Modi govt slams UN for opposing its decision to deport helpless Rohingyas

Washington, Jan 10: It is “highly likely” that Iran shot down the civilian Ukrainian jetliner that crashed near Tehran late Tuesday, killing all 176 people on board, U.S., Canadian and British officials declared Thursday.

They said the fiery missile strike could well have been a mistake amid rocket launches and high tension throughout the region.

The crash came just a few hours after Iran launched a ballistic attack against Iraqi military bases housing U.S. troops in its violent confrontation with Washington over the U.S. drone strike that killed an Iranian Revolutionary Guard general. The airliner could have been mistaken for a threat, said four U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence.

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, whose country lost at least 63 citizens in the downing, said in Toronto: “We have intelligence from multiple sources including our allies and our own intelligence. The evidence indicates that the plane was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile.”

Likewise, U.K. prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian prime minister Scott Morrison offered similar statements. Morrison also said it appeared to be a mistake. “All of the intelligence as presented to us today does not suggest an intentional act,” he said.

The assessment that 176 people were killed as collateral damage in the Iranian-U.S. conflict cast a new pall over what had at first appeared to be a relatively calm aftermath following the U.S. military operation that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

At the White House, U.S. president Donald Trump suggested he believed Iran was responsible for the shootdown and dismissed Iran's initial claim that it was a mechanical issue with the plane.

“Somebody could have made a mistake on the other side.” Trump said, noting the plane was flying in a “pretty rough neighborhood."

May 9: Union Home Minister Amit Shah has said the West Bengal government is not allowing trains with migrant workers to reach the state that may further create hardship for the labourers.

In a letter to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Shah said not allowing trains to reach West Bengal is "injustice" to the migrant workers from the state.

Referring to the 'Shramik Special' trains being run by the central government to facilitate transport of migrant workers from different parts of the country to various destinations, the home minister said in the letter that the Centre has facilitated more than two lakh migrants workers to reach home.

Shah said migrant workers from West Bengal are also eager to reach home and the central government is also facilitating the train services.

"But we are not getting expected support from the West Bengal. The state government of West Bengal is not allowing the trains reaching to West Bengal. This is injustice with West Bengal migrant labourers. This will create further hardship for them," Shah wrote.

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."