Trump inauguration: Six policemen injured, 217 protesters arrested

January 21, 2017

Washington, Jan 21: Six police officers were injured and 217 protesters arrested after they smashed windows, damaged cars and threw rocks at security personnel near US President Donald Trump's inauguration ceremony on Friday in Washington DC. At least two police officers and one other person were taken to the hospital for undetermined injuries after run-ins with protesters, DC Fire Spokesman Vito Maggiolo told CNN. After the swearing-in ceremony, demonstrators near 12th and K streets threw rocks and bottles at police, who were clad in riot gear and attempting to disperse the crowd. A large number of police were on scene and used smoke and flash-bang devices to try to scatter the protesters.

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Acting DC Police Chief Peter Newsham told CNN that there were several hundred protesters who were confronting police, while he praised the thousands of other demonstrators who behaved in a peaceful fashion to get their point across. “We have been pointing out all along that this is a very isolated incident and by and large everything is going peacefully and a lot of folks have come to the city to enjoy this historic day, not only the Capitol but walking all around the city,” Newsham said.

Throughout Friday, demonstrators, some wearing masks and dressed in black, shattered building windows, vandalized police cars and other vehicles, setting some on fire — including a limousine — and toppled news kiosks. “Pepper spray and other control devices were used to control the criminal actors and protect persons and property,” the police said.

Protester Lysander Reid-Powell, a 20-year-old student from New Mexico told CNN: “I think Donald Trump is a fascist, and it's very easy for people, especially people who are in pain, to slip into fascism.” At one checkpoint, about 50 protesters sat down in the street in an attempt to block Trump supporters from entering a secure area to watch the swearing-in ceremony and speech. Not far away, a group of immigration backers staged a “pop up” protest near another check point.

“We're here to take a stand against the ideas that Trump spouted throughout the course of this campaign — sexism, Islamophobia, his bigotry and nationalism,” said protester Jed Holtz, from New York City. There also were anti-Trump protests around the world, including London, Hong Kong and Berlin — where demonstrators held a sign that read, “Walls divide”, CNN reported.

In the West Bank, Palestinians protested against Israeli settlements and Trump's plan to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. In New York, seven people were arrested at a demonstration outside of Trump Tower, according to the New York Police Department. On Saturday, the Women's March on Washington could attract a quarter million participants, organisers said.

“We're really trying to set a tone of resistance for the coming years,” Lacy MacAuley, a DisruptJ20 organizer, told CNN. “Donald Trump represents a shift in our politics in a dangerous, harmful, exclusionary direction. We oppose those policies of hate.” According to Department of Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson, as many as 900,000 spectators were slated to attend inaugural ceremonies.

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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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News Network
May 28,2020

Geneva, May 28: The global death toll from the novel coronavirus has risen over the past 24 hours by 5,581 to 349,095, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its daily situation report.

The number of confirmed cases has increased by 84,314 to 5,488,825, the WHO said.

Most cases of infection are recorded in the Americas (North and South America) - 2,495,924, with 145,810 deaths. While Europe has reported 2,061,828 cases and 1,76,226 deaths so far.

As per WHO tally, the US has the highest number of cases in the world with 1,63,4010 infections.

The global health body declared the outbreak of the new coronavirus a pandemic on March 11.

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Agencies
May 26,2020

Sheikhupura, May 26: Younus, the brother-in-law of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman convicted of blasphemy by a Pakistani court, was killed in Sheikhupura city of Punjab province in Pakistan on Monday.

According to the FIR, Younus had gone to his farms on May 24 and did not return home at night. His body with throat slit was traced in the farm the following morning.

It is believed that, hailing from minority Christian community, Younus was killed in a rivalry.

This is not the first time that somebody associated with Asia Bibi has been murdered in cold blood.

In 2011, Salman Taseer, the influential governor of Punjab was assassinated after he made headlines by appealing for the pardon of Asia Bibi, who had been sentenced to death for allegedly insulting Prophet Muhammad.

A month after Taseer was killed, Religious Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian who spoke out against the laws, was shot dead in Islamabad, underlining the threat faced by critics of the law.

Asia Bibi is now living in exile after the Supreme Court of Pakistan acquitted her based on insufficient evidence in October 2018.

Recounting the hellish conditions of eight years spent on death row on blasphemy charges but also the pain of exile, Asia Bibi recently broke her silence to give her first personal insight into an ordeal that caused international outrage.

French journalist Anne-Isabelle Tollet, who has co-written a book about her, was once based in the country where she led a support campaign for her."You already know my story through the media," she said in the book.

"But you are far from understanding my daily life in prison or my new life," she said. "I became a prisoner of fanaticism," she said. In prison, "tears were the only companions in the cell".

She described the horrendous conditions in squalid jails in Pakistan where she was kept chained and jeered at by other detainees.

Pakistan's blasphemy laws carry a potential death sentence for anyone who insults Islam. Critics say they have been used to persecute minority faiths and unfairly target minorities.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan defended the country's strict blasphemy laws during his election campaigns. The status quo is still in place.

No government in Pakistan was ready to make changed to the blasphemy law due to fears of a backlash.

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