Riyadh, Dec 19: Saudi Arabia said it intercepted a Yemeni rebel missile over Riyadh on Tuesday.
“Ballistic missile intercepted over Riyadh,” the Coalition battling Yemen’s Houthi rebels said in a statement.
It was the second Houthi missile attack on Riyadh in the past two months.
The missile was supplied to Houthis by Iran.
On Thursday, US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley presented what she called “undeniable” evidence that last month’s missile was “made in Iran”
The ILO has warned that if another Covid-19 wave hits in the second half of 2020, there would be global working-hour loss of 11.9 percent - equivalent to the loss of 340 million full-time jobs.
According to the 5th edition of International Labour Organisation (ILO) Monitor: Covid-19 and the world of work, the recovery in the global labour market for the rest of the year will be uncertain and incomplete.
The report said that there was a 14 percent drop in global working hours during the second quarter of 2020, equivalent to the loss of 400 million full-time jobs.
The number of working hours lost across the world in the first half of 2020 was significantly worse than previously estimated. The highly uncertain recovery in the second half of the year will not be enough to go back to pre-pandemic levels even in the best scenario, the agency warned.
The baseline model – which assumes a rebound in economic activity in line with existing forecasts, the lifting of workplace restrictions and a recovery in consumption and investment – projects a decrease in working hours of 4.9 percent (equivalent to 140 million full-time jobs) compared to last quarter of 2019.
It says that in the pessimistic scenario, the situation in the second half of 2020 would remain almost as challenging as in the second quarter.
“Even if one assumes better-tailored policy responses – thanks to the lessons learned throughout the first half of the year – there would still be a global working-hour loss of 11.9 per cent at the end of 2020, or 340 million full-time jobs, relative to the fourth quarter of 2019,” it said.
The pessimistic scenario assumes a second pandemic wave and the return of restrictions that would significantly slow recovery. The optimistic scenario assumes that workers’ activities resume quickly, significantly boosting aggregate demand and job creation. With this exceptionally fast recovery, the global loss of working hours would fall to 1.2 per cent (34 million full-time jobs).
The agency said that under the three possible scenarios for recovery in the next six months, “none” sees the global job situation in better shape than it was before lockdown measures began.
“This is why we talk of an uncertain but incomplete recovery even in the best of scenarios for the second half of this year. So there is not going to be a simple or quick recovery,” ILO Director-General Guy Ryder said.
The new figures reflect the worsening situation in many regions over the past weeks, especially in developing economies. Regionally, working time losses for the second quarter were: Americas (18.3 percent), Europe and Central Asia (13.9 percent), Asia and the Pacific (13.5 percent), Arab States (13.2 percent), and Africa (12.1 percent).
The vast majority of the world’s workers (93 per cent) continue to live in countries with some sort of workplace closures, with the Americas experiencing the greatest restrictions.
During the first quarter of the year, an estimated 5.4 percent of global working hours (equivalent to 155 million full-time jobs) were lost relative to the fourth quarter of 2019. Working- hour losses for the second quarter of 2020 relative to the last quarter of 2019 are estimated to reach 14 per cent worldwide (equivalent to 400 million full-time jobs), with the largest reduction (18.3 per cent) occurring in the Americas.
The ILO Monitor also found that women workers have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, creating a risk that some of the modest progress on gender equality made in recent decades will be lost, and that work-related gender inequality will be exacerbated.
The severe impact of Covid-19 on women workers relates to their over-representation in some of the economic sectors worst affected by the crisis, such as accommodation, food, sales and manufacturing.
Globally, almost 510 million or 40 percent of all employed women work in the four most affected sectors, compared to 36.6 percent of men, it said.
The report said that women also dominate in the domestic work and health and social care work sectors, where they are at greater risk of losing their income and of infection and transmission and are also less likely to have social protection.
The pre-pandemic unequal distribution of unpaid care work has also worsened during the crisis, exacerbated by the closure of schools and care services.
Even as countries have adopted policy measures with unprecedented speed and scope, the ILO Monitor highlights some key challenges ahead, including finding the right balance and sequencing of health, economic and social and policy interventions to produce optimal sustainable labour market outcomes; implementing and sustaining policy interventions at the necessary scale when resources are likely to be increasingly constrained and protecting and promoting the conditions of vulnerable, disadvantaged and hard-hit groups to make labour markets fairer and more equitable.
“The decisions we adopt now will echo in the years to come and beyond 2030. Although countries are at different stages of the pandemic and a lot has been done, we need to redouble our efforts if we want to come out of this crisis in a better shape than when it started,” Ryder said.
Beirut, Aug 4: A massive explosion has shaken the Lebanese capital of Beirut, with a very high number of casualties expected.
A warehouse at the Beirut Port caught fire on Tuesday afternoon, triggering a huge explosion, Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported.
Several smaller explosions were heard before the bigger one occurred.
Abbas Ibrahim, the head of Lebanon’s General Security, said that “highly explosive materials” confiscated earlier had been stored at the site.
Footage shared on social media captured the moment of the bigger explosion, with a colossal shock wave seen traveling fast across several hundreds of meters and shrouding the area in thick smoke.
The blast left enormous material damage to the surrounding buildings and structures. But it was not immediately known how big an area was affected.
There was also no immediate casualty count. Graphic amateur video from the scene showed bodies strewn on the ground, with their clothes blown off.
The NNA said rescue operations were underway. Ambulances were seen heading toward the scene in central Beirut.
Lebanese LBC television channel quoted Lebanon’s Health Minister Hamad Hasan as saying that the blast had caused a “very high number of injuries” and “extensive damage.”
Beirut Governor Marwan Abboud said an unspecified number of firefighters dispatched to extinguish the initial fire had been killed in the explosion.
“As they were putting out the fire, the explosion took place and we’ve [lost them],” he said, breaking down on live TV.
The explosion comes at a time when the Arab country is passing through its worst economic and financial crisis in decades, and amid rising tensions with Israel.
Mumbai, May 27: The Maharashtra government on Tuesday ordered re investigation by the CID into the suicide of a 53-year-old interior designer and his mother, allegedly over non-payment of dues by TV journalist Arnab Goswami and two others.
State Home Minister Anil Deshmukh said he ordered re investigation after Adnya Naik, daughter of interior designer Anvay Naik, claimed that Alibag Police in neighbouring Raigad district did not probe the non-payment of dues which had driven her father and grandmother to suicide.
"Adnya Naik had complained to me that #AlibaugPolice had not investigated non-payment of dues from #ArnabGoswami's @republic which drove her entrepreneur father & grandmom to suicide in May 2018," Deshmukh tweeted.
"I've ordered a CID re-investigation of the case," the minister, an NCP leader, added.
He also used the hashtag "Maharashtra government cares" while sharing the tweet. Earlier this month, the police registered an abetment of suicide case against Republic TV editor-in-chief Goswami and two others.
The suicide note purportedly written by Anvay Naik, managing director of Concorde Designs Private Limited, said he was forced to take his life as he was not paid dues of Rs 5.40 crore by the three accused.
Republic TV denied the allegation and said that certain vested interest groups were running "a false and malicious campaign and making false statements and innuendos against the company by exploiting the tragic event".
Mumbai Police are also conducting a probe against Goswami over his statements about the Palghar lynching case of April this year.
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Who knows Missile may b made in America also....!!!!!
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