India may have underestimated Beijing's resolve: Chinese media

April 5, 2017

Beijing, Apr 5: India is using the Dalai Lama as a diplomatic leverage to challenge China's "bottom line", Chinese state media said today, threatening that New Delhi may have "underestimated" Beijing's determination to protect its core interests.

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The Chinese reaction to the Dalai Lama's visit to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh came in an article in the state-run Global Times, which is part of the ruling Communist Party publications an is known for striking nationalistic postures.

"Beijing has voiced concerns over the issue, but New Delhi claimed that China shouldn't intervene in its 'internal affairs'," the article said, referring to Indian Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju's comments yesterday.

"Thisis absurd," the article said. Rijiju has said India never interfered in Beijing's affairs, has respected the "One China" policy, and thus China should not interfere in India's internal affairs or object to the Dalai Lama's visit. "There is no political angle behind his holiness's visit to Arunachal Pradesh. It is completely religious." Separately, External Affairs Ministry has said that no "artificial controversy" should be created about the visit.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry is yet to react to Rijiju's comments or the External Affairs statement yesterday. However, the state media asked India to "overcome its suspicion" of Beijing. "China doesn't allow India to free ride on its economic growth while jeopardising Beijing's core interests."

It warned, "New Delhi may have underestimated Beijing's determination to safeguard its core interests. Many countries have pledged not to extend invitations to the Dalai Lama. As the two largest emerging economies, China and India have great potential for cooperation."

Today's article also accused India of playing the "Tibet card" as it is dissatisfied with Beijing's stance on India's bid for Nuclear Suppliers Group membership and its attempts to add Masood Azhar, the chief of Pakistan-backed militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), to a UN Security Council blacklist.

"Therefore, Delhi attempts to play the Tibet card against Beijing," it said, adding that "unlike his predecessors, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to have taken a different stance on the Dalai issue, raising public engagements with the monk and challenging Beijing's bottom line," it said.

India and China have had discussions on the two issues, yet the matters are far from being resolved, leading to strain in ties. Also, China is sensitive to the visit of the Dalai Lama, who it calls an "anti-China separatist", to Arunachal's Tawang region which happens to be the birthplace in 1683 of the sixth Dalai Lama and is at the centre of Tibetan Buddhism.

China has in recent days upped its rhetoric on claims to parts of Arunachal Pradesh, which it calls southern Tibet, and even warned India of "serious damage" to ties if New Delhi allowed Tibet's exiled spiritual leader's visit to go ahead.

The article added, "India is also exploring the option of linking the strategic border district of Tawang with a railway network, another provocation against Beijing. India has also invited a 'parliamentary delegation from Taiwan in February'."

Citing other instances like the Dalai Lama's meeting with President Pranab Mukherjee in December, which Beijing sees as a "provocation", it quoted Rijiju as having said to an international news agency in an interview that "it's a behavioural change you are seeing. India is more assertive."

It said that the Dalai Lama is "now openly used by India as a diplomatic tool to win more leverage." Last night, another piece on the newspaper's website said India was using the Dalai Lama's visit to Tawang "to upset" China.

An unnamed Chinese analyst told the newspaper that the 14th Dalai Lama's visit to Tawang will hurt Sino-Indian ties. "The Dalai's visit to the controversial area, especially Tawang, which China hopes will be returned, will affect relations between China and India," the analyst from the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told the paper on the condition of anonymity.

The analyst too pointed out the religious significance of the Tawang to Tibetans, saying it's the birthplace of the sixth Dalai Lama Tsangyang Gyatso. The analyst said this was not the first time India has used the Dalai Lama to express its displeasure to China, especially when bilateral talks fail to include their demands or to "pander to domestic anti-China issues".

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Agencies
March 28,2020

Canadian researchers are developing a DNA vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and has currently infected nearly 5,00,000 people worldwide and crippled the global economy.

Entos Pharmaceuticals, a health-care biotechnology company headed by a University of Alberta researchers, develop new therapeutic compounds using the company's proprietary drug-delivery platform and has begun manufacturing vaccine candidates against the novel coronavirus.

"Given the urgency of the situation, we can have a lead candidate vaccine within two months. Once we have that it's a race to get it into clinical trials," said John Lewis, CEO of Entos and a Professor at the University of Alberta in Canada.

Lewis said in comparison to a traditional vaccine, DNA-based vaccines hold several advantages.

Nucleic acids are introduced directly into the patient's own cells, causing them to make pieces of the virus--tricking the immune system into mounting a response without the full virus actually being present, the researcher said.

According to the company, the approach is recognised as being easier to move into large-scale manufacturing, offers improved vaccine stability and works without needing an infectious agent.

In the current absence of a vaccine for COVID-19, several companies around the world are mounting efforts to begin similar work.

The first clinical trial using a DNA-based vaccine developed by Moderna Inc.in the US on March 13.

Their approach allows for antibodies to be made in the human trial volunteers against a specific protein on the surface of the coronavirus that lets the virus enter human cells.

The hope is that the antibodies will stop the interaction.

Though this approach is designed to be effective against COVID-19 specifically, Lewis said Entos is taking a different tack.

The company plans to use plasmid DNA to amplify the production of key coronavirus surface and structural proteins with each injection, with an eye to the bigger picture.

"Many of the structural proteins in the virus are pretty well conserved across all the coronaviruses, including SARS and MERS," said Lewis.

"We're hoping that if we express more of the structural proteins that are common to most coronaviruses, we can inhibit the current COVID-19, and also potentially protect against all coronaviruses both past and future," Lewis added.

To move the project forward quickly, the company is seeking financial support from both provincial and federal levels of government.

"We have the opportunity to save a lot of lives, and I think it's really upon us and governments to find solutions for that," Lewis said.

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Agencies
May 31,2020

Washington, May 31: US President Donald Trump said Saturday he will delay the G7 summit scheduled to take place in June and invite other countries -- including India and Russia -- to join the meeting.

"I don't feel that as a G7 it properly represents what's going on in the world. It's a very outdated group of countries," Trump told reporters on Air Force One.

He said he would like to invite Russia, South Korea, Australia and India to join an expanded summit in the fall.

It could happen in September, either before or after the UN General Assembly, Trump said, adding that "maybe I'll do it after the election."

Americans head to the polls in early November to choose a new president, with Trump keen for a return to normalcy after the coronavirus pandemic and a healthy economy as voters cast their ballots.

Describing the event as a "G-10 or G-11", Trump said he had "roughly" broached the topic with leaders of the four other countries.

Leaders from the Group of Seven, which the United States heads this year, had been scheduled to meet by videoconference in late June after COVID-19 scuttled plans to gather in-person at Camp David, the US presidential retreat outside Washington.

Trump created suspense last week, however, when he announced that he might hold the huge gathering in-person after all, "primarily at the White House" but also potentially parts of it at Camp David.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel became the first leader to decline the in-person invitation outright.

"Considering the overall pandemic situation, she cannot agree to her personal participation, to a journey to Washington," her spokesman said Saturday.

Her response followed ambivalent to positive reactions to the invitation from Britain, Canada and France.

The 65-year-old chancellor is the oldest G7 leader after Trump, who is 73. Japan's Shinzo Abe, also 65, is several months younger than Merkel. Their age puts them at higher risk from the coronavirus.

The G7 major advanced countries -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States -- hold annual meetings to discuss international economic coordination.

Russia was thrown out of what was the G8 in 2014 after it seized Ukraine's Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, an annexation never recognized by the international community.

The work of the G7 is now more important than ever as countries struggle to repair coronavirus-inflicted damage.

The White House had previously said the huge diplomatic gathering would be a "show of strength" when world economies are gradually reemerging from shutdowns.

The United States is the worst-hit country for COVID-19 infections, recording more than 1.7 million cases and over 103,680 deaths.

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News Network
July 24,2020

Kathmandu, Jul 24: At least 132 people lost their lives as a result of heavy rains triggering landslides, and flash floods in Nepal.

"132 people dead, 128 injured, 53 missing and 998 families affected due to rainfall, landslides and floods in the country as of 23rd July," Nepal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority Within the last two weeks, the Myagdi district of western Nepal was the worst affected with 27 reported deaths.

Search and rescue operations are being conducted continuously with officials and police personnel who are looking through the debris to find missing people.

Monsoon-induced disasters are common in Nepal owing to the country's mountainous topography. Hundreds have been displaced as landslides have swept away their homes. They ended up taking refuge in local schools and community centers.

Nepal's Meteorological Forecasting Division earlier last week had predicted heavy downpour across the country. The Division had warned of monsoon winds being near the low-pressure line in the Terai belt, which would consequently cause more rainfall.

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