Coronavirus deaths in the US has surpassed the 250,000 mark, a new grim milestone amid an unabated resurgence in the worst-hit country in the world, according to the Johns Hopkins University.
In its latest update on Thursday, the University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the country’s overall death toll and caseload stood at 250,483 and 11,525,149, respectively.
New York state reported the highest number of fatalities at 34,173, followed by Texas in the second place with 20,147 deaths, Xinhua news agency reported.
The states of California, Florida and New Jersey have registered more than 16,000 deaths, the tally showed.
States with more than 9,000 fatalities also include Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Georgia.
The US has the world’s highest caseload and death toll, accounting for more than 18 per cent of the global deaths.
The country reached the grim milestone of 200,000 coronavirus deaths on September 22 and the number climbed to a quarter of a million in nearly two months.
US daily fatalities caused by Covid-19 hit 1,707 on Tuesday, the highest single-day spike since the country reported 1,774 daily deaths on May 14, the CSSE chart showed.
Meanwhile, an updated model forecast by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington has revealed that a total of 438,941 Americans might die of the virus by March 1, 2021, based on current projection scenario.
Since the start of the fall semester, the US has seen an upward trend in new cases on campus.
Experts have warned students returning from college and those who travel for family gatherings during Thanksgiving holiday may lead to a new wave of coronavirus infections.
The visit follows agreements in the declaration to support peace and the Declaration of Abraham Principles between Bahrain and Israel signed in Washington on September 15…reports Asian Lite Newsdesk
The Kingdom of Bahrain has sent its first official government delegation to Israel on Wednesday as the two countries look to broaden cooperation that Washington has promoted as an anti-Iran alliance, the media reported.
Bahrain’s foreign minister, Abdullatif Al-Zayani headed the delegation aboard Gulf Air flight GF972 – a reference to Israel’s telephone country code – on the airline’s first commercial flight to Tel Aviv, the Arab News reported.
According to the report, Al-Zayani was due to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Jerusalem.
The US government under President Donald Trump has been brokering agreements with Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Sudan toward normalizing their relations with Israel.
Time has come to depart from the conflicts and instability that afflicted the Middle East for decades and pursue other policies to reach a comprehensive solution that achieves prosperity and development for all, Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani has said.
Al Zayani made the statement as an official Bahraini delegation arrived in Tel Aviv on the first visit of its kind to Israel.
The delegation, headed by Al Zayani, was welcomed by Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, ministers and officials.
“This visit is a courageous step taken by the Kingdom of Bahrain in line with the vision of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa to achieve security, stability and prosperity, with the Kingdom playing its pioneering role to achieve peace in the region and in the world,” Al Zayani said in a statement.
“The Kingdom of Bahrain, with this historic visit to the State of Israel, confirms its policy of commitment to peace as a strategic option through which frameworks for initiatives to promote international cooperation, stability, peace and prosperity in the Middle East region are launched.”
This visit is a strategic start to enhance cooperation between Bahrain and Israel in a way that achieves their shared interests, particularly that it will contribute to launching many cooperation initiatives in various fields and will mark a starting point for other anticipated visits, he added.
“Over the past decades, the Middle East has witnessed conflicts and instability and time has come for us to pursue other policies to reach a comprehensive solution that achieves prosperity and development for all,” Al Zayani said.
The visit follows agreements in the declaration to support peace and the Declaration of Abraham Principles between Bahrain and Israel signed in Washington on September 15.
Bahrain King in UAE
Meanwhile, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain, arrived in the UAE on Tuesday. He is accompanied by H.H. Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the King’s Representative for Humanitarian Works and Youth Affairs.
Upon his arrival at the Presidential Flight Terminal in Abu Dhabi, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa was received by His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces.
Present were H.H. Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Chairman of Abu Dhabi Executive Council, H.H. Sheikh Nahyan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Charitable and Humanitarian Foundation, H.H. Lt. General Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, H.H. Sheikh Theyab bin Zayed Al Nahyan, H.H. Sheikh Khalid bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Chairman of the Board of Zayed Higher Organisation for People of Determination, ZHO, and Sheikh Sultan bin Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE Ambassador to Bahrain.
They welcomed King Hamad and expressed sincere condolences to him on the death of Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa.
Sheikh Mohamed and King Hamad joined on Wednesday by King Abdulla II Ibn Al Hussein of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, for a tripartite summit in Abu Dhabi.
File photo of Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (Xinhua/Ahmed Gomaa/IANS)
The G20 brings together some of the largest economies, which account for about 85 per cent of the global GDP, to discuss the most challenging socioeconomic global issues. Saudi Arabia, the only Arab member of the group, assumed the presidency of the G20 in December 2019…reports Asian Lite News
Fahad Almubarak, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of State and sherpa of Saudi G20, has said that the kingdom is able to execute the full agenda as the G20 presidency amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We are honoured to hold the G20 presidency for this year. We had a very busy year and held over 100 meetings of deputies and ministers,” Almubarak told a media briefing in the capital Riyadh, ahead of the G20 Leaders’ Summit, which will be held virtually on November 21 and 22 and chaired by Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
The G20 brings together some of the largest economies, which account for about 85 per cent of the global GDP, to discuss the most challenging socioeconomic global issues. Saudi Arabia, the only Arab member of the group, assumed the presidency of the G20 in December 2019.
With exceptional challenges posed by the global Covid-19 pandemic this year, the Saudi G20 presidency hosted a historic Extraordinary Virtual Leaders’ Summit on Covid-19 on March 26, followed by a series of ministerial meetings to tackle the Covid-19 crisis and mitigate its impacts, Xinhua reported.
This extraordinary Summit resulted in swift and unprecedented actions to protect lives, livelihoods and the most vulnerable, including an injection of a total of 11 trillion US dollars into the global economy, according to a G20 statement released on Monday.
The statement also highlighted the 21 billion dollars spent at the outset of the crisis in supporting the health systems and the hunt for a vaccine, and the 14 billion dollars in debt relief for the world’s most vulnerable nations in a move to ensure their ability to focus all resources available on fighting the pandemic.
The upcoming G20 Leaders’ Summit will set the foundations for a more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable recovery from the Covid-19 crisis, the G20 statement noted.
“2020 is an exceptional year. Covid-19 has taken the world off guard, and the whole world’s economy went into a real pause,” said Majid Al Qasabi, Saudi minister of commerce and acting minister of media, at the media briefing.
Under the theme of “Realizing Opportunities of the 21st Century for All,” this year’s G20 Leaders’ Summit seeks to “deepen global cooperation,” a separate G20 statement said.
According to the statement, the upcoming Summit will focus on three major topics: Empowering people by creating the conditions in which all, especially women and youth, can live, work and thrive; Safeguarding the planet by fostering collective efforts to protect natural resources; Shaping new frontiers by adopting long-term and bold strategies to share the benefits of innovation and technological advancement. “But there is much more to do,” the statement noted.
Bahrain delegation arrives in Tel Aviv as Kingdom affirms commitment to peace as strategic option (Photo - BNA)
Bahrain Delegation Arrives in Israel; Saudi confident in executing full G20 agenda; Obama Recalls Killing Osama; Easy Flow of Chinese Weapons to Myanmar, India Poses Threat – all in Asian Lite Daily – please click here to read the edition.
A ‘mother of bull run’ is being predicted for the Indian stock markets, which will start early next year and last till 2024-25.
Phillip Capital said in a report that one can expect the mother of bull run to start tentatively by early 2021 (H1CY21).
A similar trend was seen in 2009 when the Nifty50 index traded in an uptrend after making a low at 2,539 levels. “Although the rally was not one-sided with index forming its own peaks and troughs, the general trend continued to be bullish,” the report said.
Phillip Capital said the Covid candle (of March quarter) was re-traced in three candles. This indicated the strength of the bulls in the market and the bullish trend that is expected to continue. The mid-caps and small-caps have also started to outperform the large-caps, which is a strong pre-requisite for any bull run.
The broader markets have outperformed the benchmarks in terms of returns.
Philip Capital said that the mother of bull run will start with Nifty50 levels at 13,200-13,500. Tentatively, this could take place early CY21 and will last till 2024-25. “One can keep a conservative scenario at 17,000-17,500 Nifty levels, and the best-case scenario at 22,000-24,000,” the report said.
Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech released a second batch of interim results on Wednesday, saying their two-dose coronavirus vaccine candidate is 95 per cent effective and also protects the most vulnerable people in older age groups from the risk of falling prey to the virus.
The company said that no serious side effects have shown up. The most common complaint was fatigue after the second vaccine dose, affecting about 4 per cent of the participants who got the shot.
Pfizer and BioNTech plan to apply “within days” to US regulators for emergency use approval.
The Pfizer news comes at a critical time in the global race for a cure for the virus, especially in the US which has the world’s highest coronavirus caseload and is facing a nightmarish winter surge across 50 states. More than 11 million Americans have contracted the virus while over 248,000 have died from it.
The Pfizer vaccine comes loaded with one tricky logistical challenge: It needs to be stored at extreme sub-zero temperatures. Moderna – the other US pharma giant which has released 94.5 per cent efficacy results – says its vaccine remains stable at home refrigerator temperatures for 30 days.
Pfizer and BioNTech expect to produce a total of 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021. US regulators hope to have 20 million vaccine doses each from Moderna and Pfizer available for distribution in late December. The first wave of vaccination will be for those in the most vulnerable groups. Non-high risk populations will have to wait until Spring or more likely the Summer of 2021 to get a shot.
“Primary efficacy analysis demonstrates BNT162b2 to be 95 pert cent effective against Covid-19 beginning 28 days after the first dose; 170 confirmed cases of Covid-19 were evaluated, with 162 observed in the placebo group versus 8 in the vaccine group,” Pfizer said on Wednesday.
The latest announcement comes a little over a week after Pfizer’s first bombshell announcement on November 9 that its vaccine is 90 per cent effective. In the first round, Pfizer based its results on a total of 94 infections.
Pfizer-BioNTech use the ‘mRNA’ technology which means the vaccine is not embedded with the virus itself and there is therefore no risk of catching Covid-19 from the shot itself. The vaccine is infused with a piece of genetic code that trains our immune system to recognise the spike in protein on the surface of the virus – a lethal signature of the coronavirus.
The Pfizer study has enrolled nearly 44,000 people for its study and will continue to collect data for two more years.
A. Sakthivel, Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) Chairman
Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) Chairman A. Sakthivel, has urged the government to strike a pre-FTA preferential trade deal to remove the tariff disadvantage faced by Indian apparels in the UK.
In a letter to Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, the APEC Chairman wrote: “It has been learnt that after the implementation of Brexit in January 2021, 47 Least Developed Countries (LDCs), including Bangladesh will continue to enjoy preferential trade benefits after the UK’s departure from the EU. This will be a continuation of the disadvantage to Indian apparels in the important and potential market of the UK.”
Noting that India has been losing out to its competitors in the UK, the industry body has requested the government to initiate discussions for an early trade pact for apparels in the run-up to FTA.
The AEPC had earlier requested to fast-track the negotiations to enter into a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the UK to boost apparel exports.
The Chairman said that the apparel exports to the UK, which is India’s third largest export destination after the US and the UAE, have been facing a tariff disadvantage of 9.6 per cent as against countries like Bangladesh due to the EU’s Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP), which the UK plans to continue offering to the 47 LDCs.
“It’s not a matter of LDCs. The point is that Bangladesh is equally competitive now and their exports have grown at 11.7 per cent CAGR during 2009-18, when our exports stagnated at 0.5 per cent,” he said.
Sakthivel added that Bangladesh exported apparels worth $40.4 billion whereas India exported apparels worth $16.5 billion in 2019.
“It’s a labour intensive sector and we need to ask for a special consideration in our bilateral relations with the UK.”
According to the exporters’ body, India’s readymade garments exports to the UK fell 0.8 per cent to $1,606 million in 2019 from $1,619 million in 2018, reducing the UK’s share in India’s exports to 9.7 per cent from 10.3 per cent.
Taiwan-based fabless semiconductor company MediaTek has acquired Intel Enpirion power management chip product line-related assets, via its subsidiary Richtek, for approximately $85 million.
With this acquisition, MediaTek is now aiming to expand its product line to offer integrated power solutions used in FPGA, SoC, CPU, and ASIC for the enterprise-level system applications, reports GizmoChina.
Intel Enpirion power System-on-Chip (PowerSoC) modules integrate nearly all the components needed to build a power supply without sacrificing performance or efficiency.
These robust, easy-to-use products meet your most challenging power requirements for FPGAs, ASICs, processors and other semiconductors — all in a small footprint.
According to GizmoChina, MediaTek pointed out that after the completion of the merger, it will expand the company’s product line.
“Its target will be enterprise-level system applications to help expand the scale of operations”.
This deal is unlikely to have a huge impact on the smartphone market but would boost Mediatek’s positions and hopefully competitiveness.
MediaTek has been actively developing its server ASIC business and has also reportedly obtained orders from Google to integrate the Intel Enpirion product line.
As demand grows for takeaway food in the social distancing times amid surge in Covid cases, Zomato on Wednesday said its takeaway service is now available to restaurants at zero commission.
The food delivery platform said that for restaurants to be able to tap into this growing demand, it is making takeaway service available for free to its restaurant partners.
“We will not be charging any commission, and will also forego the payment gateway charges we incur on all takeaway orders,” Zomato said in a statement.
“Takeaway on our app has witnessed tremendous growth with the order volume increasing by more than 200 per cent in the last few months,” it added.
According to Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal, more than 55,000 restaurants are already live for takeaway and “we are serving tens of thousands of such orders weekly”
“To help the restaurant sector, we will also forego the payment gateway charges incurred on all such orders,” he said in a tweet.
Zomato said it is at 110 per cent of pre-Covid gross merchandise value (GMV) run rate in the food delivery business.
“We have delivered over 13 crore orders since the first lockdown started in March, and there have been zero reported cases of covid transmission through food or its packaging,” the company claimed.
There are still millions of customers who haven’t yet ordered since the beginning of the lockdown.
For restaurants that already serve delivery orders, takeaway provides another avenue to access more customers, and further grow their business
“Customers can search for all restaurants offering takeaway using relevant filters on our home page. We continue to work with our restaurant partners so that they follow all safety measures and encourage our customers to wear masks and practice social distancing when they pick up their orders,” Zomato said.
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