Kamala Harris has potential to be first woman US Prez: Report

Islamabad, Jun 25: The coronavirus cases in Pakistan crossed the 192,000-mark after 4,044 new Covid-19 infections were detected in the last 24 hours, the health ministry said on Thursday.

According to the Ministry of National Health Services, 148 more people died due to the deadly virus in the country, taking the death toll to 3,903.

With the detection of 4,044 new cases in the last 24 hours, the coronavirus tally in the country now stands at 192,970, it said.

Sindh reported a maximum number of 74,070 infections, followed by 71,191 in Punjab, 23,887 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, 11,710 in Islamabad, 9,817 in Balochistan, 1,365 in Gilgit-Baltistan and 930 in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

A total of 81,307 patients have recovered so far from the disease.

Health authorities have so far conducted 1,171,976 coronavirus tests, including 21,835 in the last 24 hours.

Moscow, Mar 25: An earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale struck off Russia's Kuril Islands on Wednesday, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said.

The magnitude of the quake, which occurred at 2:49 am (UTC), was registered at a depth of 56.7 kilometres, about 219 kilometres southeast of the Russian town of Severo-Kuril'sk, the USGS said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage to the property as a result of the quake.
Further details are awaited.

Jun 4: Mahatma Gandhi’s statue outside the Indian Embassy in Washington DC was vandalised with graffiti and spray painting by unknown persons allegedly involved in the ongoing protests in the US against the custodial killing of African-American George Floyd.

This has prompted the mission officials to register a complaint with the local law enforcement agencies.

The incident is reported to have taken place on the intervening night of June 2 and 3 in Washington DC.

The Indian embassy has informed the State Department and registered a complaint with local law enforcement agencies, which are now conducting an investigation into the incident.

On Wednesday, a team of officials from Metropolitan Police in consultation with the Diplomatic Security Service and National Park Police visited the site and are conducting inquiries.

Efforts are on to clean up the site at the earliest.

Vandalism of the statue of the apostle of peace comes during the week of nationwide protests against the custodial killing of African-American George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25.

Several of these protests have turned violent which many times has resulted in damage of some of the most prestigious and sacred American monuments.

In Washington DC, protestors this week burnt a historic church and damaged some of the prime properties and historic places like the national monument and Lincoln Memorial.

One of the few statues of a foreign leader on a federal land in Washington DC, the statue of Mahatma Gandhi was dedicated by the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in the presence of the then US president Bill Clinton on September 16, 2000, during his state visit to the US.

In October 1998, the US Congress had authorised the government of India to establish and maintain a memorial “to honour Mahatma Gandhi on Federal land in the District of Columbia."

According to the Indian Embassy website, the sculpture of Mahatma Gandhi is cast in bronze as a statue to a height of 8 feet 8 inches. It shows Gandhi in stride, as a leader and man of action evoking memories of his 1930 protest march against salt-tax, and the many padyatras (long marches) he undertook throughout the length and breadth of the Indian sub-continent.

The statue, the design of which was created by Gautam Pal, is a gift from the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR). The pedestal for the statue of Mahatma Gandhi is a block of new Imperial Red also known as Ruby Red a block originally weighing 25 tonnes reduced to a size of 9'x7'x3'4". It now weighs 16 tonnes.