United Nations, Jun 9: The UN General Assembly will hold an emergency meeting on Gaza next Wednesday at 12:30 am IST following a request by a number of Arab countries, the body's president Miroslav Lajcak announced today in a letter to the 193 member states.
The session will see a vote on a resolution to condemn Israel, similar to one vetoed by the United States in the Security Council last week, according to diplomats.
New Delhi, May 15: Microsoft founder Bill Gates on Friday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the interaction and stressed that combating the coronavirus pandemic requires global collaboration.
"Thank you for the conversation and partnership PM Narendra Modi. Combating the pandemic requires global collaboration. India's role is key as the world works to minimize social and economic impact, and pave the way to vaccine, testing, and treatment access for all," Bill Gates said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday interacted with philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and discussed the global response to Covid-19 and the importance of global coordination on scientific innovation to combat the pandemic.
The Prime Minister underlined the conscious approach that India has adopted in its fight against the health crisis - an approach based on ensuring public engagement through appropriate messaging, a PMO release said.
He explained how this people-centric bottom-up approach has helped win acceptability for physical distancing, respect for frontline workers, wearing of masks, maintaining proper hygiene, and respecting lockdown provisions.
They agreed that given India's willingness and capacity to contribute to global efforts, particularly for benefit of fellow developing countries, it was important for India to be included in the ongoing global discussions for coordinating responses to the pandemic.
The Prime Minister also suggested that the Gates Foundation could take the lead in analyzing the necessary changes in lifestyles, economic organisation, social behaviour, modes of disseminating education and healthcare, that would emerge in the post-Covid world, and the associated technological challenges that would need to be addressed.
He said that India would be happy to contribute to such an analytical exercise based on its own experiences.
Geneva, Jun 22: The global count of coronavirus cases has surpassed 8.7 million, with 183,020 new cases recorded on Sunday, the World Health Organisation said in its daily situation report.
Over the last 24 hours, 4,743 people died from COVID-19 worldwide, taking the death toll to 461,715 fatalities, according to the report.
The cumulative global toll of confirmed cases has now reached 8,708,008, as stated in the report.
The WHO Regional Director for Europe, Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, shared that Europe accounts for 31 per cent of COVID-19 cases and 43 per cent of COVID-19 deaths globally.
Dr Kluge highlighted that several countries continue to face increasing disease incidence and that "preparing for the autumn is a priority now at the WHO Regional Office for Europe"
The United States continues to be worst affected by the contagion with the highest count of cases and fatalities -- 2.2 million and 118,895, respectively.
The novel coronavirus was declared a pandemic by WHO on March 11.
Washington, Jul 17: US President Donald Trump's economic adviser Larry Kudlow has said that TikTok may cut off ties to its Chinese parent and become a 100 per cent American company to circumvent demands to ban it as India has done.
"I think TikTok is going to pull out of the holding company which is China-run and operate as an independent American company," he told reporters at the White House on Thursday.
The US has not made a final decision on whether to ban it - which has been suggested by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, he said.
TikTok being divested by ByteDance Technology Company "is a much better solution than banning or pushing away", said Kudlow, who is the Director of the National Economic Council.
He said that its services will be located in the US and "it will become an hundred per cent American company".
If it becomes a US company without Chinese links, India may have to reconsider the ban on the short video app wildly popular in the country.
India banned TikTok along with 58 other Chinese apps on June 29 citing threats to its defence and national security.
The ban came after a deadly clash between Indian and Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh.
Under Beijing's National Security Law, all Chinese companies have to provide intelligence requested by the government, creating risks for users and their countries.
India was TikTok's biggest market outside of China, where it operates as Douyin.
There were about 200 million users in India and over 300 million downloads.
The US comes next with over 30 million users for the app.
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