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US House passes crucial bill on defence co-operation with India

Agencies
July 15, 2017

Jul 15: The US House of Representatives has passed a dollor 621.5 billion defence expenditure bill that proposes to advance defence cooperation with India.usindia

An amendment in this regard, moved by Indian-American Congressman Ami Bera, was adopted by a voice vote by the House as part of the National Defense Authorisation Act (NDAA) 2018, beginning October 1 this year. NDAA-2018 was passed by the House 344-81.

The India-related amendment passed by the House requires the Secretary of Defence, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to develop a strategy for advancing defence cooperation between the United States and India.

"The United States is the worlds oldest democracy and India is the world's largest democracy. It is vitally important to develop a strategy that advances defence cooperation between our two nations," Bera said.

"I am grateful this amendment passed and look forward to the Defence Departments strategy that addresses critical issues like common security challenges, the role of partners and allies, and areas for collaboration in science and technology," he said.

Jul 15: The US House of Representatives has passed a dollor 621.5 billion defence expenditure bill that proposes to advance defence cooperation with India.

An amendment in this regard, moved by Indian-American Congressman Ami Bera, was adopted by a voice vote by the House as part of the National Defense Authorisation Act (NDAA) 2018, beginning October 1 this year. NDAA-2018 was passed by the House 344-81.

The India-related amendment passed by the House requires the Secretary of Defence, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to develop a strategy for advancing defence cooperation between the United States and India.

"The United States is the worlds oldest democracy and India is the world's largest democracy. It is vitally important to develop a strategy that advances defence cooperation between our two nations," Bera said.

"I am grateful this amendment passed and look forward to the Defence Departments strategy that addresses critical issues like common security challenges, the role of partners and allies, and areas for collaboration in science and technology," he said.

Cooperation enhances ability to meet security challenges

"Cooperation between the US and India enhances our own defence and our ability to meet the evolving security challenges of the 21st century," Bera said.

Following the passage of the National Defence Authorisation Act, the Secretary of Defence and Secretary of State have 180 days to develop a strategy for advancing defence cooperation between the United States and India. NDAA needs to be passed by the Senate before it can be sent to the White House for the US President Donald Trump to sign into law.

As passed by the House, NDAA-2018 asks the State Department and the Pentagon to develop a strategy that addresses common security challenges, the role of American partners and allies in India-US defence relationship, and role of the defence technology and trade initiative.

It also asks them to address how to advance the communications interoperability and security memorandum of agreement and the basic exchange and cooperation agreement for geospatial cooperation. The previous NDAA-2017 had designated India as a major defence partner which brings India at par with closest American partners in terms of defence trade and technology transfer.

Cooperation enhances ability to meet security challenges

Meanwhile, a senior defence official yesterday said that India and US defence relationship is on positive track.

"We look at the global order, and when we look at the evolving security environment within Asia, India's rise and role [is] evolving, [and] we see the United States and India increasingly viewing the region in the same way, and our interests are very much aligned," said Cara Abercrombie, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for South and Southeast Asia.

Addressing a New York audience, she said the relationship creates a high level of dialogue in the Pentagon on a range of issues.

"This is all rooted in when we look at the region and [what] we share. We have the same [aerial] security interests, the same counter-proliferation, counter-piracy, and counter- terrorism [interests]," she added.

"We have the same interests in upholding this international system that upholds the rule of law that favours freedom of navigation, open sea lanes of communication, and freedom of over flight. Those are values that are critically important to the United States and India to our economic prosperity and to our access in the region," Abercrombie said during a panel discussion at the 2017 Global Business Forum in New York City.

"Cooperation between the US and India enhances our own defence and our ability to meet the evolving security challenges of the 21st century," Bera said.

Following the passage of the National Defence Authorisation Act, the Secretary of Defence and Secretary of State have 180 days to develop a strategy for advancing defence cooperation between the United States and India. NDAA needs to be passed by the Senate before it can be sent to the White House for the US President Donald Trump to sign into law.

As passed by the House, NDAA-2018 asks the State Department and the Pentagon to develop a strategy that addresses common security challenges, the role of American partners and allies in India-US defence relationship, and role of the defence technology and trade initiative.

It also asks them to address how to advance the communications interoperability and security memorandum of agreement and the basic exchange and cooperation agreement for geospatial cooperation. The previous NDAA-2017 had designated India as a major defence partner which brings India at par with closest American partners in terms of defence trade and technology transfer.

'India-us defence ties on positive track'

Meanwhile, a senior defence official yesterday said that India and US defence relationship is on positive track.

"We look at the global order, and when we look at the evolving security environment within Asia, India's rise and role [is] evolving, [and] we see the United States and India increasingly viewing the region in the same way, and our interests are very much aligned," said Cara Abercrombie, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for South and Southeast Asia.

Addressing a New York audience, she said the relationship creates a high level of dialogue in the Pentagon on a range of issues.

"This is all rooted in when we look at the region and [what] we share. We have the same [aerial] security interests, the same counter-proliferation, counter-piracy, and counter- terrorism [interests]," she added.

"We have the same interests in upholding this international system that upholds the rule of law that favours freedom of navigation, open sea lanes of communication, and freedom of over flight. Those are values that are critically important to the United States and India to our economic prosperity and to our access in the region," Abercrombie said during a panel discussion at the 2017 Global Business Forum in New York City.

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Agencies
August 5,2020

Ninety per cent of a sample group of coronavirus-recovered patients from a prominent hospital in China's Wuhan city where the pandemic broke out have reported lung damage and five per cent of them are again in quarantine after testing positive for the virus, according to a media report on Wednesday.

A team at the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University led by Peng Zhiyong, director of the hospital's Intensive Care Unit, has been conducting follow-up visits with '100 recovered patients' since April.

The first phase of this one-year programme finished in July. The average age of the patients in the study is 59.

According to the first phase results, 90 per cent of the patients' lungs are still in a damaged state, which means their lungs ventilation and gas exchange functions have not recovered to the level of healthy people, state-run Global Times reported.

Peng's team conducted a six-minute walking test with the patients. They found that the recovered patients could only walk 400 metres in six minutes while their healthy peers could walk 500 metres in the same period.

Some recovered patients have to rely on oxygen machines even three months after being discharged from the hospital, Liang Tengxiao, a doctor from the Dongzhimen Hospital, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, was quoted as saying by the report.

Liang's team is also conducting follow-up visits with recovered patients aged above 65.

The results also showed that antibodies against the novel coronavirus in 10 per cent of the 100 patients have disappeared.

Five per cent of them received negative results in Covid-19 nucleic acid tests but positive results in Immunoglobulin M (IgM) tests, and thus have to be quarantined again, the report said.

IgM is usually the first antibody produced by the immune system when a virus attacks. A positive result in an IgM test usually means that a person has just been infected by the virus.

It is still unclear if this means these people have been infected again.

The 100 patients' immune systems have not fully recovered as they showed a low level of B cells -- - a primary force for killing viruses in the human body -- but a high level of T cells which only recognise viral antigens outside infected cells.

"The results revealed that the patients’ immune systems are still recovering," Peng said.

The patients also suffered from depression and a sense of stigma. Most of the recovered patients told the team that their families were not willing to have dinner with them at the same table, the report said.

Less than half of the recovered patients have returned to work, it said.

The findings are significant as the coronavirus first emerged in Wuhan city.

Hubei province for which Wuhan is the provincial capital has reported a total of 68,138 confirmed Covid-19 cases till now. The disease has claimed 4,512 lives in the province, according to the official data.

China reported 27 new confirmed Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, including 22 locally-transmitted cases, the National Health Commission (NHC) said on Wednesday.

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Agencies
May 19,2020

Washington DC, May 19: US President Donald Trump has threatened to permanently halt funding for the World Health Organisation (WHO) if it did not commit to improvements within 30 days, and to reconsider the membership of the United States in the global health body.

On Monday, Trump wrote a letter to WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus that read, "If WHO doesn't commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days, I will make my temporary freeze of US funding to WHO permanent and reconsider our membership in the organisation."

Trump had temporarily suspended US' contribution to the WHO last month, accusing it of promoting China's "disinformation" about the coronavirus outbreak, although WHO officials denied the accusation and Beijing said that it was transparent and open.

"The only way forward for the WHO is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China. My administration has already started discussions with you on how to reform the organisation. But action is needed quickly. 

We do not have time to waste," Trump said in the letter.

"I cannot allow American taxpayer dollars to continue to finance an organisation that, in its present state, is so clearly not serving America's interests," he added.

On Monday, the WHO said that an independent review of the global coronavirus response would begin at the earliest and it received backing from China, where the virus was first discovered.

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Agencies
July 8,2020

Washington, Jul 7: President Donald Trump on Tuesday formally started the withdrawal of the United States from the World Health Organization, making good on threats to deprive the UN body of its top funding source over its response to the coronavirus.

Public health advocates and Trump's political opponents voiced outrage at the departure from the Geneva-based body, which leads the global fight on maladies from polio to measles to mental health -- as well as Covid-19, at a time when cases have again been rising around the world.

After threatening to suspend the $400 million (Dh1.47 billion) in annual US contributions and then announcing a withdrawal, the Trump administration has formally sent a notice to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a State Department spokesperson said.

The withdrawal is effective in one year -- July 6, 2021 -- and Joe Biden, Trump's presumptive Democratic opponent, is virtually certain to stop it and stay in the WHO if he wins the November election.

A spokesman for Guterres and the global health body itself confirmed that the United States, a key founding WHO member, gave its notice.

In a speech earlier in the day, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said of Covid-19, "National unity and global solidarity are more important than ever to defeat a common enemy."

In line with conditions set when the WHO was set up in 1948, the United States can leave within one year but must meet its remaining assessed financial obligations, the UN spokesman said.

'Total control'

In late May, Trump said that China exerted "total control" over the WHO and accused the UN body led by Tedros, an Ethiopian doctor and diplomat, of failing to implement reforms.

Blaming China for the coronavirus, Trump, a frequent critic of the UN, said the United States would redirect funding "to other worldwide and deserving, urgent, global public health needs."

Democratic lawmakers have accused Trump of seeking to deflect criticism from his handling of the pandemic in the United States, which has suffered by far the highest death toll of any nation despite the president's stated hope that the virus will disappear.

"To call Trump's response to Covid chaotic and incoherent doesn't do it justice," said Senator Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee.

"This won't protect American lives or interests -- it leaves Americans sick and America alone," he wrote on Twitter.

Representative Ami Bera, himself a physician, said that the United States and World Health Organization had worked "hand in hand" to eradicate smallpox and nearly defeat polio.

"Our cases are increasing," Bera said of Covid-19. "If the WHO is to blame: why has the US been left behind while many countries from South Korea to New Zealand to Vietnam to Germany return to normal?"

Even some of Trump's Republican allies had voiced hope that he was exerting pressure rather than making a final decision to abandon the World Health Organization.

The investigative news outlet ProPublica reported last month that most of Trump's aides were blindsided by the WHO withdrawal announcement, which he made during an appearance about China. 

The Trump administration has said that the WHO ignored early signs of human-to-human transmission in China, including warnings from Taiwan -- which, due to Beijing's pressure, is not part of the UN body.

While many public health advocates share some criticism of the WHO, they question what other options the world body had other than to work with China, where Covid-19 was first detected late last year in the city of Wuhan.

The anti-poverty campaign ONE said the United States should work to reform, not abandon, the WHO.

"Withdrawing from the World Health Organization amidst an unprecedented global pandemic is an astounding action that puts the safety of all Americans the world at risk," it said.

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