US will work with whoever is India's next prime minister

Washington, Jun 6: US President Donald Trump has said that countries like India and China would have much more coronavirus cases than America, the worst-hit country in the world, if they conduct more tests.

Trump, in his remarks at Puritan Medical Products in Maine, said that the US has carried out 20 million tests.

Compared to the US, Germany is at four million and much talked about South Korea is about three million tests, he said on Friday.

According to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, the US has reported nearly 1.9 million cases and over 1,09,000 deaths, making America the worst affected country, while the total number of coronavirus cases in India and China stand at 2,36,184 and 84,177 respectively.

India has so far conducted over 4 million coronavirus tests, according to the health ministry.

Commenting on the COVID-19 tests in the US, Trump said: "We will be well over 20 million tests. Remember this, when you test more, you have more cases.

"I say to my people every time we test; you find cases because we do more testing. If we have more cases, if we wanted to do testing in China or in India or other places, I promise you there would be more cases... you are doing a fantastic job in getting out the swabs".

Puritan is one of the only manufacturers in the world producing the high-quality medical swabs that are crucial for rapid testing.

"And every swab you make at Puritan is proudly stamped with the beautiful phrase made in the USA."

"Thanks to the testing capacity that you are making possible, our country is reopening and our economy is recovering like nobody would've thought possible," he said.

Referring to the latest monthly employment numbers, Trump said that the economy is now back on track.

"We absolutely shattered expectations, and this is the largest monthly jobs increase in American history, think of that; that's a long time.

"I think it's more than double or about double of what our highest was before so this is the largest monthly job increase in American history. And we're going to have a phenomenal next year. We're going to have a tremendous couple of months prior to the election on November 3 very, very important date," the president said.

Seeking re-election for his second consecutive term, Trump is pitted against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in November 3 presidential elections. Most of the opinion polls shows that Biden is several points ahead of Trump.

"It's going to be a very important election because the only thing that can screw it up is if you get the wrong president and they raise your taxes, and they open up your borders so that everybody pours into our country," Trump said.

Reiterating that he has built a strong economy in the last three years, Trump vowed to bring the economy back on track, which has been badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic.

Describing the fight against coronavirus as the greatest national and industrial mobilisation since the World War II, Trump said that his administration has marshaled the full power of the US government and US industry to defeat the invisible enemy.

"It is indeed an enemy. It came from China, should have been stopped in China. They didn't do that," he alleged.

The administration, he said, has delivered over 1.5 billion pieces of personal protective equipment to doctors and nurses on the front lines. "We slashed the red tape to speed up the development of vaccines. And vaccines are coming along incredibly well, wait till you see, and therapeutics. And we partnered at private sector leaders such as Puritan to build the largest and most advanced testing capacity on the face of the earth, like this one," he said.

The Puritan factory in Maine, he said, quickly ramped up the production to produce nearly 20 million foam tipped swabs each month.

"Then in April, my administration invoked the Defence Production Act to help you scale up even more. Under a USD 75 million public-private partnership, Puritan will soon double production to 40 million swabs per month," Trump added.

New York, Jun 4: The Minneapolis police officer who used his knee to pin down George Floyd's neck before his death was the most experienced of the four officers involved in the arrest, with a record that included medals for bravery and 17 complaints against him, including one for pulling a woman out of her car during a speeding stop.

New details about Derek Chauvin and the other now-fired officers emerged Wednesday after prosecutors upgraded Chauvin's charge to second-degree murder and charged the others with aiding and abetting in a case that has convulsed the nation with protests over race and police brutality.

Heavily redacted personnel files show that Chauvin, a 19-year veteran of the force, was initially trained as a cook and served in the Army as a military police officer.

Eleven-year veteran and native Hmong speaker Tou Thao began as a community service officer and was the subject of six complaints.

The other two officers were relative newcomers to the department, including Thomas Lane, a former juvenile detention guard who did volunteer work with Somali refugees, and J. Alexander Kueng, who got his start in law enforcement by patrolling his college campus and a department store.

The files were notable for what they didn't include. Only one of the 17 complaints against Chauvin was detailed, none of the six against Thao were mentioned and there was no further detail about a 2017 excessive force lawsuit against Thao.

Records show that the 44-year-old Chauvin initially studied cooking before taking courses in law enforcement and doing two stints in the Army as a military police officer in the late 1990s, serving at Fort Benning, Georgia, and in Germany.

Chauvin became a Minneapolis police officer in 2001 and the lone reprimand in his file involved a 2007 incident when he was accused of pulling a woman out of her car after stopping her for going 10 mph (16 kph) over the speed limit.

Investigators found it was not necessary for Chauvin to remove the woman from the car and noted that his squad car video was turned off during the stop.

But Chauvin was also singled out for bravery. Files show he won two medals of valor, one in 2006 for being part of a group of officers who opened fire on a stabbing suspect who pointed a shotgun at them, and another in 2008 for a domestic violence incident in which Chauvin broke down a bathroom door and shot a suspect in the stomach.

He also won medals of commendation in 2008 after he and his partner tackled a fleeing suspect who had a pistol in his hand, and in 2009 for single-handedly apprehending a group of gang members while working as an off-duty security guard at the El Nuevo Rodeo, a Minneapolis nightclub.

Since his arrest, the former owner of the club, Maya Santamaria, said Chauvin and Floyd both worked as security guards there at various times but that she wasn't sure if they had known one another.

She said Chauvin was unnecessarily aggressive on nights when the club had a black clientele, quelling fights by dousing the crowd with pepper spray and calling in several police squad cars as backup, a tactic she called “overkill.”

Chauvin's wife, Kellie, a Laotian immigrant who became the first Hmong winner of the Mrs. Minnesota pageant, said shortly after his arrest last week that she intends to divorce him.

Before news of the upgraded charges, an attorney for Chauvin said he was not making any statements at this time. Lawyers for the others did not return messages seeking comment.

In cellphone video of the May 25 arrest of Floyd, Chauvin is shown pressing his knee onto Floyd's neck for more than eight minutes while Floyd cries out “I can't breathe” and eventually stops moving.

During much of the arrest, Kueng and Lane were helping Chauvin restrain Floyd. Thao was standing nearby keeping onlookers back.

According the complaint, at one point during the arrest, as Chauvin held Floyd down with his knee, Lane asked Chauvin twice whether they should roll Floyd over.

“No, staying put where we got him,” Chauvin replied, “I am worried about excited delirium or whatever,” Lane said. And Chauvin replied again, “That's why we have him on his stomach.” None of the three officers moved from their positions.

Lane joined the police early last year as a 35-year-old cadet — much older than most rookies — and became a full-fledged officer last December. He had no complaints in his file during his short time on the force.

On employment forms, the University of Minnesota graduate said he done volunteer work tutoring Somali youth and as a mentor helping at-risk elementary school students with reading and homework.”

Kueng, at 26 the youngest of the four officers, was also a recent recruit to the police force. He completed his year's probation just three months before the Floyd arrest.

His personnel file, which notes that he speaks, reads and writes Russian, did not include any commendations or disciplinary actions during his short time on force.

Kueng was a 2018 graduate of the University of Minnesota, where he worked part-time as part of the campus security force. He also worked nearly three years as a theft-prevention officer at Macy's.

Thao joined the police force part-time in 2008 while attending a community college. Before that, he worked as a security guard, a supermarket stocker and trainer at McDonald's.

City records show six complaints were filed against Thao, but there was no mention of that in the records released Wednesday. There also was no mention of a 2017 federal lawsuit accusing him and another officer of excessive force.

According to the lawsuit, Lamar Ferguson claimed that in 2014, Thao and his partner stopped him and beat him up while he was on his way to his girlfriend's house. The lawsuit was settled for $25,000 ___

Richmond reported from Madison, Wisconsin. Associated Press writer Scott Bauer in Madison and researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.

Huawei will be completely removed from the UK's 5G networks by the end of 2027, the UK government announced on Tuesday after a review by the country's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) on the impact of US sanctions against the Chinese telecommunications giant.

In the lead up to this complete removal of all Huawei kit from UK networks, there will be a total ban on the purchase of any new 5G kit after December 31, 2020.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the UK's National Security Council (NSC) chaired by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in response to new US sanctions against the telecom major imposed in May which removed the firm's access to products which have been built based on US semiconductor technology.

5G will be transformative for our country, but only if we have confidence in the security and resilience of the infrastructure it is built upon, said Oliver Dowden, UK Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

Following US sanctions against Huawei and updated technical advice from our cyber experts, the government has decided it necessary to ban Huawei from our 5G networks. No new kit is to be added from January 2021, and UK 5G networks will be Huawei free by the end of 2027. This decisive move provides the industry with the clarity and certainty it needs to get on with delivering 5G across the UK, he said.

The minister, who laid out the details of the UK's ban on Huawei in the House of Commons, said the government will now seek to legislate with a new Telecoms Security Bill to put in place the powers necessary to implement the tough new telecoms security framework.

By the time of the next election (2024) we will have implemented in law an irreversible path for the complete removal of Huawei equipment from our 5G networks, said Dowden.

The new law will give the government the national security powers to impose these new controls on high risk vendors and create extensive security duties on network operators to drive up standards, DCMS said.

Technical experts at the NCSC reviewed the consequences of the US sanctions and concluded that Huawei will need to do a major reconfiguration of its supply chain as it will no longer have access to the technology on which it currently relies and there are no alternatives which we have sufficient confidence in.

They found the new restrictions make it impossible to continue to guarantee the security of Huawei equipment in the future.

After a ban on the purchase of new Huawei kit for 5G from next year, the aim is to completely remove the Chinese vendor's influence on 5G networks across the UK by the end of 2027.

The DCMS said Tuesday's decision takes into account the UK's specific national circumstances and how the risks from these sanctions are manifested in the country.

The existing restrictions on Huawei in sensitive and critical parts of the network remain in place, it highlighted.

The DCMS said the US action also affects Huawei products used in the UK's full fibre broadband networks. However, the UK has managed Huawei's presence in the UK's fixed access networks since 2005 and we also need to avoid a situation where broadband operators are reliant on a single supplier for their equipment.

As a result, following security advice from experts, DCMS is advising full fibre operators to transition away from purchasing new Huawei equipment. A technical consultation will determine the transition timetable, but it is expect this period to last no longer than two years.

The government said its new approach strikes the right balance by recognising full fibre's established presence and supporting the connections that the public relies on, while fully addressing the security concerns.

It stressed that its new policy in relation to high risk vendors has not been designed around one company, one country or one threat but as an enduring and flexible policy that will enable the UK to manage the risks to the network, now and in the future.