Dubai, Feb 27: Twenty two people have died so far from the new coronavirus in Iran, the official Iranian news agency IRNA reported in a chart it published on Thursday.
The number of people diagnosed with the disease is 141, the chart showed. It did not specify whether those who have died were included in the tally of those infected.
Iranian officials on Wednesday reported a total of 139 cases of coronavirus and 19 deaths.
Langkawi, Jan 20: Malaysia will not take retaliatory trade action against India over its boycott of palm oil purchases amid a political row between the two countries, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Monday.
India, the world’s largest edible oil buyer, this month effectively halted imports from its largest supplier and the world’s second-biggest producer in response to comments from Mahathir attacking India’s domestic policies.
“We are too small to take retaliatory action,” Mahathir told reporters in Langkawi, a resort island off the western coast of Malaysia. “We have to find ways and means to overcome that,” he added.
The 94-year-old premier of Muslim-majority Malaysia has criticised New Delhi’s new religion-based citizenship law and also accused India of invading the disputed region of Kashmir.
Mahathir again criticised India’s citizenship law on Monday, saying he believed it was “grossly unfair”.
India has been Malaysia’s largest palm oil market for the past five years, presenting the Southeast Asian country with a major challenge in finding new buyers for its palm oil.
Benchmark Malaysian palm futures fell nearly 10% last week, their biggest weekly decline in more than 11 years.
New Delhi is also unhappy with Malaysia’s refusal to revoke permanent resident status for controversial Indian Islamic preacher Zakir Naik, who has lived in Malaysia for about three years and faces charges of money laundering and hate speech in India.
Mahathir said even if the Indian government guarantees a fair trial, Naik faces the real threat of vigilante action and that Malaysia will only relocate the preacher if it can find a third country where he would be safe.
“If we can find a place for him, we will send him out.”
Washington, Apr 11: China is considered a developing country, make the United States too a developing one, US President Donald Trump said on Friday, alleging that Beijing has taken advantage of his country.
"China has been unbelievably taken advantage of us and other countries. You know, for instance, they are considered a developing nation. I said well then make us a developing nation too,” Trump told reporters at his daily White House news conference on coronavirus.
The president was responding to a question on China.
“They get big advantages because they are a developing nation. India, a developing nation. The United States is a big developed nation. Well, we have plenty of development to do,” he said.
Reiterating that United States was taken advantage of by the World Trade Organization, Trump said the Chinese economy started booming after it joined WTO with the help of the US.
“If you look at the history of China, it was only since they went into the WTO that they became a rocket ship with their economy. They were flatlined for years and years,” he said.
“Frankly, for many, many decades. And it was only when they came into the WTO that they became a rocket ship because they took advantage of all -- I'm not even blaming them. I'm saying how stupid were the people that stood here and allowed it to happen,” he said.
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The Trump Administration will now allow that to happen, he said.
“If they don't treat us fairly, will leave. But now we're starting to win cases,” he said.
Alleging that China has taken advantage of the United States for 30 years, he said, China has taken advantage of the US through WTO and using rules that are unfair to the United States.
"They should have never been allowed it, this should have never been allowed to happen", he added.
“When China joined and was allowed to join under those circumstances the WTO, that was a very bad day for the United States because they have rules and regulations that were far different and far easier than our rules and regulations,” he said.
“Plus. They took advantage of them down to the last. China took advantage of them like few people would even think to take advantage of them and again they are considered right a developing nation,” he added.
The United States, he rued, is not considered a developing nation.
“The were given advantages (for being a developing nation). For many years China has ripped off the United States. Then I came along and right now, as you know, China is paying 25 percent," said Trump, adding that the US is now gaining "billions and billions and billions of dollars in tariffs from China”.
The US is not paying, he asserted.
“Not every country is China but China would devalue their currency and they would also pour out money and they essentially were paying most of those tariffs not us,” he said.
Johannesburg, Feb 22: To meet shortage of skilled nursing staff, private hospitals in South Africa are recruiting senior Indian nurses for their good work ethics and ability to become efficient trainers for the local staff, according to a media report.
A report at a 2018 jobs summit indicated that the country had a shortage of more than 47,000 nurses.
The shortage of the skilled nursing staff has been attributed to several factors, including preference of highly qualified nurses to emigrate or take up contract employment in countries such as the UK, the United Aarb Emirates, Saudi Arabia or New Zealand for want of higher salaries, a report in the weekly Business Times said.
Mediclinic, one of South Africa's largest private hospital groups, confirmed that it is recruiting 150 nurses from India this year.
“To supplement our training, as an internal strategy, we will continue to recruit senior registered nurses from India,” a Mediclinic spokesperson told the Business Times.
Mediclinic started recruiting nurses from India in 2005 but could not provide details about how many among the more than 8,800 nurses it employs at its hospitals are from India.
Another company, Life Healthcare SA, said it employed 135 Indian nurses between 2008 and 2014.
Top managements at the hospital groups lauded senior Indian nurses as being very efficient trainers for local staff.
“But we find that many of them prefer coming here on short-term contracts due to family commitments," a hospital executive said on the basis of anonymity.
The official said that the few who apply for long-term positions are usually young newly-qualified nurses, which is not the group in demand.
“They work hard, with a patient-oriented work ethic, and do not have the nine-to-five approach of many local nurses, especially those who are unionised," the official said.
“We would be very happy to take in more nursing staff from India," the official added.
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