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.
Washington, Jul 21: Democrat Joe Biden urged Muslim Americans on Monday to join him in the fight to defeat President Donald Trump as he addressed an online summit hosted by the advocacy organisation Emgage Action to mobilise Muslim voters ahead of the presidential election.
I want to earn your vote not just because he's not worthy of being president, the presumptive presidential nominee told participants.
I want to work in partnership with you, make sure your voices are included in the decision-making process as we work to rebuild our nation.
Biden also reiterated a pledge to overturn a Trump administration ban on travelers from several predominantly Muslim countries, calling it vile.
Wa'el Alzayat, CEO of Emgage Action, said by email that the organisation was seeking to maximise Muslim American turnout in key battleground states.
In Michigan alone one of the states where the organisation has chapters and where Trump won in 2016 by fewer than 11,000 votes he said he believed there are more than 150,000 registered Muslim voters.
Several prominent Muslim American elected officials endorsed Biden for president in a letter organised by Emgage Action ahead of the summit.
Among those who signed the letter are Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Indiana Rep. Andre Carson, all Democrats.
Omar, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, served as a high-profile surrogate for Bernie Sanders before he exited the presidential race in April making her support for Biden potentially helpful as the former vice president seeks to mobilise Muslim voters this fall.
Muslim American voices matter to our communities, to our country, Biden said.
But we all know that your voice hasn't always gotten recognised or represented.
Emgage Action has titled the event Million Muslim Votes, underscoring its emphasis on boosting Muslim turnout in November.
Joe Biden's presence serves not only to galvanise Muslim Americans to cast their ballots, but to usher in an era of engaging with Muslim American communities under a Biden administration, Alzayat said by email before the summit.
The pro-Biden letter from Muslim American elected officials decried a number of Trump's domestic and international policies, including his administration's travel ban and his pullout from the Iran nuclear deal.
A Biden administration will move the nation forward on many of the issues we care about, the letter said, citing racial justice, affordable health care, climate change and immigration.
The Muslim American officials also praised Biden's agenda for their communities.
Among other goals, Biden has vowed to rescind the travel ban affecting Muslims on Day One if he's elected.
In his address, he pledged to include Muslim American voices in his administration, if elected, and to speak out against human rights abuses against Muslim minorities around the world.
I'll continue to champion the rights of Palestinians and Israelis to have a state of their own as I have for decades, each of them a state of their own, he said.
Other state- and local-level Muslim American officials signing onto the pro-Biden letter hail from several states, including Michigan.
Toronto, Apr 25: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday (local time) announced a new CAD 1.1 billion package supporting vaccine research and clinical trials as well as expanded testing capacity.
"We are putting in place an additional CAD 1.1 billion dollars for a national medical and research strategy to address COVID-19," Trudeau said during his daily novel coronavirus pandemic briefing on Thursday.
"This plan has three pillars -- research on vaccines and other treatments, support for clinical trials and expanding national testing and modelling," he added.
Trudeau pointed out that CAD 82 million of the total sum will be directed to the development of a vaccine and treatments against the virus, while CAD 471 million will go towards supporting clinical trials.
A further CAD 249 million is being allocated for expanding testing capacity and modelling, the Prime Minister added.
According to Trudeau, this funding will be allotted to a new "immunity task force" commissioned with conducting serology testing -- blood tests looking for the presence of antibodies indicative of exposure to the virus and subsequent immune response.
He said the taskforce, comprising the country's top medical experts, including Chief Public Health Officer Dr Theresa Tam, will test at least a million Canadians over the next two years.
The funding announced today comes in addition to the CAD 200 million committed for COVID-19-related research on March 11.
Trudeau has repeatedly stressed the daily constraints that much of the population is adhering to will be the new normal until a vaccine is developed.
As of Thursday, Canada has confirmed a total of 40,824 COVID-19 cases since the onset of the outbreak, out of which more than 2,000 have proven to be fatal, according to the latest figures from the country's public health agency.
Chengdu, China, Jul 27: The American flag was lowered at the United States consulate in Chengdu on Monday, days after Beijing ordered it to close in retaliation for the shuttering of the Chinese consulate in Houston.
Footage on state broadcaster CCTV from outside the consulate showed the flag being slowly lowered early Monday morning, after diplomatic tensions soared between the two powers with both alleging the other had endangered national security.
Relations deteriorated in recent weeks in a Cold War-style standoff, with the Chengdu mission Friday ordered to shut in retaliation for the forced closure of Beijing's consulate in Houston, Texas.
The deadline for the Americans to exit Chengdu has been unclear, but the Chinese consulate in Houston was given 72 hours to close after the original order was made.
On Saturday news agency reporters saw workers removing the US insignia from the front of the consulate.
Over the weekend, removals trucks entered the US consulate and cleaners were seen carting large black rubbish bags from the building.
Beijing says closing the Chengdu consulate was a "legitimate and necessary response to the unreasonable measures by the United States", and has alleged that staff at the diplomatic mission endangered China's security and interests.
Washington officials, meanwhile, said there had been unacceptable efforts by the Chinese consulate in Houston to steal US corporate secrets.
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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