Beirut, Dec 21: A "soldier" of the Islamic State group carried out a truck attack that killed 12 people at a Berlin Christmas market, a news agency linked to the jihadists said today.
"A soldier of the Islamic State carried out the Berlin operation in response to appeals to target citizens of coalition countries," the IS-linked Amaq news agency said in a statement posted online.
The President of United States Donald Trump has said that countries like India and China would have much more coronavirus cases than America if they conduct more tests.
“I say to my people every time we test; you find cases because we do more testing. If we have more cases, if we wanted to do testing in China or in India or other places, I promise you there would be more cases you are doing a fantastic job in getting out the swabs,” the US president said on Friday.
Trump said that the US has carried out 20 million tests while compared to America, Germany is at four million and much talked about South Korea is about three million tests. He made the remarks at Puritan Medical Products in Maine, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
The US has reported nearly 1.9 million cases and over 1,09,000 deaths while the total number of coronavirus cases in India and China stand at 2,36,184 and 84,177 respectively, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center data.
India has so far conducted over 4 million COVID-19 tests, according to the health ministry.
Trump said, “we will be well over 20 million tests. Remember this, when you test more, you have more cases.”
“Puritan is one of the only manufacturers in the world producing high-quality medical swabs that are crucial for rapid testing. And every swab you make at Puritan is proudly stamped with the beautiful phrase made in the USA,” Trump said.
“Thanks to the testing capacity that you are making possible, our country is reopening and our economy is recovering like nobody would’ve thought possible,” he added.
Trump also spoke about the huge unemployment problem the country is currently facing. He said that the economy is now back on track, referring to the latest monthly employment numbers,.
“We absolutely shattered expectations, and this is the largest monthly jobs increase in American history, think of that; that’s a long time,” Trump said
“I think it’s more than double or about double of what our highest was before so this is the largest monthly job increase in American history. And we’re going to have a phenomenal next year. We’re going to have a tremendous couple of months prior to the election on November 3 very, very important date,” the president said.
Keeping an eye on the November 3 presidential elections, Trump is seeking re-election for his second consecutive term. He is pitted against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden who in opinion polls is surging several points of Trump.
“It’s going to be a very important election because the only thing that can screw it up is if you get the wrong president and they raise your taxes, and they open up your borders so that everybody pours into our country,” Trump said.
Trump also vowed to bring the American economy back on track, which has been badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic. He reiterated that his administration has built a strong economy in the last three years.
Describing the fight against coronavirus as the greatest national and industrial mobilisation since the World War II, Trump said that his administration has marshaled the full power of the US government and US industry to defeat the invisible enemy.
“It is indeed an enemy. It came from China, should have been stopped in China. They didn’t do that,” he alleged.
The administration, he said, has delivered over 1.5 billion pieces of personal protective equipment to doctors and nurses on the front lines. We slashed the red tape to speed up the development of vaccines.
“And vaccines are coming along incredibly well, wait till you see, and therapeutics. And we partnered at private sector leaders such as Puritan to build the largest and most advanced testing capacity on the face of the earth, like this one,” the US president said.
The Puritan factory in Maine, he said, quickly ramped up the production to produce nearly 20 million foam-tipped swabs each month.
“Then in April, my administration invoked the Defence Production Act to help you scale up even more. Under a USD 75 million public-private partnership, Puritan will soon double production to 40 million swabs per month,” Trump added.
Colombo, Aug 7: Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's party and its allies won an overwhelming two-thirds majority in a parliament election, results showed on Friday, giving him the power to enact sweeping changes to the constitution.
The governing Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna and its allies had won 150 seats in the 225-member parliament, according to the tally published by the election commission from Wednesday's vote.
Rajapaksa had sought a two-thirds majority in parliament to be able to restore full executive powers to the presidency, which he says are necessary to implement his agenda to make the tiny island economically and militarily secure.
He is likely to install his older brother and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa as the next prime minister. The brothers are best known for crushing the Tamil Tiger rebels fighting for a separate homeland for minority Tamils during the elder Rajapaksa's presidency in 2009.
On a congratulatory phone call from Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, which is keen to check Chinese influence on its southern neighbour, Mahinda Rajapaksa vowed to deepen ties between the two countries.
"With the strong support of the people of Sri Lanka, I look forward to working with you closely to further enhance the long-standing cooperation between our two countries," he told Modi. "Sri Lanka and India are friends and relations."
The tourism-dependent nation of 21 million people has been struggling economically since deadly Islamist militant attacks on hotels and churches last year followed by lockdowns to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Islamabad, Feb 17: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday warned that Pakistan may face another refugee crisis if the international community failed to take notice of the current situation in India.
Speaking at the two-day refugee summit in Islamabad on 40 years of hosting Afghan refugees in Pakistan, he said India’s "ultranationalist ideology going unchecked could lead to destruction and the region could become a flashpoint", The Express Tribune quoted him as saying.
Khan said if the international community does not take notice of this situation, it will create another refugee crisis for Pakistan as Muslims of India will move to Pakistan.
"This is not the India of Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi. The United Nations (UN) must play its role otherwise it will become a very big problem in the future," Duniya News quoted Khan as saying.
He said said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement that India can destroy Pakistan in 11 days is not a responsible statement by a premier of a nuclear state with a huge population, the paper reported.
Khan made the statement in the presence of visiting UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who was also attending the summit.
He said because of the "Hindutva" ideology, Kashmiris have been lockdown for over 200 days. He alleged under the same ideology, the BJP-led government passed two discriminatory nationalistic legislations, targeting 200 million Muslims in India.
Khan was referring to India's Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the revocation of the special status to Jammu and Kashmir.
The new citizenship law passed by the Indian Parliament in December 2019 offers citizenship to non-Muslim persecuted religious minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
The Indian government has maintained that the CAA is an internal matter of the country and stressed that the goal is to protect the oppressed minorities of neighbouring countries.
India revoked Jammu and Kashmir's special status on August 5. Reacting to India's move, Pakistan downgraded diplomatic ties with New Delhi and expelled the Indian High Commissioner.
India has always maintained that Jammu and Kashmir is its integral part and ruled out any third party mediation, including either from the UN or the US, saying it is a bilateral issue with Pakistan.
Comments
Very hard to believe. However, this is highly regretted and condemned in strong words. If some one did it, he might be a fool or mentally disturbed.
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