Clinton 'absolutely ready' to be commander-in-chief: Michelle

October 28, 2016

Washington, Oct 28: Hillary Clinton is "absolutely ready" to be the US' commander-in-chief on day one as the Democratic presidential nominee and former secretary of state has more experience and exposure than any candidate "in our lifetime", First Lady Michelle Obama has said.

MichelleDuring a rare joint appearance with Clinton at a North Carolinaelection rally on Thursday, Michelle contrasted Clinton's vision of a "powerful, vibrant and strong" nation with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's vision of "hopelessness and despair".

"I am out here first and foremost because we have never had a more qualified and prepared candidate for president than our friend Hillary Clinton. Never before in our lifetime. I say this everywhere I go," she said.

"I admire and respect Hillary. She has been a lawyer, a law professor, First Lady of Arkansas, First Lady of the US, a US Senator, secretary of state. She has more experience and exposure to the presidency than any candidate in our lifetime. Yes, more than Barack (Obama). More than Bill (Clinton). So she is absolutely ready to be commander-in-chief on day one. And yes, she happens to be a woman," Michelle said yesterday.

In the past few weeks, Michelle, 52, has emerged as a strong advocate of Clinton, 69, and has made several impressive speeches in some of the key battle ground states.

"It takes a level of generosity of spirit to do what Hillary has done in her career, in her life, for our family, for this nation. If people wonder, yes, Hillary Clinton is my friend. She has been a friend to mine and Barack, Malia, Sasha and Bill and Chelsea have been embracing and supportive from the very day my husband took the oath of office," she said.

The First Lady called this election unprecedented.

"I do not think we have ever had two candidates with such dramatically different visions of who we are and how we move forward as a nation.

"One candidate has a vision that is grounded in hopelessness and despair, a vision of a country that is weak and divided, where our communities are in chaos, our fellow citizens a threat. This candidate calls on us to turn against each other, to build walls, to be afraid," Michelle said without mentioning Trump, 70.

"And then there is Hillary's vision for this country that you just heard, a vision of a nation that is powerful and vibrant and strong, big enough to have a place for all of us, a nation where we each have something very special to contribute and where we are always stronger together.

"That is the choice we face between those who divide this country into us versus them and those who tell us to embrace our better angels and choose hope over fear," she said.

Michelle said this year's election is not about Republicans versus Democrats, but about something much bigger.

"We know the influence our president has on our children, how they turn on the TV and they see the most powerful role model in the world, someone who shows them how to treat others, how to deal with disappointment, whether to tell the truth," Michelle added.

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Agencies
August 5,2020

Ninety per cent of a sample group of coronavirus-recovered patients from a prominent hospital in China's Wuhan city where the pandemic broke out have reported lung damage and five per cent of them are again in quarantine after testing positive for the virus, according to a media report on Wednesday.

A team at the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University led by Peng Zhiyong, director of the hospital's Intensive Care Unit, has been conducting follow-up visits with '100 recovered patients' since April.

The first phase of this one-year programme finished in July. The average age of the patients in the study is 59.

According to the first phase results, 90 per cent of the patients' lungs are still in a damaged state, which means their lungs ventilation and gas exchange functions have not recovered to the level of healthy people, state-run Global Times reported.

Peng's team conducted a six-minute walking test with the patients. They found that the recovered patients could only walk 400 metres in six minutes while their healthy peers could walk 500 metres in the same period.

Some recovered patients have to rely on oxygen machines even three months after being discharged from the hospital, Liang Tengxiao, a doctor from the Dongzhimen Hospital, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, was quoted as saying by the report.

Liang's team is also conducting follow-up visits with recovered patients aged above 65.

The results also showed that antibodies against the novel coronavirus in 10 per cent of the 100 patients have disappeared.

Five per cent of them received negative results in Covid-19 nucleic acid tests but positive results in Immunoglobulin M (IgM) tests, and thus have to be quarantined again, the report said.

IgM is usually the first antibody produced by the immune system when a virus attacks. A positive result in an IgM test usually means that a person has just been infected by the virus.

It is still unclear if this means these people have been infected again.

The 100 patients' immune systems have not fully recovered as they showed a low level of B cells -- - a primary force for killing viruses in the human body -- but a high level of T cells which only recognise viral antigens outside infected cells.

"The results revealed that the patients’ immune systems are still recovering," Peng said.

The patients also suffered from depression and a sense of stigma. Most of the recovered patients told the team that their families were not willing to have dinner with them at the same table, the report said.

Less than half of the recovered patients have returned to work, it said.

The findings are significant as the coronavirus first emerged in Wuhan city.

Hubei province for which Wuhan is the provincial capital has reported a total of 68,138 confirmed Covid-19 cases till now. The disease has claimed 4,512 lives in the province, according to the official data.

China reported 27 new confirmed Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, including 22 locally-transmitted cases, the National Health Commission (NHC) said on Wednesday.

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Agencies
May 19,2020

Moscow, May 19: Russia confirmed 9,263 new coronavirus infections Tuesday, bringing the country’s official number of cases to 299,941.

On Sunday, the head of Russia's public health watchdog, Anna Popova, said the growth of new coronavirus cases in Russia is stabilizing.

Russia is the second most-affected country in terms of infections.

A record 115 people have died over the past 24 hours, bringing the total toll to 2,837 — a rate considerably lower than in many other countries hit hard by the pandemic.

Russia began easing nation-wide lockdown restrictions last week and announced the national football league would restart in late June.

Critics have cast doubt on Russia's low official mortality rate, accusing authorities of under-reporting in order to play down the scale of the crisis.

Russian health officials say one of the reasons the count is lower is that only deaths directly caused by the virus are being included.

Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova over the weekend denied manipulation of numbers, saying hospitals had a financial interest in identifying infections because they are allocated more money to treat coronavirus patients.

Authorities also say that since the virus came later to Russia, there was more time to prepare hospital beds and launch wide-scale testing to slow the spread.

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Agencies
January 11,2020

New York, Jan 11: The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Friday renewed a six-year-long cross-border humanitarian aid deliveries mechanism into Syria.

According to Sputnik, the Security Council voted in favour of a resolution on Friday that allows cross border deliveries to be conducted via Turkey, preserving two checkpoints and excluding the Al-Yarubiyah border crossing with Iraq and the Al-Ramtha crossing with Jordan, until July 10, 2020.

Russia proposed to amend the adopted resolution by replacing a part of the draft which stipulates that humanitarian assistance into Syria should be delivered based on the principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence by the phrase that such aid should be provided "in accordance with the guiding principles of humanitarian emergency assistance, as contained in UNGA resolution 46/182."

The agreement was reached after Belgium and Germany decided to amend the original version of their joint resolution, which proposed keeping three points for cross-border deliveries into the Arab republic.

In December last year, the United Nations had said that over 235,000 people fled the Idlib region in the last two weeks after Russia and Syria launched airstrikes in a bid to take over the last major opposition bastion.

Russia backed Syria government launched a fresh assault to capture the province.

Syrian Bashar al-Assad regime, backed by Iran, has reportedly promised to take back the rebel-controlled area and broke a ceasefire that was announced in August.

They have since December 19 seized dozens of towns and villages from armed fighters amid clashes that have killed hundreds on both sides.

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