US eases export restrictions on unmanned drones, New Delhi to benefit.

Global Time

{  19 July 2020 ~ 25 July 2020 }

Political News    

                                     ~by RISHABH

1. US eases export restrictions on unmanned drones, New Delhi to benefit.
25 July 2020


President Donald Trump’s order on updated export restrictions on unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), with the new speed limit of 800 Kmph, will not only help its allies in the Middle-East facing the brunt of Chinese armed drones in Libyan theatre but will also help India acquire proven Predator-B armed and Global Hawk surveillance drones have speeds less than 800 Kmph.   
A statement issued by White House said, ‘The president has decided to invoke our national discretion to treat a carefully selected subset of missile technology control regime category I unmanned aerial systems (UAS), which cannot ll… This will increase our national security by improving the capabilities of our partners and increase our economic security by opening the expanding UAV market.’
2. From appreciating efforts to declaring a tyrant: How Covid hit US-China ties.
24 July 2020


The United States had its first Covid-19 case on January 21.
‘China has been working very hard to contain the corona virus,’ President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter three days later, taking an indulgent view of Beijing’s alleged culpability. ‘The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American people, I want to thank President Xi.’
Six months later, on Thursday, Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, was declared a tyrant by Trump’s diplomat Mike Pompeo.
There have been more than four million Covid-19 cases in the United States, and over 144,000 fatalities.
3. US senate panel paves way for Tik Tok ban for federal workers.
23 July 2020


As the Trump administration mulls a broader ban on Chinese apps along the lines of India, a US senate panel on Wednesday approved a bill barring federal employees from downloading and using TikTok, one of them, or replacement applications developed by its parent company ByteDance.
Titled ‘No Tik Tok on Government Devices Act’, the legislation said, ’No employee of the United States. Offices of the United States, Member of Congress, congressional employee, or offices or employee of a government corporation may download or use Tik Tok or any successor application developed by ByteDance or any entity owned by ByteDance on any device issued by the United States or a government corporation.’
4. Putin extends condolences to PM Modi over loss of lives in floods in various parts of India.
23 July 2020


Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday (local time) extended condolences to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the loss due to floods in various parts of India.
‘Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his deepest condolences to President of India Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi over the tragic consequences of the floods in several states of the country,’ the Russian President’s office said in a statement.
‘Russia share the grief of those who lost their loved ones to the rampant elements, and hopes for a speedy recovery of all those injured,’ Putin said in the message.
5. ‘Hope India continues to follow an independent foreign policy’: China.
22 July 2020


China on Wednesday said it hoped that India will continue to follow ‘an independent diplomatic policy’ after external affairs minister, S jaishankar said that, like in the past, New Delhi will never join any system of alliance. Speaking to a television channel, jaishankar said on Monday that India will never join any alliance system in the future just as it never did in the past.
‘Non-alignment was a term of a particular era and geopolitical landscape. One aspect was independence, which remains a factor of continuity for us,’ jaishankar said while speaking on the topic of ‘Geopolitics of opportunity: As the world rebalances, how should India capitaise?’
The minister’s statement comes in the backdrop of the worst chill in Sino-Indian ties in decades following the violent Galwan Valley clash in eastern Ladakh last month – and New Delhi carrying out a military naval drill with US aircraft carries, Nimitz, near the Andaman and Nicobar Island this week.
6.Canadian PM Trudeau skips opening session of parliament as WE Charity debate intensifies.
21 July 2020



Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau skipped the opening day of a session of parliament that his government had scheduled even as discussion in the house of commons were dominated by the controversy over the grant of a contract worth nearly a billion dollars to a charity with close links to his family.
The contract to WE Charity has already been cancelled after an outcry and revelations that Trudeau’s mother, brother and wife was paid fees by the organizations at various times. This has already led to a formal investigation being launched by the country’s Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioners while two Parliamentary panels  are also looking into the matter.
7. More frost in UK-China ties as extradition pact is suspended.
20 July 2020



The Boris Johnson government on Monday escalated its ennui with China following Beijing’s recent enactment of a security law for Hong Kong by suspending the extradition treaty with it ‘immediately and indefinitely’ and banned the export of items related to suppressing riots.
London’s latest action follows last week’s ban on Chinese company Huawei, high-profile expression of concern over the reportedly repressive treatment of Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang province of China, and previous offer of a path to UK citizenship to Hong Kong citizens holding the British National (Overseas) passports.
Foreign secretary Dominic Raab announced the suspension in the House of Commons: ‘I have consulted with the Home Secretary, the Justice Secretary and the Attorney General, and the government has decided to suspend the extradition treaty Immediately and indefinitely’. 

Health News

                                                                                                          ~by NIKHIL  

1.Here’s how respiratory droplet spread Covid-19 in different climates
21,July,2020


California [US], July 21 (ANI): Respiratory droplets from a cough or sneeze travel farther and last longer in humid, cold climates than in hot, dry ones, according to a study on droplet physics by an international team of engineers.
The researchers incorporated this understanding of the impact of environmental factors on droplets spread into a new mathematical model that can be used to predict the early spread of respiratory viruses including COVID-19, and the role of respiratory droplets in that spread. The results of the study were published in the journal Physics of Fluids.
The team developed this new model to better understand the role that droplet clouds play in the spread of respiratory viruses. Their model is the first to be based on a fundamental approach taken to study chemical reactions called collision rate theory, which looks at the interaction and collision rates of a droplet cloud exhaled by an infected person with healthy people. Their work connects population-scale human interaction with their micro-scale droplet physics results on how far and fast droplets spread, and how long they last.
“The basic fundamental form of a chemical reaction is two molecules are colliding. How frequently they’re colliding will give you how fast the reaction progresses,” said Abhishek Saha, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California San Diego, and one of the authors of the paper. “It’s exactly the same here; how frequently healthy people are coming in contact with an infected droplet cloud can be a measure of how fast the disease can spread.”
 
2.Black Lives Matter: Racial discrimination adversely impacts cognition in African Americans
21,July,2020


Experiences of racism are associated with lower subjective cognitive function (SCF) among African-American women, suggests the findings of a recent study.
Rates of incident dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) are higher in African Americans than in white Americans. In many studies, older African Americans perform more poorly on neuropsychological cognition tests compared to white Americans. Experiences of racism are common among African Americans, with 50 percent or more respondents to a 2017 national survey reporting such experiences. These institutional and daily forms of racism have been associated with increased risks of various conditions that can impair cognition, including depression, poor sleep, type 2 diabetes and hypertension.
Using data from the Black Women’s Health Study (a prospective cohort study established in 1995, when 59,000 black women aged 21 through 69 years enrolled by completing health questionnaires) researchers from Boston University’s Slone Epidemiology Center quantified the association between experiences of racism and SCF, based on six questions about memory and cognition.
They found that experiences of both daily and institutional racism were associated with decreased SCF. Women reporting the highest level of daily racism had 2.75 times the risk of poor SCF as women reporting the lowest level of daily racism. Women in the highest category of institutional racism had 2.66 times the risk of poor SCF as those who reported no such experiences.
“Our findings of a positive association of experiences of racism with poorer subjective cognitive function are consistent with previous work demonstrating that higher perceived psychological stress is associated with greater subjective memory decline,” explains senior author Lynn Rosenberg, ScD, an epidemiologist at the Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University and a principal investigator of the Black Women’s Health Study.
“Our work suggests that the chronic stress associated with racial discrimination may contribute to racial disparities in cognition and AD,” added Rosenberg, who is also a professor of epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health.
 
3.Covid-19 studies making you depressed? Here’s why not to let Covid antibody studies get to you
22,July,2020


It’s hard to imagine more depressing news than some recent studies showing that antibodies to Covid-19 fade within a few weeks — a blow to any hopes for a vaccine, or for any chance of getting out of the pandemic without years of hardship.
Don’t let it raise your blood pressure. Pendulum swinging is all part of a common pattern in health reporting, where all the attention goes to extremes — total gloom or total sunshine — when reality is somewhere in between. It can seem jarring, when this news about fast-fading antibodies comes out within a few days of the hopeful news that several human vaccine studies are showing promising results. Some vaccine makers are already moving into massive-scale efficacy trials that could yield early results before the end of this year.
One reason for the seemingly discordant news is that vaccines can induce a stronger immune response than natural infections — and for that reason several vaccine researchers I spoke to said they were unfazed. “None of these findings is any reason to stop or slow down vaccine work,” says Harvard vaccine researcher Dan Barouch. “If anything, it should redouble our efforts if natural immunity fades quickly.”
But beyond that, natural immunity might hold up better than these first studies suggest. Those studies showing the fast fade relied on fewer than 100 people. But this week, another team released a study that followed 19,860 patients in New York City, and found that more than 90% of them had produced the kind of antibody response likely fight off reinfection, and it was still going strong three months after recovery. (The study hasn’t been published yet, but the team, associated with Mt. Sinai, has published many other high-profile Covid-19 papers.)
 
4.Covid-19 studies making you depressed? Here’s why not to let Covid antibody studies get to you
22,July,2020


Early menstruation increases the likelihood of hot flushes and nights sweats decades later at menopause, according to a study.
The research led by University of Queensland researchers is published in BJOG: an International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology.
School of Public Health researchers analysed data from more than 18,000 middle-aged women across the UK, USA and Australia, as part of the Life-course Approach to reproductive health and Chronic disease Events (InterLACE) international collaboration.
UQ’s Dr Hsin-Fang Chung said the study showed women who started menstruating aged 11 or younger had a 50 per cent higher risk of experiencing frequent hot flushes and night sweats - known as vasomotor symptoms - at menopause.
The group was compared with women who had their first period at 14 or older.
“The risk of the women who menstruated early experiencing both symptoms was greater than having either hot flushes or night sweats alone,” Dr Chung said.
She said early menstruation previously had been linked to adverse health conditions later in life, including type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
InterLACE project leader Professor Gita Mishra said obesity played a significant role in the findings.
“Women who experienced early menstruation and were overweight or obese in midlife had a two times greater risk of frequent hot flushes and night sweats, compared with women who experienced their first period aged 14 years or older, and had normal weight,” she said.
“These findings encourage women with early menstruation to engage in health promotion programs, especially weight management in adulthood,” Professor Mishra said.
 
5.hormone therapy may help cure breast cancer: Study
23,July,2020


Fasting-mimicking diet combined with hormone therapy has the potential to help treat breast cancer, according to a USC-led team of international scientists.
In studies on mice and in two small breast cancer clinical trials, researchers at USC and the IFOM Cancer Institute in Milan -- in collaboration with the University of Genova -- found that the fasting-mimicking diet reduces blood insulin, insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) and leptin.
In mice, these effects appear to increase the power of the cancer hormone drugs tamoxifen and fulvestrant and delay any resistance to them. The results from 36 women treated with the hormone therapy and fasting-mimicking diet are promising, but researchers say it is still too early to determine whether the effects will be confirmed in large-scale clinical trials.
The research was published in the journal Nature.
“Our new study suggests that a fasting-mimicking diet together with endocrine therapy for breast cancer has the potential to not only shrink tumors but also reverse resistant tumors in mice,” said Valter Longo, the study’s co-senior author and the director of the Longevity Institute at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology and professor of biological sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
“We have data that for the first time suggests that a fasting-mimicking diet works by changing at least three different factors: IGF1, leptin and insulin,” Longo added.
The researchers say the two small clinical trials are feasibility studies that showed promising results, but they are in no way conclusive. They believe the results support further clinical studies of a fasting-mimicking diet used in combination with endocrine therapy in hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer.
The scientists also contributed to a recent clinical study of 129 breast cancer patients conducted with the University of Leiden. The results, published last month in Nature Communications, appeared to show increased efficacy of chemotherapy in patients receiving a combination of chemotherapy and a fasting-mimicking diet.
In the two new small clinical trials -- one of which was directed by the study co-corresponding author Alessio Nencioni -- patients with hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer receiving estrogen therapy along with cycles of a fasting-mimicking diet seemed to experience metabolic changes similar to those observed in mice.
These changes included a reduction in insulin, leptin and IGF1 levels, with the last two remaining low for extended periods. In mice, these long-lasting effects are associated with long-term anti-cancer activity, so further studies in humans are needed.
“Some patients followed monthly cycles of the fasting-mimicking diet for almost two years without any problems, suggesting that it is a well-tolerated intervention. We hope this means that this nutritional program that mimics fasting could one day represent a weapon to better fight cancer in patients receiving hormone therapy without serious side effects,” Nencioni said.
“The results in mice are very promising. And the early clinical results show potential as well, but now we need to see it work in a 300- to 400-patient trial,” Longo explained.
The data also suggest that in mice, the fasting-mimicking diet appears to prevent tamoxifen-induced endometrial hyperplasia, a condition in which the endometrium (or the lining of the uterus) becomes abnormally thick. The study authors believe this potential use of the fasting diet should be explored further, given the prevalence of this side effect of tamoxifen and the limited options for preventing it.
Approximately 80 per cent of all breast cancers express estrogen and/or progesterone receptors. The most common forms of hormone therapy for these breast cancers work by blocking hormones from attaching to receptors on cancer cells or by decreasing the body’s hormone production. Endocrine therapy is frequently effective in these hormone-receptor-positive tumors, but the long-term benefits are often hindered by treatment resistance.
Several clinical trials, including one at USC on breast cancer and prostate patients, are now investigating the effects of the fasting-mimicking diets in combination with different cancer-fighting drugs.
“I like to call it the nontoxic wildcard for cancer treatment. These clinical studies we have just published -- together with the many animal studies published in the past 12 years -- suggest that cycles of the fasting-mimicking diet has the potential to make standard therapy more effective against different cancers, each time by changing a different factor or nutrient important for cancer cell survival,” Longo said.
 
6.Scientists develop safe antibody test to counter coronavirus spread
24,July,2020


Scientists have developed a rapid test to detect antibodies in Covid-19 patients that specifically block the novel coronavirus, an advance that may lead to faster methods for estimating the population level infection rate of the disease.
According to the study, published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, a rapid test to detect neutralising antibodies -- capable of blocking the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 -- is urgently needed to facilitate monitoring of infection rates, as well as to determine vaccine efficacy during clinical trials.
In order to facilitate this, the researchers, including those from the Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, developed a new assay which is much faster than conventional tests for neutralising antibodies, taking only one or two hours to complete.
They said the new method, validated in two groups of patients who had Covid-19 from Singapore and Nanjing, China, does not require the use of the live virus.
According to the scientists, the current gold standard assay for detecting neutralising antibodies requires the handling of live SARS-CoV-2 in a biosafety level three laboratory containment facility, and is time-consuming, taking two-four days to complete.
Another method involving a pseudovirus-based neutralisation test to detect such antibodies can be done in a biosafety level two laboratory, they said, but added that this too requires the use of live viruses and cells.
In the current research, the scientists Lin-Fa Wang, Danielle Anderson, and their colleagues designed a surrogate virus neutralisation test that does not require the use of any live virus or cells. “The surrogate virus neutralisation test does not require biosafety level three containment, making it broadly accessible to the wider community for both research and clinical applications,” the researchers wrote in the study.
They said the new test takes only one to two hours to complete, and can be conducted in a biosafety level two laboratory. The researchers used the purified part of the viral spike protein which binds to the host cell’s surface receptor ACE2 to mimic the virus-host interaction.

Business News

                                                                           ~by JATIN

1.Schlumberger slashes over 21,000 jobs amid coronavirus pandemic oil rout

-25 JULY 2020

Schlumberger is cutting more than 21,000 jobs as the global coronavirus pandemic quashes demand for energy and oil prices are routed. The company will pay more than $1 billion in severance benefits.

The job cuts announced on Friday, about a quarter of its entire workforce, puts the number of people employed by the world's largest oilfield services company close to where it was at the start of the oil and gas fracking boom that upended global energy markets and put the US on top.
Chesapeake Energy, a pioneer in fracking, sought bankruptcy protection last month.

"This has probably been the most challenging quarter in past decades," said CEO Olivier Le Peuch.

Crude prices have dropped 33% this year, and natural gas has fallen 17%, as much of the world took shelter from the coronavirus.
Almost all major users of energy have been crippled because of the lockdown. On Thursday, American Airlines posted a loss of more than $2 billion, and Southwest Airlines said it lost $915 million.

2.Don’t keep the change, US Mint urges in push for coin supply
-24 JULY 2020

The U.S. Mint has some advice for consumers: don’t keep the change.

The bureau is asking Americans to start spending their pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters to tackle what it says is a coin-supply snag brought on by the coronavirus. Precautions taken to slow the pandemic have led to reduced sales activity and lowered deposits from third-party coin processors, the Mint said in a statement Thursday.
“Simply put, there is an adequate amount of coins in the economy, but the slowed pace of circulation has meant that sufficient quantities of coins are sometimes not readily available where needed,” the Mint said in the statement. “We are asking for your help in improving this coin supply issue. You can do so by paying for things with exact change and by returning spare change to circulation.”
The shortfall is making it more difficult for retailers to accept cash payments, according the Mint. In normal circumstances, retail transactions and coin recyclers return a significant amount of coins to circulation each day. A bureau within the Department of Treasury, the Mint supplied less than a fifth of coins in circulation last year.
During a congressional hearing last month, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the flow of coins through the economy has “kind of stopped,” but that he expected the shortage would prove temporary. Representative John Rose, a Tennessee Republican, had asked Powell about the supply issue after hearing about it from banks in his district.

3.Saudi Arabia is mulling asset sales and income tax to survive a double whammy
-23 JULY 2020

Saudi Arabia is accelerating plans to sell off state assets and isn’t ruling out introducing income tax as the kingdom seeks to boost state coffers hit by the slump in oil prices.

The world’s biggest oil exporter could raise more than 50 billion riyals ($13.3 billion) over the next four to five years by privatizing assets in the education, health-care and water sectors, Finance Minister Mohammed Al Jadaan said Wednesday during a virtual forum organized by Bloomberg.
The government is “considering all options” to bolster its finances and while income tax isn’t “imminent” and “would require a lot of time” to prepare, the kingdom “isn’t ruling anything away for now,” he said.

The state-run Saudi Press Agency later reported citing an unidentified official source as saying that income tax had not been discussed in the cabinet or any of the government councils or committees.
Saudi Arabia has been taking steps to shore up its economy from the double whammy of the coronavirus and lower crude prices. The economy is set to shrink 6.8% this year, according to the International Monetary Fund, in what would be the deepest contraction in over 30 years.

4.World's most valuable carmaker: How Tesla defined a new era for the auto industry
-22 JULY 2020

Tesla Inc's rapid rise to become the world's most valuable carmaker could mark the start of a new era for the global auto industry, defined by a Silicon Valley approach to software that is overtaking old-school manufacturing know-how.
Tesla's ascent took many investors by surprise. But executives at Daimler AG, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, had a close-up view starting in 2009 of how Tesla and its chief executive Elon Musk were taking a new approach to building vehicles that challenged the established system.
Daimler, which bears the name of the man who invented the modern car 134 years ago, bought a nearly 10% Tesla stake in May 2009 in a deal which provided a $50 million lifeline for the struggling start-up.

That investment gave Mercedes engineers an inside view of how Musk was willing to launch technology that wasn't perfect, and then repeatedly upgrade it, using smartphone style over-the-air updates, paying little regard to early profitability.
Mercedes engineers helped Tesla develop its Model S luxury sedan in exchange for access to Tesla's partially hand-assembled battery packs, but in 2014 Daimler decided to sell their stake amid doubts Tesla's approach could be industrialized at scale.
Tesla would go on to pioneer new approaches in manufacturing, designs in software and electronic architecture which enable it to introduce innovations faster than rivals, leaving analysts to draw comparisons with Apple.

5.Stimulus package breaks new ground in European unity, 27 nations to share financial burden
-21 JULY 2020


European leaders took a historic step towards sharing financial burdens among the EU's 27 countries by agreeing to borrow and spend together to pull the economy out of the deep recession caused by the virus outbreak.
Pushed by Germany's Angela Merkel and France's Emmanuel Macron, leaders agreed to borrow jointly by selling bonds, using the European Union's collective strong credit rating that keeps interest costs low. The money will fill a 750 billion-euro ($855 billion) recovery fund to be used to boost the hoped for economic rebound next year and restore the growth and jobs lost in this year's plunge.
Two decisions - shared borrowing, and simply handing out much of the money as grants - broke through longstanding opposition from some of the financially stronger countries to exposing their finances and taxpayers to troubles in southern Europe where bureaucracy and red tape continue to slow growth. Germany, which had long resisted shared borrowing, played a decisive role by changing its approach in the face of the crisis as Merkel pressed for a deal.
"With the biggest-ever effort of cross-border solidarity, the EU is sending a strong signal of internal cohesion," said Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg bank. "Near-term, the confidence effect can matter even more than the money itself."
The EU's executive commission predicts the bloc's economy will shrink by 8.7% this year and rebound by 6.1% next year. The goal of the spending is to support that upswing.
By turning to shared debt and spending, the EU is taking a different approach to solidarity than during the 2010-2015 debt crisis that pushed Greece and four other members of the 19-country euro currency union into international bailouts in 2010-2015. Greece was rescued with loans that have to be repaid, increasing its debt load. That help came with tough conditions to rein in government spending that reduced growth, spread hardship and fueled resentment.

6.UK firm declares positive results from clinical trial of COVID-19 protein treatment
-20 JULY 2020

A UK-based biotech company on Monday declared positive "breakthrough" results from a clinical trial of a protein-based treatment for COVID-19, which "greatly" reduced patients requiring intensive care.
Synairgen said its SNG001 formulation uses a protein called interferon beta, which the body produces when it gets a viral infection, and is inhaled directly into the lungs of patients with coronavirus, using a nebuliser, in the hope that it will stimulate an immune response.
"This assessment of SNG001 in COVID-19 patients could signal a major breakthrough in the treatment of hospitalized COVID-19 patients," said Richard Marsden, CEO of Synairgen, a respiratory drug discovery and development company which originated from research at the University of Southampton.
"We are all delighted with the trial results announced today, which showed that SNG001 greatly reduced the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients who progressed from 'requiring oxygen' to 'requiring ventilation'. It also showed that patients who received SNG001 were at least twice as likely to recover to the point where their everyday activities were not compromised through having been infected by SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19)," he said.

7.Tax on digital transactions: Discussions or a stalemate with the European Union?
-19 JULY 2020

India not alone in levying tax on digital transactions. With talks at the OECD on a global deal making little headway, a number of countries have made their intent clear on imposing taxes on such transaction. Gulveen Aulakh examines the digital tax landscape in detail...
·       AUSTRALIA
Revenues from advertising services on digital media rendered in Austria
·       FRANCE
Portion of taxable services income after application of “French digital presence”
·       GREECE
Income from short-term rentals in the sharing economy through digital platforms
·       UK
Revenue over 25 million pounds from UK users from social media platforms, internet search engine and online market place
·       VIETNAM
Income derived by nonresidents from digital and e-commerce operations in Vietnam
·       HUNGARY
Gross amount of online advertising payments
·         INDONESIA
E-commerce sales, when the digital PE cannot be applied due to the provision of a Tax Treaty.