Italy's PM Renzi announces resignation

London, Feb 14: Five years ago Britain’s new finance minister Rishi Sunak wasn’t even a member of parliament and now he is running the world's fifth largest economy.

The 39-year-old former Goldman Sachs banker was appointed in dramatic fashion on Thursday when incumbent Sajid Javid unexpectedly quit — in a row over advisers — during what Downing Street had cast as a routine ministerial reshuffle.

Sunak is married to the daughter of Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy, and was hand-picked to take over an ultra-safe seat in northern England, previously represented by former Conservative Party leader William Hague. The Murthy family was not reachable for comment.

In July, when he was promoted chief secretary to the Treasury, Murthy had said: “Our advice to our children, including Rishi, has been to work hard, be honest, and do good for society…We wish him well.”

After Thursday’s announcement, Sunak said: “Delighted to be appointed... Lots to get on with.”

Tipped for Promotion

As Boris Johnson moves to increase control of the finance ministry, one of the youngest chancellors in history will face a prime minister who wants to increase government spending on everything from infrastructure and police to health and education.

Sunak, seen as a rising star in the ruling Conservative Party since he entered Parliament in 2015, had been tipped for promotion to a senior post in the ministerial rejig as Johnson put together his post-Brexit cabinet.

But, despite an already rapid ascent through the ranks of government, few expected the Oxford University Politics, Philosophy and Economics graduate to ascend to one of the highest offices in the land.

Sunak had been serving as Javid’s deputy in the finance ministry since Johnson promoted him upon taking office in July 2019. Prior to that he had served as a junior housing minister.

“From working in my mum’s tiny chemist shop to my experience building large businesses, I have seen first-hand how politicians should support free enterprise and innovation to ensure our future prosperity,” Sunak says on his website.

Smooth and loyal

Seen as a smooth media performer and ultra-loyal member of the Conservative Party, Sunak has been used by the government to present and defend their policies in television interviews — a sign of trust from Johnson, who has a fraught relationship with Britain’s media.

Sunak takes control at a critical juncture for Britain’s $2.7 trillion economy. He will have to steer the economy through the turbulence of leaving the European Union and the forging of new trade links that will define Britain’s new relationship with the world.

However, the power struggle that forced his predecessor Javid to quit hints at a more diminished role for what is the second most powerful position in the government — with Johnson’s office wanting to centralise control and minimise dissent.

Sunak is one of the three ministers of Indian origin in Johnson’s cabinet, the other two being Priti Patel and Alok Sharma. Patel remains the interior minister after the cabinet reshuffle while Sharma, a former minister for international development, was appointed the new minister for business. Sunak’s father was a doctor and his mother ran a chemist shop. Before entering politics he worked for Goldman Sachs and a hedge fund, then co-founded an investment firm. He also has an MBA from Stanford University.

Jun 13: Requiring the wearing of masks to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus in areas at the epicenter of the global pandemic may have prevented tens of thousands of infections, a new study suggests.

Mask-wearing is even more important for preventing the virus' spread and the sometimes deadly COVID-19 illness it causes than social distancing and stay-at-home orders, researchers said, in the study published in PNAS: The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA.

Infection trends shifted dramatically when mask-wearing rules were implemented on April 6 in northern Italy and April 17 in New York City - at the time among the hardest hit areas of the world by the health crisis - the study found.

"This protective measure alone significantly reduced the number of infections, that is, by over 78,000 in Italy from April 6 to May 9 and over 66,000 in New York City from April 17 to May 9," researchers calculated.

When mask-wearing went into effect in New York, the daily new infection rate fell by about 3% per day, researchers said. In the rest of the country, daily new infections continued to increase.

Direct contact precautions - social distancing, quarantine and isolation, and hand sanitizing - were all in place before mask-wearing rules went into effect in Italy and New York City. But they only help minimize virus transmission by direct contact, while face covering helps prevent airborne transmission, the researchers say.

"The unique function of face covering to block atomization and inhalation of virus-bearing aerosols accounts for the significantly reduced infections," they said. That would indicate "that airborne transmission of COVID-19 represents the dominant route for infection."

The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday urged organizers of large gatherings that involve "shouting, chanting or singing to strongly encourage the use of cloth face coverings to lower the risk of spreading the coronavirus."

Aboard Air Force One, Jan 6: US President Donald Trump threatened sanctions against Baghdad on Sunday after Iraq's parliament called on US troops to leave the country, and the president said if troops did leave, Baghdad would have to pay Washington for the cost of the air base there.

"We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that's there. It cost billions of dollars to build, long before my time. We're not leaving unless they pay us back for it," Trump told reporters on Air Force One.

Trump said that if Iraq asked US forces to leave and it was not done on a friendly basis, "we will charge them sanctions like they've never seen before ever. It'll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame."