Rohingya's protest for justice on crackdown anniversary

New Delhi, Jun 19: Delhi minister Satyendar Jain's health has deteriorated further. He is infected with the coronavirus. Jain has also been diagnosed with pneumonia. He is being shifted to an ICU.  According to doctors, Jain is now kept full-time on oxygen support as his oxygen saturation level has dipped.  

Jain was admitted to Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital early Tuesday after running high fever and suffering a sudden drop in oxygen level. The 55-year-old leader's test result came positive on Wednesday evening after a second test. Jain was brought to the hospital and was administered a test for the novel coronavirus infection on Tuesday morning, for which he tested negative. But he still ran fever and showed symptoms, so another test was done after 24 hours of the first.

He will now be shifted Max Hospital in Saket and administered plasma therapy. 

Union Home Minister Amit Shah has also wished for Jain's speedy recovery.

On Thursday, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia took over the charge of health, PWD, power and other departments held by Jain. Jain will remain the cabinet minister without any portfolio in the Arvind Kejriwal government until he recovers. 

On Sunday, Jain attended a high-level meeting on the coronavirus situation in the national capital, chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, which was also attended by Delhi Lt Governor Anil Baijal, Kejriwal, Sisodia and Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan.

London, Feb 9: A US court has rejected a Turkish attempt to dismiss civil cases brought by protesters who were violently attacked in Washington by Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s security officers.

The incident took place in May 2017 during a visit to the US by the Turkish president. About a dozen bodyguards beat-up a group demonstrating outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence in Washington.

The attack, which was caught on video, left nine people injured and further strained US relations with Turkey.

While criminal charges against the security guards were dropped within a year, around the same time Turkey released a US pastor, the victims pressed ahead with a civil case.

On Thursday, a federal court denied Turkey’s request to have the two cases thrown out on the grounds that it should have sovereign immunity from legal proceedings.

US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said the protesters had not posed a threat and were merely gathered on a sidewalk outside the residence at Sheridan Circle when Erdogan’s security burst through a police line and attacked them.

“The Turkish security forces did not have the discretion to violently physically attack the protesters, with the degree and nature of force which was used, when the protesters were standing, protesting on a public sidewalk,” she said. “And, Turkish security forces did not have the discretion to continue violently physically attacking the protesters after the protesters had fallen to the ground or otherwise attempted to flee.”

The judge said Turkey “has not met its burden of persuasion to show that it is immune from suit in these cases.”

The ruling was welcomed by the victims of the attack, which Erdogan stopped to watch as he made his way from his car to inside the residence.

United Nations, Mar 21: The UN has called on all nations to stop the use of capital punishment or put a moratorium on it, a day after four men convicted of gang-raping and murdering a 23-year-old woman were hanged in India.

Seven years after the rape and murder of the young medical student, who came to be known as 'Nirbhaya', sent shock waves across the country, the four convicts - Mukesh Singh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) - were hanged to death on Friday at 5.30 am in New Delhi's Tihar Jail.

Responding to the hanging, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres' spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the world organisation calls on all nations to stop the use of capital punishment or put a moratorium on it.

"Our position has been clear, is that we call on all States to halt the use of capital punishment or at least put a moratorium on this," Dujarric said at the daily press briefing on Friday.

The horrific gang-rape and murder of the physiotherapy intern on December 16, 2012, who came to be known as Nirbhaya, the fearless, had seared the nation's soul and triggered countrywide outrage.

This was the first time that four men have been hanged together in Tihar Jail, South Asia's largest prison complex that houses more than 16,000 inmates.

The executions were carried out after the men exhausted every possible legal avenue to escape the gallows. Their desperate attempts only postponed the inevitable by less than two months after the first date of execution was set for January 22.

The execution of the four convicts brings the curtains down on the case that shook not just India but also the world with the details of its brutality The widespread protests subsequently paved the way for a change in India's rape laws.