed primary challengers after their breaks with the former president. That includes their refusal to embrace false claims about the 2020 election that are back in public consciousness via Jan. 6 committee hearings this week.

But how they have handled their races make for different case studies in attempts to find viable paths inside Trump's GOP.

Rep. Tom Rice attends a hearing in Longworth Building in Washington, March 17, 2022.

CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images, FILE

Mace cast one of her first votes in Congress to certify President Joe Biden's victory -- warning, just hours before the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, of the "unconstitutional precedent" of doing otherwise. Since then, she has leaned on an unusual assembly of boldfaced conservative names (Nikki Haley, Paul Ryan, Mick Mulvaney) to make a case about electability and the danger of her district going back to the Democrats.

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Mace responded to attacks by the former president by filming an appeal to voters in front of New York's Trump Tower earlier this year. No such videos have come from Rice, a low-key conservative in a deep-red district who is defiant in defending his vote to impeach Trump in the wake of Jan. 6.

"I did it then. And I would do it again tomorrow," Rice told ABC's Jonathan Karl in a recent interview on "This Week," adding that he remained "livid" over Trump's actions and inactions on Jan. 6.

The partisan makeup of their districts could mean different things in their primary races, with Rice in particular in danger of being forced into a runoff in an area where Trump remains popular.

But for Republicans looking for further signs of Trump's influence, they're likely to again see some of its limits -- and will have some notes for themselves on how to navigate Trump-friendly forces going forward.

As evidence against false claims of election fraud take center stage in the Jan. 6 hearings, the fallout of those baseless conspiracies is still looming over primaries in battleground states like Nevada, where voters will cast ballots in primary races on Tuesday.

Despite losing in Nevada twice, Trump remains a popular figure among state Republicans and made notable endorsements in this year's Senate and gubernatorial primaries by respectively backing former state Attorney General Adam Laxalt and Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo. In a twist, Laxalt, who served as Trump's 2020 Nevada campaign chair, now faces criticism from his opponents for not doing enough to prevent alleged election fraud under his watch as the state's top law enforcement official.

Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo attends a Republican primary debate for Nevada governor in Las Vegas, May 25, 2022.

John Locher/AP, FILE

Although the Republican candidate for secretary of state, Jim Marchant, heads into the primary without Trump's official endorsement, his campaign rhetoric is visibly based on Trumpian priorities. On the trail, Marchant has consistently focused on the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from the former president, and at one point he even claimed that Nevada's winning candidates had somehow been preselected while voters "haven't had a choice."

Nevada's current secretary of state, Republican Barbara Cegavske, refuted the claims brought forward by members of her own party regarding allegations of election fraud. Cegavske is term-limited and cannot seek reelection this year.

Marchant's candidacy follows the 2022 pattern of election-denying candidates seeking offices at all levels of government, including positions responsible for overseeing election administration. According to an ongoing analysis conducted by FiveThirtyEight, nearly 60 candidates for House, Senate and statewide offices deny the outcome of the 2020 election.

The TIP with Brittany Shepherd

Another interesting wrinkle in Tuesday's primary race in South Carolina's 1st District is the endorsement tug-of-war between conservatives rumored to be vying for the White House in 2024. Rep. Mace has a bench of former Trump-orbit Republicans backing her bid -- most prominently Haley, a former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor, and former White House Chief of Staff Mulvaney. Mace's challenger from the right, former state Rep. Katie Arrington, echoed Trump by admonishing Mace as a "terrible" letdown who is "despised by almost everyone."

In sticking by Mace -- who denounced Trump post-Capitol insurrection but has since softened her attacks -- Haley has drawn something of a line in the sand in breaking from the de facto leader of her party, even though she's said she would hold back if Trump threw his hat into the ring for 2024. (Granted, a lot can change from now until then.)

When asked how she fends off Trump's abuses, Mace told ABC News on Monday afternoon that her slate of establishment endorsements, including from "good friend and mentor" Haley, helped build trust with the voters who delivered her to victory by just 1% in 2020 -- flipping the seat from blue to red.

Rep. Nancy Mace speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 15, 2021.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP, FILE

"Endorsements are fantastic, I welcome it. I love having Nikki Haley here, but also it's up to the candidate to work hard and win and that's what we're going to do tomorrow," Mace said.

 

 

An expected win for the incumbent would also be a twist of the knife, of sorts, for Trump, who has been mostly unable to unseat Republican incumbents in the primary season despite his best efforts to the contrary.

ONE MORE THING

Three weeks after one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history, some relatives of students gunned down at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, say they're hopeful about the federal anti-gun violence proposal announced by a bipartisan group of senators Sunday. But others say they're dissatisfied with the extent of the proposed legislation and the lack of answers in their community. Amelia Sandoval, whose grandson Xavier Lopez was killed in the attack, told ABC News that she has not been watching news coverage while she processes her grandson's death. But when briefed on the proposed legislation, she choked up, saying, "Praise God. This is just the beginning, but praise God."

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10. That's the number of key races to watch in Nevada, South Carolina and Texas on Tuesday during primary night (we're not expecting any close races in Maine or North Dakota). And as FiveThirtyEight's Nathaniel Rakich and Alex Samuels write, Tuesday will once again be a test for Trump, especially in South Carolina given the two non-incumbent challengers he has backed. Nevada, though, will likely be the most important state of the evening as who advances in the Republican primary for both the Senate and governorship could have big ramifications come November. Three of Nevada's House races should be competitive, too. Read more from Nathaniel and Alex on the key races to watch on Tuesday -- including Texas's special election for a House seat! -- and be sure to follow along at FiveThirtyEight's live blog.

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UK COVID UPDATE Biden: Zelenskyy didn't want to Zulfikar Notun Bazar Us Bangla

 President Joe Biden, speaking to donors at a Democratic fundraiser here, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “didn’t want to hear it” when U.S. intelligence gathered information that Russia was preparing to invade.

The remarks came as Biden was talking about his work to rally and solidify support for Ukraine as the war continues into its fourth month.

“Nothing like this has happened since World War II. I know a lot of people thought I was maybe exaggerating. But I knew we had data to sustain he” — meaning Russian President Vladimir Putin — “was going to go in, off the border.”

“There was no doubt,” Biden said. “And Zelenskyy didn’t want to hear it.”

Although Zelenskyy has inspired people with his leadership during the war, his preparation for the invasion — or lack thereof — has remained a controversial issue.

He said he didn’t think the recall warranted the national attention that it received as an "arbiter of something farther reaching. I thought the punditry was a little overwhelming on it," he said. 

 

"I think the issue in San Francisco, in particular, is people want the streets cleaned up – period. Full stop. Enough," he told Michaelson on the FOX 11 political show "The Issue Is." "They want the streets cleaned up. They want a sense of order from the disorder they’re feeling on the streets."

SAN FRANCISCO CRIME VICTIM CELEBRATES RECALL OF PROGRESSIVE DA: ‘A FEELING OF VALIDATION’

California Governor Gavin Newsom speaks to the media after a tour of a Metropolitan Water District water recycling demonstration facility in Carson, CA. Tuesday, May 17, 2022.   (Photo by Hans Gutknecht/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images)

He continued, "Now crime’s a component of that but there’s a lot of conflation of those issues," including mental health, open use of drugs, drug dealing and "the dirtiness in parts of the city. And tag, the DA was it, meaning there was some attachment of accountability and responsibility."

He said all San Francisco elected officials took some blame for the state of the streets but "in particular the district attorney."

When asked by the host if Democrats bear responsibility for issues like homelessness in San Francisco and other cities, he said "absolutely" but added that cities across the country have the same issues - Democratic and Republican. 

"It’s right to focus on where we need to improve, not necessarily unique and distinctive," he said.

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin hugs a supporter Tuesday, June 7, 2022, in San Francisco.  ((AP Photo/Noah Berger))

CHESA BOUDIN SUPPORTERS REACT TO SAN FRANCISCO DISTRICT ATTORNEY RECALL OUTCOME

 

Michaelson was speaking to Newsom during the international Summit of the Americas held in Los Angeles this week.

On the highly contested Los Angeles mayor’s race the governor said he hadn’t gotten involved and was friends and had worked with both billionaire Rick Caruso and U.S. Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., who will face each other in a runoff in November.

The governor easily won his own primary this week but said he didn’t have an election night party because "November is a lifetime away." 

He said he was working on the budget and going through emails when his win was announced.

Newsom added that the state will be sending out gas checks to counter record gas prices in the next few weeks and said California is working on codifying Roe v. Wade, which is in jeopardy nationally.

LOS ANGELES DA GASCON BLAMES INCREASING CRIME ON ‘BAD POLICIES' THAT 'OVER-CRIMINALIZE COMMUNITIES’

And on the epidemic of gun violence, the governor said the state is still working on an infamous bill he said is based on the Texas’ six-week abortion ban that allows people to sue private citizens. 

North Korea promoted its key nuclear negotiator to foreign minister, state media said on Saturday, as leader Kim Jong Un vowed to his ruling party that he would use “power for power” to fight threats to the country’s sovereignty.

Choe Son Hui, long a key member of Pyongyang’s team negotiating over its nuclear programme with the United States, was named foreign minister, state news agency KCNA said.

 

The appointment comes as the United States warned this month that North Korea is preparing to conduct a seventh nuclear test, and says it will again push for United Nations sanctions if that happens.

 

Kim did not mention a nuclear test and offered no details about how he would bolster military power as international concerns grow that he would order the first such test in five years.

“The right to self-defence is an issue of defending sovereignty, clarifying once again the Party’s invariable fighting principle of power for power and head-on contest,” Kim was quoted as saying.

you only see in them what you have inside you.” The insight comes from a novel I recently re-read, "The Shadow of the Wind," by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. When it comes to books and stories, the good ones really do have a way of sucking us into the action. For people of faith, our sacred stories offer us the same invitation.

Consider what researcher and author, Brene Brown, says in her book, "Rising Strong." She notes the work of neuroeconomists who have found that “hearing a story — a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end — causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin. These chemicals trigger the uniquely human abilities to connect, empathize, and make meaning. Story is literally in our DNA.”

Our sacred stories have helped many of us to connect with God, and like a mirror, we’ve glimpsed reflections of ourselves within those stories passed down through the ages. These factors have kept us intrigued, inspired, and invested in our faith traditions. With such a novel theory of narrative power, you’d think our pews and seats would be jam-packed. But this same theory about the impact of a story is the very reason our congregations are declining in attendance, participation and enthusiasm.

I’m speaking of Christian congregations now, not because of any exclusive beliefs about my faith, but because I can’t speak for other religions’ beliefs or patterns. To be honest, it’s hard to explain some within Christianity, too. But since we’re being honest, it’s really no surprise that people are leaving Christianity. These people of good will and spirituality don’t see themselves in the versions of the Story that have been taught, indoctrinated, and practiced by our churches.

 

One only needs to scan the ungodly variants to the Christian Story to understand why so many people want no part of it any longer. Across history and still today, too many churches and denominations have replicated a version of the Story by brute force, violence, oppression, repression and a pursuit of unadulterated power that has looked like some of the most insidious forms of dehumanization humanity has ever known: colonization, the Crusades, “Conquistadors,” manifest destiny, slavery, segregation, racism, anti-LGBTQ discrimination, Christian nationalism, and sexual abuses (along with the systemic cover-ups) in the two largest Christian denominations in the United States.

 

US UK, Russia-Ukraine warintense street fighting OffLine Today All Event Close By Byden

 Investigators in the East Haven Police Department are looking for an unidentified young woman who was found dead, wrapped in a tarp in a ditch behind a former department store in August 1975.

Investigators pointed to the State Street Cemetery in Hamden as a potential key in solving the Jane Doe murder, as technology has advanced in the decades since the body was initially found and DNA analysis can be used to identify her remains, WTNH reported.

It sounds convenient and Roy notes Apple stands to make significant income from this "zero interest" service as well as learn a lot about its users' spending patterns:

 

"As Apple’s customers increasingly start to use the Pay Later service, it will gain from merchant fees. These are fees which retailers pay Apple in exchange for being able to offer customers Apple Pay. In addition, Apple will also gain valuable insight into consumers’ purchase behaviours, which will allow the company to predict future consumption and spending behaviour."

But Roy argues that the harsh reality of Apple Pay Later is it opens the door for everyday users into the murky world of unregulated finance which "does not bode well for all customers."

All they need now is the body.

Connecticut police dug up the wrong body Wednesday while trying to solve a cold case from the 1970s.  (iStock)

MOM DEAD IN MASSACHUSETTS RIVER AFTER TRYING TO SAVE KIDS, SEARCH FOR SON CONTINUES

On Wednesday, police dug up a grave but did not find the young woman inside. Instead, they found a male corpse, WTNH reported.

The United States and its allies traded barbs with China at Asia's premier security meeting on Saturday, especially on Taiwan, but the war in Ukraine and a remote speech by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy dominated proceedings.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin earlier told the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore that Washington will do its part to manage tensions with China and prevent conflict even though Beijing was becoming increasingly aggressive in the region.

Zelenskiy, speaking via video link from an undisclosed location in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, told the delegates that their nations' support was crucial not just to defeat the Russian invasion, but to preserve the rules-based order.

"It is on the battlefields of Ukraine that the future rules of this world are being decided along with the boundaries of the possible," he said.

He noted that Russia is blocking ports in the Black Sea and Azov Sea, keeping Ukrainian food exports from the world market.

"If ... due to Russian blockades we are unable to export our foodstuffs, the world will face an acute and severe food crisis and famine in many countries in Asia and Africa," he said.

China and the United States, which have clashed in recent months over everything from Taiwan and China's human rights record to its military activity in the South China Sea, were again at odds.

Austin and Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe met on Friday and reiterated they want to better manage their relationship but there was no sign of any breakthrough in resolving differences.

Austin said the United States would continue to stand by its allies, including Taiwan.

"That's especially important as the PRC (People's Republic of China) adopts a more coercive and aggressive approach to its territorial claims," he said.

As the search for the two missing men heightened, Brazilian officials deployed more than 150 soldiers in camouflaged trucks to the town of Atalaia do Norte to interview locals.

By Friday, officials deployed soldiers in riverboats to inspect the nearby waters.

Phillips was last seen with Pereira on Sunday in the Sao Rafael region of the Amazon rainforest.

AFP via Getty Images

China claims self-ruled Taiwan as its own and has vowed to take it by force if necessary.

Austin said there had been an "alarming" increase in the number of unsafe and unprofessional encounters between Chinese planes and vessels with those of other countries.

Australia has said a Chinese fighter aircraft dangerously intercepted one of its military surveillance planes in the South China Sea region in May, and Canada's military has accused Chinese warplanes of harassing its patrol aircraft as they monitor North Korea sanction evasions.

Taiwan has complained for years of repeated Chinese air force missions into its air defence identification zone, and Austin said these incursions had surged in recent months.

Lieutenant General Zhang Zhenzhong, a senior Chinese military officer, called Austin's speech a "confrontation".

"There were many unfounded accusations against China. We expressed our strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these false accusations," Zhang, vice chief of the joint staff department of China's Central Military Commission, told reporters.

"The United States is trying to form a small circle in the Asia-Pacific region by roping in some countries to incite against some other countries. What should we call this other than confrontation?"

CLOSED-DOOR MEETING

Earlier this year, Washington said China appeared poised to help Russia in its war against Ukraine.

But since then, U.S. officials have said while they remain wary about China's longstanding support for Russia in general, the military and economic support that they worried about has not come to pass, at least for now.

Ng Eng Hen, the defence minister of host Singapore, said the ties between China and Russia were discussed at a closed-door meeting of the ministers on Saturday, and that several delegates had asked Beijing to do more to rein in Moscow.

The defence minister of Japan, one of Washington's closest allies in Asia, told the meeting that military cooperation between China and Russia had sharpened security concerns in the region.

"Joint military operations between these two strong military powers will undoubtedly increase concern among other countries," Nobuo Kishi said at the Singapore meeting.

Canadian Defence Minister Anita Anand also spoke out against China.

"The interceptions by the Chinese of our (aircraft) are very concerning and unprofessional and we need to ensure that the safety and security of our pilots is not at risk, especially when they are simply monitoring as required under U.N.-sanctioned missions," Anand told Reuters in an interview.

New Zealand voiced concern about Chinese attempts to gain influence in the Pacific islands.

 

Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles said it was reasonable to expect China to make clear it did not support the invasion of a sovereign country in violation of the U.N. Charter.

"That China has not done so should give us cause for concern, especially given the investments it is making in military power," he said at the meeting.

"There was nothing on her that could identify who she was," retired New Haven Police Officer Tony Griego told the outlet. Griego has dedicated his retirement years to assisting police with the investigation, WTNH reported.

CONNECTICUT POLICE MAKE DRAMATIC BOAT RESCUE AFTER GETTING HELP FROM FACETIME, VIDEO SHOWS 

The young woman was believed to be about 5 feet 5 inches tall with brown hair, officials said.

"Unfortunately, it was not the girl we had hoped for," Griego added, per the report.

Four years and four months ago, a high-school student delivered a speech at a rally outside the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Three days earlier, a gunman had killed 17 of X González’s classmates and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland with an AR-15-style rifle. “We are going to be the last mass shooting,” González told the assembled crowd and cable-news cameras.

It wasn’t, of course. In 2018 alone, there were 336 mass shootings in America, according to the Gun Violence Archive; since then, there have been at least 1,719 more. The righteous anger of millions of teenagers, parents, and teachers didn’t stop those shootings from happening. Neither did the historic March for Our Lives demonstration in Washington, D.C., the month after the Parkland shooting, or the massive student-led gun-control movement that followed.

It started with creeping grocery store prices, but now inflation is everywhere we look. The latest Consumer Price Index confirmed what many of us suspected: inflation may be slowing down but it's not going anywhere for a while. For America's small businesses, inflation is another obstacle they must overcome.

 

When I talk with small business owners, they all share the same feeling of uncertainty about rising inflation. And yet, their resiliency shines through when they ask how to tackle these economic pressures head-on. While business owners can't control all the rapidly rising costs, they can use their marketing as a tool to help inflation-proof their business.

Take advantage of technology to understand your customers.

The pandemic spurred the rapid adoption of e-commerce, and people are buying online more than ever. In 2021, over 2.14 billion consumers bought a product or service online - about a 2X increase from past years. This opens up a treasure of information about

ACCESS UPDATE TODAY COVID domestic helper agency in Hong Kong Rajshai

 The owner of a domestic worker agency has denied any wrongdoing over the death of a helper in Hong Kong amid allegations she was overworked, telling the Coroner’s Court he had discarded most of the written records concerning the deceased.

Appearing at an inquest into the death of Leonita Arcillas Quinto on Thursday, her agent, Sunny Li Wai-hong, said he had offered “meticulous care” to every domestic helper since he joined the profession a decade ago.

But he acknowledged that his company, Popular Employment Services, had not kept a copy of Quinto’s medical report and job-related documents as the agency did not have such a practice.

The 46-year-old Filipino woman died on April 4, 2017, after her employer found her unresponsive on her bed, less than four months after she arrived in Hong Kong.

Quinto, who had previously worked in Bahrain and Singapore, was employed by Rachel Wong Sing-yung and her family of four in December 2016. The helper developed symptoms of an upper respiratory infection a few days after beginning her new job at the family’s residence in Mei Foo Sun Chuen in Kowloon, but no significant medical findings were made after three consultation sessions at a private clinic.

The court heard on Tuesday that Quinto had come to realise that Wong had been blacklisted by several agencies due to repeated complaints from other domestic helpers.

 

The 46-year-old complained to Li just one month after starting the new job that she was required to work long hours, had been abused and was underfed. Quinto later gave one month’s notice on March 19, 2017, to terminate her contract, before her death on April 4.

Her younger sister, Imelda Abong Quinto, told the inquest the 46-year-old was asked to start working as early as 3am and could not eat until nighttime when she had completed her tasks. Wong also allegedly barred her from using the toilet even when she was menstruating.

Wong, who emigrated overseas with her family members in January and is absent from the proceedings, said in a police statement that she was “satisfied” with Leonita Arcillas Quinto’s performance.

Employment agent Sunny Li testifies at the Coroner’s Court on Thursday. Photo: Brian Wong

But Li provided a different account when the inquiry resumed on Thursday, saying Wong had complained about the helper’s inability to do household chores.

 

On the day Quinto came to the agency with Wong to ask for the termination of her contract, the latter had yelled and said she could quit if she so wished, according to Li.

 

The agency owner also said he had no recollection of whether he had double-checked the medical report of Quinto, who had a benign tumour on her left breast and suffered from menstrual migraines, before allowing her to start working.

“I did not know at the time the helper would encounter such misfortune, so I did not keep a record on everything,” Li said.

 

However, Coroner Stanley Ho Chun-yiu took the agent to task for his company’s lax record keeping.

“You are putting the cart before the horse, Mr Li. You don’t start keeping records only after the helper dies, do you?” Ho said.

Germany's transport minister voiced strong opposition Thursday to plans to ban the sale of new cars with combustion engines across the European Union in 2035, arguing this would discriminate against vehicles powered with synthetic fuels.

EU lawmakers voted Wednesday to back the measure that requires automakers to cut carbon-dioxide emissions by 100% by the middle of the next decade, effectively prohibiting the sale in the 27-nation bloc of new cars powered by gasoline or diesel.

The plan, which still needs to be approved by EU member states, would significantly boost electric vehicles because lawmakers refused to exempt cars powered with synthetic fuels from the ban. It will hurt German automakers, who have focused on powerful and expensive vehicles with combustion engines while falling behind foreign rivals when it comes to electric cars.

“We don't agree with the decisions," German Transport Minister Volker Wissing told reporters in Berlin.

“We want to shape the transformation in a way that is technologically open,” he said. “This includes registering new cars beyond 2035 if they are powered exclusively with synthetic fuels in a climate neutral way.”

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Synthetic, or e-fuels, are either refined from plants or manufactured using basic chemical processes and electricity. If the electricity is generated with renewable sources, such as wind or solar, then the fuels are considered ‘climate neutral’ because burning them releases only as much carbon into the atmosphere as was previously removed.

But critics argue that the limited supply of e-fuels should be reserved for those modes of transport where electrification isn't currently feasible, such as airplanes.

Experts at the Institute of Energy and Climate Research in Juelich, Germany, have calculated that a mid-size car running on synthetic fuel would use seven times as much energy as a comparable electric vehicle.

Wissing is under pressure from Germany's powerful auto lobby group VDA, which criticized the EU Parliament's vote as “a decision against innovation and technology.” It is unclear whether his position is shared by the rest of the German government.

HUMAIN VAI BORGUNA southern China as climate COVID UPDATE 2022 KAKA

 Torrential rains in southern China have killed at least 25 people, impacted millions of residents and caused billions of yuan in economic losses, as the country grapples with increasingly devastating flood seasons fueled by climate change.

In recent weeks, heavy rainfall has triggered severe flooding and landslides in large swathes of southern China, damaging homes, crops and roads.

In Hunan province, 10 people have been killed this month and three remain missing, with 286,000 people evacuated and a total of 1.79 million residents affected, officials said at a news conference Wednesday.

 

 

More than 2,700 houses have collapsed or suffered severe damage, and 96,160 hectares of crops have been destroyed -- heavy losses for a province that serves as a major rice-producing hub for China. Direct economic losses are estimated at more than 4 billion yuan ($600 million), according to officials.

 

Flooding and landslides caused by torrential rains have killed 10 people in Hunan province this month.

 

Late last month, flooding and landslides killed eight people in coastal Fujian province, five people in southwestern Yunnan province, and two children who were swept away by torrents in Guangxi province.

Chinese authorities are on high alert for this year's flood season, which started this month, after the deaths of 398 people in devastating floods caused by unprecedented rainfall in central Henan province last summer.

Summer floods are a regular occurrence in China, especially in the densely populated agricultural areas along the Yangtze River and its tributaries. But scientists have been warning for years that the climate crisis would amplify extreme weather, making it deadlier and more frequent.

 

 

 

 

'Once in a thousand years' rains devastated central China, but there is little talk of climate change

 

Henan, traditionally not a region that faces regular flooding, saw what authorities called a "once in a thousand years" downpour at some weather stations last July.

The provincial capital of Zhengzhou, which accounted for the majority of the death toll, was ill-prepared for the flooding. City officials failed to heed the five consecutive red alerts for torrential rain -- which should have prompted authorities to halt gatherings and suspend classes and businesses. Flood water gushed into the

The United Nations is pursuing a deal that would allow grain exports from Ukraine through the Black Sea and unimpeded access to world markets for Russian food and fertilizers.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told U.N. correspondents on Wednesday that without the deal hundreds of millions of people in developing countries face the threat of an unprecedented wave of hunger, three months after Russia invaded its smaller neighbor.

Guterres said, “Ukraine’s food production and the food and fertilizer produced by Russia must be brought into world markets, despite the war.”

Senior officials have been working closely with contacts in Moscow, Kyiv, Ankara, Brussels and Washington for the past 10 days, Guterres said. He said he didn’t want to jeopardize the chances of success by revealing details.

“This is one of those moments when silent diplomacy is necessary, and the welfare of millions of people around the world could depend on it,” he said

Meanwhile, fears of a global food crisis escalated over Ukraine’s inability to export millions of tons of grain through its blockaded ports.

At the same time, Ukrainian and Russian forces battled fiercely Wednesday for control of Sievierodonestk, a city that has emerged as central to Moscow’s grinding campaign to capture Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, known as the Donbas.

Many buildings in Mariupol contain 50 to 100 bodies each, according to a mayoral aide in the Russian-held port city in the south.

Petro Andryushchenko said on the Telegram app that the bodies are being taken in an “endless caravan of death” to a morgue, landfills and other places. At least 21,000 Mariupol civilians were killed during the weeks-long Russian siege, Ukrainian

Ukraine, long known as the “bread basket of Europe,” is one of the world’s biggest exporters of wheat, corn and sunflower oil, but much of that flow has been halted by the war and a Russian blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. An estimated 22 million tons of grain remains in Ukraine. The failure to ship it out is endangering the food supply in many developing countries, especially in Africa.

Russia expressed support Wednesday for a U.N. plan to create a safe corridor at sea that would allow Ukraine to resume grain shipments. The plan, among other things, calls for Ukraine to remove mines from the waters near the Black Sea port of Odesa.

But Russia is insisting that it be allowed to check incoming vessels for weapons. And Ukraine has expressed fear that clearing the mines could enable Russia to attack the coast. Ukrainian officials said the Kremlin’s assurances that it wouldn’t do that cannot be trusted.

The 46th President blamed the lack of any progress on gun safety on intimidation by the gun lobby, as he called on voters to make it a deciding issue come November during his first in-person appearance on a late-night talk show.

Mr Biden, who is a Democrat, told Kimmel that the National Rifle Association has bullied Republicans into thinking that if they vote for the rational gun policy, they are going to be primaried.

He added that he is considering additional executive orders related to the issue but doesn’t want to emulate his predecessor’s (Donald Trump) use of the non-legislative strategy, calling it an “abuse of the Constitution”.

Mr Biden explained to Kimmel that he has issued executive orders “within the power of the presidency” regarding guns.

“But what I don’t want to do, and I’m not being facetious, I don’t want to emulate Trump’s abuse of the constitution,” the President told Kimmel. “I often get asked, ‘look the Republicans don’t play it square, why do you play it square?’ Well, guess what? If we do the same thing they do, our democracy will literally be in jeopardy.”

Shares were mostly lower in Asia on Thursday as investors watched for fresh signs of inflation and crude oil prices hovered above $122 a barrel, adding to price pressures.

Benchmarks declined across the region, except in Tokyo, where a weakening yen sent issues of some Japanese exporters higher. Nintendo Co. issues surged 1.9% in afternoon trading, while Honda Motor Co. stocks gained more than 0.9%.

 

The Japanese yen has recently slid to fresh 20-year lows against the U.S. dollar, a trend the International Monetary Fund and other analysts expect to continue for a while because of higher interest rates in the U.S. and Europe, compared to Japan, where long-term interest rates remain at near-zero.

BARISHAL Sajid Javid pledges CovdiD Update BANGLADESH Online News 2023

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ackling trade deal with EU adds further pressure on prime minister after confidence vote Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis. right, has warned Boris Johnson, left, that hardliners in the loyalist DUP could resist a return to Stormont. © Pippa Fowles/No 10 Downing Street

Health and social care leadership in England will be overhauled after a review found evidence of bullying and blame cultures, Sajid Javid has said.

Following a series of damaging scandals at NHS trusts, the government said the report found "institutional inadequacy" in how managers are trained and valued.

The health secretary said the findings - to be published in full later - were "stark".

He earlier likened the NHS to the defunct Blockbuster video rental shop.

Downing Street said Mr Javid told cabinet colleagues the NHS was a "Blockbuster healthcare system in the age of Netflix".

"The NHS is absolutely fantastic, we all rely on it, but much of how it's set up is a still very much 1948, we need to be thinking about 2048 and how we get from here to the needs of the British population when it comes to health in 2048," Mr Javid later explained to MPs.

Labour's shadow health secretary Wes Streeting responded: "I think it's slightly absurd that 12 years into a government we have government ministers who talk in the biggest generalities without plans to deliver anything."

• Patients at risk due to NHS staff crisis, say nurses
• Bullying claims see staff shake-up
• Why the NHS is struggling like never before

Ahead of the full publication of the review into health management, the Department of Health and Social Care said in a press release that, while it highlighted instances of inspirational leadership, overall the report found "a lack of consistency and co-ordination".

It also said the report "identified a lack of equal opportunity for managers to access training and colleagues to progress in their careers, with those who have existing networks or contacts more likely to access these opportunities".

The review was headed by General Sir Gordon Messenger, a former vice chief of the defence staff who led the Royal Marines in the invasion of Iraq, and Dame Linda Pollard, chair of an NHS trust.

Mr Javid said: "The findings in this report are stark, it shows examples of great leadership but also where we need to urgently improve."

He fully supported the review's recommendations, which the government said include:

 

• action to improve equality, diversity and inclusion
• clear routes to progression and promotion
• a simplified appraisal system to focus on how people have behaved, not just what they have achieved
• the development of consistent management standards through accredited training
• encouraging the best leaders and managers to take on the most difficult roles, so they are seen as "the best jobs rather than the most feared jobs"

Ministers have their work cut out

The review's ideas for improving NHS and social care leadership in England seem to have been widely welcomed.

Few could disagree with the view that patient care will benefit from a well-led and motivated workforce and that staff should be empowered to develop their careers.

But how that will be achieved is another matter.

Persuading talented managers to take on the toughest roles in challenged areas won't be straightforward. Changing institutional culture will take a while.

The suggestion of discrimination and bullying at some organisations is concerning.

And as the King's Fund think tank notes, the report comes at a time of a workforce crisis with chronic staff shortages which have not yet been faced up to the government.

 

Ministers will have their work cut out to explain how this review will address the underlying problems of a health and care system under great strain.

NHS Chief Executive Amanda Pritchard said: "As this report recognises, leaders across the health service do a fantastic job in often very challenging circumstances.

"The NHS is a learning organisation - we welcome this report and are determined to do all we can to ensure our leaders get the support they need".

Gen Messenger said the recommendations could transform leadership in the sector, adding: "A well-led, motivated, valued, collaborative, inclusive, resilient workforce is the key to better patient and public health outcomes, and must be a priority."

Meanwhile, Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation which represents health and care leaders, said the review had shown the need for more diverse leadership.

"We can't hide from the fact that all too often staff from ethnic minority backgrounds are still not being provided with the support they need to progress to leadership roles," he said.

The review into health service leadership follows a series of damaging scandals at NHS trusts.

About three weeks after Russian troops invaded Ukraine, Indonesian housewife Liesye Setiana was forced to close her banana chip business as cooking oil supplies dried up across the country.

Millions of consumers and small business owners in the world's fourth most populous nation have been rattled for months by skyrocketing cooking oil prices.

As the war between the two major grain and sunflower seed producers sent jitters through global markets, many producers rushed to shift their goods abroad to cash in on soaring rates.

Setiana would travel to a supermarket over an hour from her remote East Java village of Baruharjo to buy a daily eight-litre batch of palm oil that could keep her business alive.

But the 49-year-old mother of two would be turned away, with sellers heavily rationing the commodity used in products ranging from cosmetics to chocolate spreads.

"I was fuming and told the employees that I really need the cooking oil for personal use, not for hoarding," said Setiana, who used to make up to 750,000 rupiah ($52) a day selling her savoury yellow snack.

© BAY ISMOYOAn employee prepares raw tempe, a traditional Indonesian food made from fermented soybeans, before being fried into chips

"How come we have cooking oil shortages when Indonesia is the world's top palm oil producer?"

Her battle for supplies is just a snapshot of the cooking oil crisis that has spurred hours-long queues of residents with jerry cans in hand across Indonesia's most populous island, Java, and others such as Borneo.

Two people died in March from exhaustion -- including one who had queued at three different supermarkets, according to local media -- as they waited in searing heat to get their hands on a product that rose to 20,100 rupiah a litre at its height.

© BAY ISMOYOThe owner of a home-based chips industry arranges her tempe chips, a traditional Indonesian food made from fermented soybeans in Jakarta

- Counting costs -

 

Indonesia produces about 60 percent of global palm oil supplies, with one-third consumed domestically. India, China, the European Union and Pakistan are among its major export customers.

The squeeze on cooking oil at home forced the Indonesian government to impose a now-lifted ban on exports last month, easing prices and shoring up domestic supplies.

But at the end of May, the price of bulk cooking oil, the most affordable in the country, still hovered at about 18,300 rupiah per litre on average, above the government's target of 14,000 rupiah, according to official data.

The price spike has left many with difficult decisions to make.

Sutaryo, who like many Indonesians goes by one name, runs a tempe chip business out of his home in South Jakarta. He was forced to jack up his prices and lay off four employees to stay afloat.

"After the surge of cooking oil prices, we have to be smart in calculating our production cost. Our consumers are left with no other choice but to accept a higher price for our kripik tempe," he said, referring to the traditional soy-based crackers.

With demand yet to recover, production at Sutaryo's home factory has slid from 300 to 100 kilogrammes a day, and daily revenue is down to six million rupiah from 15 million before the pandemic.

About half-a-dozen workers cut thin slices of tempe before throwing them into frying pans of hot oil, letting them sizzle until crispy.

It is a far cry from the hustle and bustle of the business's pre-pandemic peak, said Sutaryo, when he had workers frying tempe chips outside for lack of space.

In April, a damning report revealed catastrophic failings at Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust, where at least 201 babies and nine mothers might have survived with better maternity care. Last year, the care watchdog for England said patients' human rights may have been breached through "do not resuscitate" decisions made during Covid.

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Boris Johnson has been warned that his plan to rip up post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland will provoke a new row with Conservative MPs without necessarily restoring the region’s power-sharing executive. Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland secretary, has told the prime minister that the pro-UK Democratic Unionist party, which refused to join the executive after elections in May, has not agreed that it will begin the process of rejoining if the new legislation is published. Meanwhile Conservative whips, who enforce party discipline, have told Johnson, who survived a confidence vote among Tory MPs on Monday by 211 votes to 148, that party grandees will fight the passage of the bill through parliament. Separately the EU has said that if Johnson unilaterally rips up the Northern Ireland Protocol, which is part of his 2020 Brexit deal, British scientists will be locked out of the €95bn Horizon Europe research project. Ministers had planned to publish legislation overriding the protocol on Wednesday but government officials said that could slip into next week, as Johnson tries to stabilise his party after the damaging revolt by 41 per cent of his MPs. Johnson has argued that the high-stakes move is needed to help shore up the peace process in Northern Ireland. He hopes to persuade the DUP to return to Stormont to share power with Sinn Féin, the nationalist party that won last month’s elections. But Lewis has warned Johnson that hardliners in the DUP could resist a return to Stormont. “Brandon hasn’t definitively said they won’t go in, but we have no firm commitments,” said one official briefed on the discussions. “There are no guarantees. They are in a better place, but it remains to be seen what course of action they take.” Some in the DUP have argued the party should refuse to take part in the executive in the hope that this would lead to new elections, which could allow them to fare better. Failure to form an executive effectively paralyses government in the region. Theresa May, former prime minister, last month said Johnson should consider what the proposed Northern Ireland legislation would say about the UK’s “willingness to abide by treaties which it has signed”. Meanwhile Jesse Norman, the former Treasury minister, told Johnson this week that any breach of the Northern Irish protocol would be “economically very damaging, politically foolhardy and almost certainly illegal”. The bill will also run into fierce opposition from the pro-EU peers in the House of Lords, and the government could face a challenge over the legality of the bill under international law. The legislation will hand ministers powers to switch off parts of the controversial protocol, which creates a trade border in the Irish Sea in order to avoid the return of a hard border on the island of Ireland. One senior Tory MP said: “This bill has law wobble, DUP wobble and party wobble.” Senior Whitehall insiders said Lewis had initially told Johnson that tabling the controversial Northern Ireland Bill would convince the DUP to at least agree that a Speaker be elected to the assembly, enabling caretaker ministers to take up their roles. DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson © Brian Lawless/PA However, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP leader, struck an uncompromising tone on Tuesday, writing in The News Letter, the region’s pro-Unionist newspaper, that if the issue of the protocol was not resolved, “then Northern Ireland would be without a devolved government”. A senior DUP insider added that Donaldson “felt under no pressure” to restore the region’s democratic institutions “until the protocol issue is dealt with”. The UK government has obtained legal advice arguing that the bill to override the protocol would be considered legal under international law, based on a higher obligation to protect the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, but that view is expected to be challenged.