TRIPOLI: Rocket and shell fire on Tripoli has killed at least 13 civilians and two policemen in the last two days, Libya´s UN-recognised government said on Friday. The Government of National Accord accused forces loyal to strongman Khalifa Haftar of carrying out the attacks, which it said...

LILONGWE: Malawi´s top appeals court on Friday rejected President Peter Mutharika´s bid to scrap the annulment of controversial elections last May which he narrowly won, paving the way for a rerun in July. Mutharika had appealed a landmark decision by the Constitutional Court to...

WASHINGTON: A study performed in New York hospitals found no evidence of either harm or benefit from giving the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to severely ill coronavirus patients. “The risk of intubation or death was not significantly higher or lower among patients who received...

TEHRAN: An earthquake struck early Friday near Iran’s highest peak and jolted Tehran, killing at least one person and injuring more than 20 as people ran for their lives. The shallow 4.6 magnitude quake hit at 00:48 am near the city of Damavand, about 55 kilometres east of Tehran, the US...

LILONGWE, Malawi: Malawi’s top appeals court on Friday rejected President Peter Mutharika’s bid to scrap the annulment of controversial elections last May which he narrowly won, paving the way for a rerun in July.Mutharika had appealed a landmark decision by the Constitutional Court to...

TRIPOLI: Rocket and shell fire on Tripoli has killed at least 13 civilians and two policemen in the last two days, Libya’s UN-recognised government said on Friday.The Government of National Accord accused forces loyal to strongman Khalifa Haftar of carrying out the attacks, which it said...

Extreme heat and humidity are increasing across the globe, threatening millions of lives and economies in places where it could become fatal to work outdoors, scientists said Friday.

As India enters an extended coronavirus lockdown, the government is actively pursuing contact tracing to help control infections.

The World Health Organization (WHO) plans to launch an app this month to enable people in under-resourced countries to assess whether they may have the novel coronavirus, and is considering a Bluetooth-based contact tracing feature too, an official told Reuters Friday.

ISLAMABAD: A senior member of the Prime Minister’s Office has approached the Federal Ombudsman over the ‘extreme injustice’ of out of turn allotment of second residential plots in the federal capital to a selected few in the bureaucracy in a non-transparent and unjust manner.The...

ISLAMABAD: A senior member of the Prime Minister’s Office has approached the Federal Ombudsman over the ‘extreme injustice’ of out of turn allotment of second residential plots in the federal capital to a selected few in the bureaucracy in a non-transparent and unjust manner.The...

ISLAMABAD: A senior member of the Prime Minister’s Office has approached the Federal Ombudsman over the ‘extreme injustice’ of out of turn allotment of second residential plots in the federal capital to a selected few in the bureaucracy in a non-transparent and unjust manner. The...

Central Asia is improving food safety measures to share with the world some of the more than 8000 plant species, as well as livestock, from the region.

Better information and a willingness to tackle difficult issues are necessary to ensure a fit-for-purpose and accountable health system in Papua New Guinea.

Effective and planned shoreline management would trigger activities for tourism, and support development of ocean and beach landscape, conserve biodiversity along with coastal people’s livelihood.

State-owned enterprises, including power utilities, in many countries have collected a menagerie of assets unrelated to their core business. And they are selling cheap.

To understand fragility and resilience in Papua New Guinea, look to history and the people living in the country’s most vulnerable areas.

Health and safety on the jobsite involves more than simply enforcing rules and regulations. A culture of prevention, as well as innovative digital solutions, are needed to keep workers alive and healthy.

Quantum computing could change the face of many international development programs, including those involving transport, financial services and health care.

A landmark international agreement designed to eliminate violence and harassment in the workplace has been passed. Now comes the hard part.

Countries around the world are taking an integrated approach to address the complexities of poverty. 

Digital or financial technology – including mobile internet access, blockchain, artificial intelligence, and big data – can make international trade more efficient and support financing options.

Bhutan is using an innovative financing system to ensure its citizens have access to quality affordable health care.

Singapore’s carbon tax is designed to maximize green investments while minimizing negative effects on the overall economy.

By some estimates, the digital economy now accounts for trillions of dollars. But policymakers and companies still lack the data needed to fully understand it.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need to strengthen programs and policies affecting older persons both in times of crisis and afterward.

Countries can minimize the economic risk of epidemics by investing in the tools needed to predict disease emergence.

NEW DELHI: Builders are scrambling to acquire cheap land and technology for low-cost housing after the government and central bank announced incentives for affordable housing, including cheaper loans to developers and buyers. Real estate companies including Tata Housing, ATS Infrastructure, Bhartiya Group and Anantraj Industries are busy sewing up land deals for projects in the Rs 5-20 lakh home segment. There is unlimited demand for homes in this segment, say experts. “There is a large market for such homes but a big supply constraint as well,” said Shailesh Pathak, executive director of the Bhartiya Group, which is planning to build 10,000 low-cost homes over the next two-three years on a […]

In some of his YouTube videos, the user "Beleza em pessoa" criticized Mozambican prophets.

In early February, he was kidnapped for 24 hours, before he was freed by the police. A self-proclaimed prophet named Joe Williams is suspected of ordering the kidnapping.

The Central Government has approved around 93 percent of the total planned housing units under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban (PMAY-U). By far, as many as 1.03 crore housing units have been sanctioned across the country under the said scheme. To provide affordable pucca houses to the homeless population of the country, the Central Government has approved over 1 crore houses in urban parts of the country under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Urban (PMAY-U). Against the humongous target of 1.2 crore units, the Government has sanctioned nearly 1.03 crore units across the States and Union Territories (UTs). Of the approved units, approximately 61 lakh units are under-construction and nearly […]

Samsung chief Lee Jae-yong apologized on Wednesday for a massive fiddle that allowed him to take over leadership of the publicly traded conglomerate from his ailing father.Without offering to surrender his own position, Lee promised to end the hereditary transfer of leadership at some point in the f...

The Environment Ministry is fining Mercedes-Benz W77.6 billion for illegally tampering with emissions tests, the biggest fine ever for a carmaker here (US$1=W1,225). The ministry on Wednesday said Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Porsche tampered with the emissions of around 40,000 diesel cars sold in Kore...

Genres: Thriller Running Time: 106 min. Directed by: Francis Annan Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Ian Hart Synopsis: Based on the real-life prison break of two political captives, Escape From Pretoria is a race-against-time thriller set in the tumultuous apartheid days of South Africa.

President Moon Jae-in's approval rating has stood at over 60 percent for a third week running despite the dire state of the economy.Moon, who marks his third year in office this weekend, seems to owe his recovered popularity to the relatively smooth handling of the coronavirus epidemic. But it also ...

Japan has fast-tracked the approval of the anti-viral drug remdesivir to be used to treat COVID-19 patients in that country.Speaking to reporters Friday in Tokyo, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga confirmed the rare fast-track, four-day approval of remdesivir by the Ministry of Health,...

The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation is going to introduce a mobile application to ensure punctuality of its employees and facilitate their work.Karachi Mayor Wasim Akhtar announced this while addressing a meeting at the Frere Hall on Friday. He also announced that applications were sought for...

The Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science, and Technology on Thursday held its 42nd senate meeting at the Governor House Sindh.The online meeting was chaired by President of Pakistan Dr Arif Alvi, who is also the varsity’s chancellor. The meeting approved the nomination of two faculty...

Microchip Smart Storage Adapters Now Interoperate Seamlessly with MegaRAC® SP-X Management Firmware from AMI for At-Scale Secure Storage Management

Enabling Cloud Connectivity to All MCUs and MPUs, Microchip Launches a Range of Embedded IoT Solutions for Rapid Prototyping

New Functional Safety Ready AVR® DA Microcontroller Family Enables Real-Time Control, Connectivity and HMI Applications

ADB today approved an additional $500 million loan to bolster the efforts of the Government of Bangladesh to manage the impact of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on the country’s economy and the public health.

Providing safely managed sanitation services for all requires extending the partnership between the public and private sectors.

The webinar will highlight the important role the MDBs are called to play in closing the SOGI data gap by supporting innovative forms of data generation and evidence-based policymaking in their countries.

ADB invites papers for the Asian Development Conference 2020 to be held 16-17 July 2020 in Seoul, Korea.

Speaker Nabih Berri said it was necessary and urgent to implement measures to halt Lebanon’s economic collapse, local newspaper Al-Joumhouria reported Saturday.

Getting Started Guide: Microchip PIC-IoT WA (Wireless for Amazon Web Services) Application

The coronavirus lockdown wiped out 20.5 million US jobs in April, destroying nearly all the positions created in the previous decade in the world's largest economy, the country's labour department reported on Friday.

The unprecedented collapse drove the unemployment rate to 14.7 per cent — well beyond the peak hit in late 2009 during the global financial crisis — from 4.4pc in March.

And job losses in March were worse than initially reported, falling 870,000 even though the business closures mostly happened in the second half of the month.

The plunge in non-farm payroll employment was the largest ever recorded since 1939, while the jobless rate was the highest and the biggest increase since 1948, the report said.

Employment fell sharply in all major industry sectors, with particularly heavy job losses in leisure and hospitality, the first sector hit and the one bearing the brunt of the impact of the lockdowns.

However, the labour department noted that the some workers were misclassified in the report as employed when they should have been counted as laid off.

Had they been listed properly, the unemployment rate would have been nearly five percentage points higher.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump downplayed unprecedented US job losses, saying they were not a surprise.

“It's fully expected, there's no surprise. Somebody said, 'oh look at this,'” he said on Fox News minutes after the labour department published the figures.

“I'll bring it back,” he said.

TOKYO: Japan on Thursday approved Gilead Sciences Inc’s remdesivir as a treatment for Covid-19, making it the country’s first officially authorised drug to tackle the coronavirus disease.

Japan reached the decision just three days after the US drugmaker filed for fast-track approval for the treatment.

“There has so far been no coronavirus medicine available here so it is a significant step for us to approve this drug,” a Japanese health ministry official said at a press briefing. Remdesivir will be given to patients with severe Covid-19 symptoms, he added.

With no other approved treatments for Covid-19, interest in the drug is growing around the world. Administered by intravenous infusion, it was granted authorisation last week by the US Food and Drug Administration for emergency use for the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Gilead says the drug has improved outcomes for people suffering from the respiratory disease and has provided data suggesting it works better when given in the early stages of infection.

Japan, with just over 16,000 infections and under 800 deaths, has recorded fewer cases than other major industrialised nations.

However, a steady rise in cases has put pressure on medical facilities in some parts of the country, and a drug that helps patients recover more quickly could help in freeing up hospital beds.

A trial performed by the US Institutes of Health (NIH) showed the drug cut hospital stays by 31 per cent compared with a placebo treatment, although it did not significantly improve survival.

On Monday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe extended a month-long state of emergency until the end of May in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Japan as yet does not know when it will get its first doses of remdesivir or how much, the health ministry official said.

Gilead on Tuesday said it was in discussion with several companies, including generic drugmakers in India and Pakistan to produce remdesivir in large quantities.

Remdesivir, which previously failed as a treatment for Ebola, is designed to disable the ability by which some viruses make copies of themselves inside infected cells.

Published in Dawn, May 8th, 2020