Russia vetoes for 8th time UN resolution on Syria

April 13, 2017

New York, Apr 13: Russia vetoed Wednesday a UN draft resolution demanding the Syrian regime cooperate with an investigation of a deadly toxic gas attack on Syrian civilians last week which the West blames on the regime of Bashar Assad.

veto

It was the eighth time that Russia has used its veto power at the UN Security Council (UNSC) to block action directed at its ally in Damascus.

The US told Russia at the UN that it is isolating itself by continuing to support the Syrian president, while Britain said its scientists found that sarin was used in a deadly toxic gas attack on Syrian civilians last week.

“To my colleagues from Russia, you are isolating yourselves from the international community every time one of Assad's planes drops another barrel bomb on civilians, and every time Assad tries to starve another community to death,” US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley told the UNSC.

During a heated UNSC meeting, Russia's Deputy UN Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov told the 15-member body that Western countries were wrong to blame Assad for the attack in the town of Khan Sheikhun. “I'm amazed that this was the conclusion. No one has yet visited the site of the crime. How do you know that?” he said.

Britain's UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft told the UNSC that samples taken from the site of the gas attack, in an opposition-held area of northern Syria, have tested positive for the nerve gas sarin. He accused Russia of siding with “a murderous, barbaric criminal, rather than with their international peers.”

Haley accused Iran of being “Assad's chief accomplice in the regime's horrific acts,” adding: “Iran is dumping fuel on the flames of this war in Syria so it can expand its own reach.”

UN Syria mediator Staffan de Mistura warned the UNSC on Wednesday that fragile progress in peace talks was now “in grave danger.”

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson battled to overcome differences with his Russian counterpart on Wednesday. They remained split over the chemical attack in Syria after talks in Moscow.

“Despite the quantity of existing problems... there are considerable prospects for joint work,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference after talks with Tillerson and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Russia is open to this, open to dialogue with the US in all different areas, not only to dialogue but to joint action aimed at results in the areas where this corresponds to the interests of both countries,” said Lavrov.

Tillerson, who met with Putin earlier on Wednesday, deplored the “low level of trust” between the countries, whose relations have dropped to a post-Cold War low over Ukraine and Syria. “The world's two foremost nuclear powers cannot have this kind of relationship,” Tillerson said.

He said working groups would be established to improve US-Russian ties and identify problems, adding that the two sides would discuss disagreements on Syria and how to end its six-year civil war.

Tillerson said Syria's regime had committed more than 50 attacks using chlorine or other chemical weapons during the conflict. He suggested that possible war crimes charges could be levied against Assad.

Russia has never publicly acknowledged any such attack by Assad's forces, and has tried for the past 18 months to help him expand his authority in Syria.

Lavrov said Moscow was ready to resume a deal with Washington to avoid incidents in Syrian airspace as the two countries lead separate bombing campaigns.

“Today the president confirmed our readiness to return to its implementation on the understanding that the original aims of the air forces of the American coalition are reaffirmed, namely the fight with IS (Daesh) and Al-Nusra,” Lavrov said.

The deal was suspended after US strikes against a Syrian air base following last week's gas attack in Idlib province, in an act Moscow labeled “aggression against a sovereign state.” The two sides agreed to work together on an international investigation of the gas attack.

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Agencies
July 28,2020

Sydney, Jul 28: Nearly 3 billion koalas, kangaroos and other native Australian animals were killed or displaced by bushfires in 2019 and 2020, a study by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said on Tuesday, triple the group's earlier estimates.

Some 143 million mammals, 2.46 billion reptiles, 180 million birds and 51 million frogs were impacted by the country's worst bushfires in decades, the WWF said.

When the fires were still blazing, the WWF estimated the number of affected animals at 1.25 billion. The fires destroyed more than 11 million hectares (37 million acres) across the Australian southeast, equal to about half the area of the United Kingdom.

"This ranks as one of the worst wildlife disasters in modern history," said WWF-Australia Chief Executive Officer Dermot O'Gorman in a statement.

The project leader Lily Van Eeden, from the University of Sydney, said the research was the first continent-wide analysis of animals impacted by the bushfires, and "other nations can build upon this research to improve understanding of bushfire impacts everywhere".

The total number included animals which were displaced because of destroyed habitats and now faced lack of food and shelter or the prospect of moving to habitat that was already occupied.

The main reason for raising the number of animal casualties was that researchers had now assessed the total affected area, rather than focusing on the most affected states, they said.

After years of drought made the Australian bush unusually dry, the country battled one of its worst bushfire seasons ever from September 2019 to March 2020, resulting in 34 human deaths and nearly 3,000 homes lost.

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Agencies
June 9,2020

Wuhan, Jun 9: China on Tuesday dismissed as "incredibly ridiculous" a Harvard study, which pointed to a surge in traffic outside Wuhan hospitals from August 2019 suggesting that the coronavirus hit the area far earlier than reported.

A whitepaper on coronavirus released by China on Sunday said the virus was first noticed on December 17 and Chinese virologists confirmed human-to-human transmission on January 19, prompting authorities to impose lockdown of Wuhan from January 23.

US President Donald Trump and leaders of several countries have accused China of not being transparent in reporting the deadly disease, leading to huge human casualties and economic crisis across the world.

The new study by Harvard researchers says satellite images show an increase in traffic outside five hospitals in Wuhan from late August to December.

The traffic spike coincided with a rise in online searches for information on symptoms like "cough" and "diarrhoea".

China said the study was "ridiculous" and based on "superficial" information, BBC reported.

It is believed that the virus first appeared in China some time in November. Authorities reported a cluster of pneumonia cases with an unknown cause to the World Health Organization (WHO) on December 31.

"Clearly, there was some level of social disruption taking place well before what was previously identified as the start of the novel coronavirus pandemic," Dr John Brownstein, who led the research, told ABC news.

The study has not been peer-reviewed.

The researchers examined commercial satellite data from outside five Wuhan hospitals, comparing data from late summer and autumn 2018 to the same time period in 2019.

In one case, researchers counted 171 cars parked at one of Wuhan''s largest hospitals, Tianyou Hospital, in October 2018.

Satellite data from the same time in 2019 showed 285 vehicles in the same place, an increase of 67 per cent.

A surge in online searches for words associated with the symptoms of coronavirus on the Chinese search engine Baidu seemed to emerge at the same time.

"This is all about a growing body of information pointing to something taking place in Wuhan at the time," Dr Brownstein said.

"Many studies are still needed to fully uncover what took place and for people to really learn about how these disease outbreaks unfold and emerge in populations. So this is just another point of evidence," he said.

Asked for her reaction at the media briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying dismissed the findings as "incredibly ridiculous".

"I think it is ridiculous, incredibly ridiculous, to come up with this conclusion based on superficial observations such as traffic volume," she said.

"(I have) Not seen the research you mentioned. If the conclusion is drawn based on traffic volumes (and) other superficial observations, it won’t be a sound conclusion," she said and referred to the allegations about the COVID-19 originating from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) by Trump.

"That allegation was proved to be wrong," she said.

When pointed out that China says it respects science based inquiry and Harvard is one of the top universities in the world, Hua said, "on the origin of virus there are lot of conspiracy theories against China”.

"That is very unfair. At the moment, the pressing task is to enhance coordination to contain the spread of the virus. Someday, I am sure the truth will be out. China deserves a fair and objective evaluation," she said and referred to the whitepaper released by the Chinese government detailing evolution of coronavirus in Wuhan and how Beijing handled the situation.

Recently, the World Health Assembly (WHA), the decision-making body of Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO), passed a resolution to probe the origin of the virus. China also backed the resolution.

As of Monday, the overall confirmed cases on the mainland had reached 83,043, including 58 patients who were still being treated, with no one in severe condition, China’s National Health Commission, (NHC) said.

Altogether 78,351 people had been discharged after recovery and 4,634 people had died of the disease, it said.

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News Network
February 1,2020

Washington, Feb 1: The Indian economy experienced some abrupt slowdown in 2019 due to turbulence in non-banking financial institutions and major reform measures such as GST and demonetisation, but it is not in a recession, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva has said.

"The Indian economy indeed has experienced an abrupt slowdown in 2019. We had to revise our growth projections, downwards to four percent for last year. We are expecting 5.8 per cent (growth rate) in 2020 and then an upward trajectory to 6.5 percent in 2021," Georgieva told a group of foreign journalists here on Friday.

"It appears that the main reason for this slowdown was the non-banking financial institutions experiencing a turbulence," she said on the eve of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presenting the annual budget in Parliament on Saturday.

She said India had undertaken some important reforms that over the longer term would be beneficial for the country, but they do have some short-term impact.

"For example, coming with the unified tax system, and the demonetisation that took place. These are steps that over time are beneficial, but of course they might, might be somewhat disruptive over short term," Georgieva said in response to a question.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director said that there is not a lot of fiscal space in India. “But we also recognise that the policies of the government on that side, on the fiscal side have been prudent. We will see how the reading of the budget, the submission of the budget goes, tomorrow,” she said.

In the medium-term, she said, the IMF remains optimistic about India. “This is why we see that upswing potential for the growth in the country,” she said.

Georgieva said that the current economic slowdown cannot be described as a recession. "No.... You're far from that. But it is a significant slowdown, not the recession," she said.

The IMF managing Director noted that the consumption in India also slowed down and that contributed to the overall slowdown in the economy. The IMF would be keen to see what India does to get relatively sound macroeconomic fundamentals to pay off in terms of better growth trajectory, she said ahead of the budget.

One thing that is important for India is that budgetary revenue have been below target. "The country knows that. The finance minister knows it. They need to increase budgetary revenue collection so they can improve their fiscal position. I said it's tight on the spending side, but I also want to stress that there is room to improve collection on the revenue side," she said.

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