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Vaccine Enters Final Phase; Biden Begins with Setting up COVID task Force; World Leaders Eager To Cooperate With Biden On Climate Change; China Worried Over Its Foreign Policy Fallout; Tibet Seeks Renewed Policy Under Biden Admin – all in Asian Lite Daily Digital – click here to read the edition.
Arab League Hails UN Move on Palestine; Abu Dhabi’s Hudayriyat Entertainment District opens on November 10; World Leaders Eager To Join Biden On Climate Action; China Worried Over Its Foreign Policy Fallout; Tibet Seeks Renewed Policy Under Biden Admin – all in Asian Lite Daily Digital – click here to read the full edition.
Iran announced on Sunday its highest single-day death toll from the coronavirus with 251 confirmed dead, reports Arab News.
Health Ministry spokesperson Sima Sadat Lari said this pushes the total confirmed death toll to 28,544, making it the hardest-hit country in the region.
A further 3,822 new cases were confirmed over the past 24 hour-period, raising total nationwide recorded cases to 5,00,075. Nearly 4,509 patients are in critical condition, the report added.
Meanwhile, a separate report by Tasnim news agency said the country’s vice president in charge of budget and planning, Mohammad Bagher Nobakht, had also tested positive for the coronavirus.
Also Read: US imposes sanctions on major Iranian banks
Also Read: Covid 19: Iraq suspends Iran flights
Glenn Maxwell was ‘shattered after he failed to take King XI Punjab over the line during their IPL 2020 match.
Kings XI needed 14 runs off the last over with Maxwell at the crease on Saturday. The Australian batsman hit a boundary and got a couple on the first three balls of the final over bowled by Sunil Narine.
The West Indian spinner, who was warned over his suspect action after the match, brought the equation down to six runs to tie off the last ball. Maxwell’s hit over cover on the last delivery could have gone for six but landed just inside the rope and crossed the boundary for four.
“Shattered,” Maxwell wrote on Twitter. The Australian ended not out on 10 off five balls with two boundaries.
A match-winning six could have helped Maxwell’s case. He has been struggling to get going and has endured a string of low scores. His highest in seven innings of IPL 2020 is 13 not out that he scored against Rajasthan Royals.
Even with the ball he hasn’t done anything, failing to get even one wicket.
Kings XI Punjab skipper blamed the middle-order for not rising to the occasion. “Mayank and I started off well, but if you lose wickets in clusters, at the end, it’s hard to get over the line,” said Rahul at the end of the match.
Also Read: KXIP skipper has no answers for the team’s losing streak
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There has been no progress in the Afghanistan peace negotiations in Doha as formal meetings between the two sides comprising representatives of the Kabul government and Taliban, have remained suspended for the past 10 days.
Despite recent diplomatic efforts, the two sides were yet to reach a conclusion about the procedural rules intended to kick start the direct peace negotiations aimed at ending the decades-long war in Afghanistan, TOLO News reported on Saturday.
Since the intra-Afghan talks were formally launched on September 12, two sides have agreed on 18 out of 20 articles for the procedural rules.
But two main articles – religious basis for the talks and connection of the US-Taliban deal with the negotiations – remain unsolved.
The Taliban has not made an official comment about the resumption of the talks, but the government team has said that the negotiation will continue until the two sides reach a settlement.
This comes days after US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said he expects the Afghan peace process to be concluded in months, not years.
On Saturday, Abdullah Abdullah, head of the High Council for National Reconciliation, said that an early withdrawal of international troops from Afghanistan will have some impacts on the ongoing peace process and the country’s situation, TOLO News reported.
But he also said that Afghans should be ready for any type of conditions and that they should work for their future together.
Also Read: Afghan President visits Kuwait, Qatar
Also Read: UAE- Afghan discuss strategic relations
The global PC market climbed 12.7 per cent from a year ago to reach 79.2 million units in the third quarter of this year, registering the highest growth the market has seen in the past 10 years, according to the latest report from Canalys.
After a weak Q1, the recovery in Q2 continued into Q3 this year in which Lenovo regained the top spot, showed data released by the analyst company.
Global notebook shipments touched 64 million units – almost as much as the record high of Q4 2011 when notebook shipments were 64.6 million – as demand continued to surge due to second waves of COVID-19 in many countries and companies continued to invest in longer-term transitions to remote working.
Shipments of notebooks and mobile workstations grew 28.3 per cent year-on-year. This contrasted with desktop and desktop workstations, which saw shipments shrink by 26 per cent.
“Vendors, the supply chain, and the channel have now had time to find their feet and allocate resources towards supplying notebooks, which continue to see massive demand from both businesses and consumers,” Ishan Dutt, Canalys Analyst, said in a statement.
“After prioritizing high-value markets and large customers in Q2, vendors have now been able to turn their attention to supplying a wider range of countries as well as SMBs that faced difficulty securing devices earlier this year.”
Also Read: Microsoft and Telstra partner to harness next-gen Cloud, IoT
Lenovo regained top spot in the PC market in Q3 with growth of 11.4 per cent and shipments surpassed the 19 million mark, helping it capture 24.3 per cent market share.
HP posted a similarly impressive growth of 11.9 per cent to secure second place with 18.7 million units shipped, capturing 23.6 per cent market share.
Dell, in third, suffered a small decline of 0.5 per cent in shipments from a year ago as its market share reached 15.1 per cent.
Apple and Acer rounded out the top five rankings, posting stellar growth of 13.2 per cent and 15 per cent respectively.
Apple’s market share stands at 8.1 per cent and Acer’s at 7.1 per cent in Q3, according to the report.
Also Read: Airtel picks stake in cloud analytics startup Waybeo
“Governments, which have realised the importance of PC access in maintaining economic activity during this time, have intervened with financial support or even full-scale device deployments,” Dutt said.
“This has been especially critical in the education space, with school terms commencing in Q3 without the possibility of on-premises learning in many markets. For example, the UK government made 100,000 notebooks available to ensure students, unable to return to classrooms, face minimum disruption in their ability to receive an education.”
IT expenditure, including investment in PCs, is expected to be a core driver of economic recoveries in the aftermath of the pandemic, according to Canalys.
Read More: ‘Accenture Cloud First’ gets $3 Billion Investment
Trudeau also announced an additional 100 million Canadian dollars (about $76 million) in federal funding for food banks across Canada to help them meet the surge in demand…Reports Asian Lite News
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday urged Canadians to stem the spread of the Covid-19 as “the country is at a tipping point of the pandemic”.
“We’re at a tipping point in this pandemic. Not only is the second wave underway, yesterday we hit the highest daily recorded cases, well above what we saw this spring,” he said at a press conference, Xinhua news agency reported.
“I know this is discouraging, especially going into Thanksgiving weekend. But remember this when things were at their bleakest during the first wave, Canadians pulled together and flattened the curve.”
Trudeau also announced an additional 100 million Canadian dollars (about $76 million) in federal funding for food banks across Canada to help them meet the surge in demand for their services caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to a new Covid-19 modeling report issued by the Canadian government on Friday. The total of Canadian Covid-19 is on track to hit between 188,150 and 197,830 cases, and between 9,690 and 9,800 deaths as of October 17.
As of Friday noon, there were a total of 177,613 Covid-19 cases and 9,583 deaths, according to CTV.
The report said that a stronger response is needed now to check the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic as rates of infection are already accelerating rapidly in four populous provinces of Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia.
Ontario reported 939 new cases Friday morning, smashing the previous record of 797 cases set on Thursday, while Quebec confirmed 1,102 new infections.
Also read:Canada suspends arms exports to Turkey
Guterres said he is delighted by the decision of the Nobel Committee to award this year’s Prize for Peace to the WFP…Reports Asian Lite News
UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ has hailed the World Food Programme’s Nobel Peace Prize Award, calling its Humanitarian-Driven Work ‘Above the Realm of Politics’ In a statement on the awarding of the 2020 Nobel Prize for Peace to the World Food Programme, he said he is delighted by the decision of the Nobel Committee to award this year’s Prize for Peace to the WFP.
“The World Food Programme is the world’s first responder on the front lines of food insecurity. In a world of plenty, it is unconscionable that hundreds of millions go to bed each night hungry. Millions more are now on the precipice of famine due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The women and men of the WFP brave danger and distance to deliver life-saving sustenance to those devastated by conflict, to people suffering because of disaster, and to children and families uncertain about their next meal.”
“I warmly congratulate David Beasley, WFP Executive Director, and the entire staff of the World Food Programme for advancing the values of the United Nations every day and serving the cause of “we the peoples” as the Organization marks its seventy-fifth anniversary year”.He added”
Also read:Afghan govt accused of misuse of Covid-19 funds
Also read:UAE, Malaysian FM’s discuss advancing co-operation
Budget airline SpiceJet on Saturday operated its maiden charter flight to Georgia flying 176 students from Chennai to Tbilisi.
Accordingly, the airline will operate another charter flight to Georgia from Kochi on Sunday for 174 Indian students.
The airline has played a key role in repatriating more than 1.6 lakh stranded Indian and foreign nationals to and from countries such as UK, Italy, Canada, Philippines, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Netherlands, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Lebanon, Bangladesh, Maldives, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Sri Lanka.
“We will continue our efforts in helping more Indians and foreign nationals in the days to come,” said Debashis Saha, Vice President, Regulatory and Government Affairs, SpiceJet.
The airline has also operated more than 8,200 cargo flights and transported over 60,000 tonnes of cargo – carrying medicines and medical equipment and fruits and vegetables to all corners of India and the world since March 25, 2020.
Also Read: SpiceJet operates first flight to Canada
Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, and Malaysian Foreign Minister Dato’ Seri Hishammuddin Hussein reviewed the prospects of advancing cooperation between the two friendly countries.
This came in a phone call on Thursday, wherein the two top diplomats agreed to meet shortly and to form joint working teams to drive cooperation in the fields of economy, investment, trade, food security and education.
The two sides discussed an array of issues of interest, in addition to the global fight against the COVID-19 in light of the co-operation between the two nations to transfer knowledge and exchange expertise in order to apply state-of-the-art techniques conducive to developing a vaccine to the disease.
The two ministers underscored the importance of accelerating cooperation between friendly and fraternal nations and enhance international cooperation and global synergy to contain the impact of this pandemic on various fronts, notably in the health and economic fields.
Sheikh Abdullah likewise emphasised on the privileged strategic and historical relations between the two nations and their leadership’s determination to grow cooperation across various domains.
He highlighted the distinguished relations between the UAE and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the importance of further driving joint action to establish sustainable partnerships between the two sides.
Also read:UAE chairs Arab Governors’ meeting within IMF, WBG