Beijing, Jun 15: China is locking now ten more neighbourhoods in Beijing to try and contain the spread of a new coronavirus outbreak linked to a food market, authorities announced Monday.
City official Li Junjie said at a press conference that fresh cases had been found in a second wholesale market in northwestern Haidian district, and as a result, the market and nearby schools would be closed, and people living in ten communities around it placed under lockdown.
London, Apr 22: The UK government on Tuesday announced a 20 million pounds funding for a University of Oxford project working on developing a vaccine against the novel coronavirus, which is now ready for acceleration as it begins human trials from Thursday.
UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the daily Downing Street briefing that the Department for Health was “throwing everything” at trying to find a vaccine because it is a critical aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic fight and lifting the strict lockdown measures in place to curb its spread.
Another 22.5 million pounds is being made available to Imperial College London to support its phase-two clinical trials for them to begin the work on a very large phase three trial.
"Normally it would take years to get to this point," said Hancock.
"The UK is at the forefront of the global effort – we've put in more money than any other into the global search for a vaccine. Nothing about this is inevitable. Vaccine production is a matter of trial and error. But the UK will throw everything it has at trying to find one,” he said.
The announcement came as Britain had another major daily leap in the hospital death toll from coronavirus, up by 823 to hit 17,337 on Tuesday.
But the Cabinet minister said the government's plan to control the rapid spread of the virus and prevent the state-funded National Health Service (NHS) from being overwhelmed is working as the number of hospitalisations with COVID-19 was showing a downward trajectory.
In reference to a major issue in the last few weeks of a critical shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) for doctors and nurses on the frontlines of COVID-19 treatment, the minister said the supply problems are being addressed by actively engaging with thousands of companies, including 159 UK manufacturers.
“We are determined to get people the PPE they need. This is a 24/7 operation, one of the biggest cross-government operation I have ever seen," said Hancock.
Washington, Mar 1: The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has proposed a fine of over $200 million for all major US mobile carriers for selling the location data of customers to some agencies.
The Federal Communications Commission today proposed fines against the nation's four largest wireless carriers for apparently selling access to their customers' location information without taking reasonable measures to protect against unauthorised access to that information. As a result, T-Mobile faces a proposed fine of more than $91 million, AT&T faces a proposed fine of more than $57 million, Verizon faces a proposed fine of more than $48 million, and Sprint faces a proposed fine of more than $12 million, the FCC said in a statement on Friday.
The Enforcement Bureau of FCC opened this investigation after reports surfaced that a Missouri Sheriff, Cory Hutcheson, used a "location-finding service" operated by Securus, a provider of communications services to correctional facilities, to access the location information of the wireless carriers' customers without their consent between 2014 and 2017.
"American consumers take their wireless phones with them wherever they go. And information about a wireless customer's location is highly personal and sensitive. The FCC has long had clear rules on the books requiring all phone companies to protect their customers' personal information. And since 2007, these companies have been on notice that they must take reasonable precautions to safeguard this data and that the FCC will take strong enforcement action if they don't. Today, we do just that," said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.
"This FCC will not tolerate phone companies putting Americans' privacy at risk."
The FCC also admonished these carriers for apparently disclosing their customers' location information, without their authorisation, to a third party
The four major US carriers mentioned sold access to their customers' location information to "aggregators," who then resold access to such information to third-party location-based service providers (like Securus).
Although their exact practices varied, each carrier relied heavily on contract-based assurances that the location-based services providers (acting on the carriers' behalf) would obtain consent from the wireless carrier's customer before accessing that customer's location information.
New Delhi, Feb 21: Global terror financing watchdog FATF on Friday decided continuation of Pakistan in the "Grey List" and warned the country that stern action will be taken if it fails to check flow of money to terror groups like the LeT and the JeM, sources said.
The decision has been taken at the Financial Action Task Force's plenary in Paris.
The FATF decided to continue Pakistani in the "Grey List". The FATF also warned Pakistan that if it doesn't complete a full action plan by June, it could lead to consequences on its businesses, a source said.
Comments
Add new comment