Last Seen Blogs
redheadpussypics
finally got the boot. formally redheadpussypicsrds
bellago
b l u e
imissyou220308
Si la vida te da manzanas comételas
randomastomatos
My Ocarina Broke
americasmarauders
millie
Link
WASHINGTON: Democrat Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump in the state of Georgia, while Trump won North Carolina, Edison Research projected on Friday as it called the final two states in the U.S. presidential race.
Edison Research said Biden had won 306 Electoral College votes to Trump’s 232. Biden had surpassed the 270 Electoral College votes needed to capture the presidency on Saturday.
Earlier, President-elect Joe Biden had cemented his US electoral victory by capturing the battleground state of Arizona late on Thursday, but the official transition to his administration remains stalled as President Donald Trump had refused to accept defeat.
Read More: Biden cements victory by winning Arizona, but Trump still refuses to concede
Biden was projected to win Arizona after more than a week of vote counting from the Nov. 3 election, Edison Research had said. He had become only the second Democratic presidential candidate in seven decades to win the traditionally Republican state.
Biden’s win in Arizona had given him 290 electoral votes in the state-by-state Electoral College that determines the winner.
Biden had already cleared the 270 vote threshold to win the election, setting him on course to be sworn in on Jan. 20. Arizona’s 11 additional electoral votes put any longshot challenge by Trump even further out of reach.
The post With final races called, Biden ends with 306 Electoral College votes, Trump 232 appeared first on ARY NEWS.
https://ift.tt/3eUNHRM
0 notes
Link
Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned on Friday the Indian Chargé d’Affaires to register Pakistan’s strong protest over ceasefire violations by the Indian occupation Forces along the Line of Control (LoC), ARY News reported.
Unprovoked violation by occupation forces earlier today resulted in “shahadats of four innocent civilians and serious injuries to twelve others”, the foreign office said in its press statement.
The Indian side was, thus, called upon to respect the 2003 Ceasefire Understanding. It was advised to investigate this and other such incidents of deliberate ceasefire violations and to maintain peace along.
“Allow the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) to play its mandated role as per the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolutions,” the India delegate was urged.
The targeted areas in the most recent ceasefire violations were the numerous sectors that comprise Neelum Valley, Leepa Valley, Jhelum Valley, and Bagh Valley of Pakistan.
This deliberate provocation in utter disregard for human rights and all international obligations, Indian occupation forces targeted civilian-inhabited areas.
READ: Indian diplomat summoned to protest ceasefire violation
The foreign ministry said what India has done violates the 2003 Ceasefire Understanding, as well.
The Indian occupation forces have been continuously targeting civilian populated areas, along the LoC and the Working Boundary (WB), “with artillery fire, heavy-calibre mortars and automatic weapons”, it said.
“This year, India has committed 2737 ceasefire violations to date, resulting in 25 shahadats and serious injuries to 218 innocent civilians.”
The foreign office noted the egregious violations of international law reflect consistent Indian attempts to escalate the situation along the LoC and pose a threat to regional peace and security.
“By raising tensions along the LoC and the WB, India cannot divert attention from the grave human rights situation in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IIOJK).”
The post FO registers strong protest with Indian Chargé d’Affaires summoned over violations appeared first on ARY NEWS.
https://ift.tt/32HIOqq
0 notes
Link
PARIS/TOKYO/WASHINGTON: G20 countries have agreed for the first time on a common framework for restructuring government debt, in anticipation of the coronavirus crisis leaving some poorer nations struggling to pay and in need of relief.
With the COVID-19 pandemic straining the finances of some developing countries, G20 finance ministers said on Friday that more help was needed than a current temporary debt freeze, which will be extended until June 30, 2021.
Major creditors, including China, will be expected to follow the joint guidelines agreed by the G20, which lays out how debt deemed to be unsustainable can be reduced or rescheduled.
Non-governmental groups said the accord should have gone further by including middle-income countries and forcing private investors to accept cancellations.
The coronavirus crisis has exacerbated problems for the poorest countries, 50% of which are now in or at risk of debt distress and in an early sign of its impact, Zambia is on the brink of becoming Africa’s first COVID-era sovereign default.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva last week said African states alone faced a financing gap of $345 billion through 2023 to deal with the pandemic and its economic impact.
“I count on everyone’s constructive spirit to ensure swift and cooperative implementation of the common framework, with several countries already asking for debt treatments, in particular in Africa,” French Finance Bruno Le Maire told his G20 counterparts during an online meeting.
China, which accounted for 63% of overall debt owed to G20 countries in 2019, has been reluctant to acknowledge the need for outright cancellation or reduction of debts.
Under the new framework, creditor countries will negotiate together with a debtor country, which will be expected to seek the same treatment terms from private sector creditors.
The scheme borrows heavily from the rules established by Paris Club, an informal grouping of mostly rich country governments established in 1956, that until now was the only joint forum for negotiating debt restructurings.
The G20 finance ministers said in a joint statement that the new framework aims “to facilitate timely and orderly debt treatment” for countries eligible for the debt payment freeze put in place in April, but which only included private sector creditors on a voluntary basis.
“From now on all interested parties must ensure to implement the common framework. Debt transparency is extremely important,” Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso told reporters after a G20 conference call, describing the agreement as “historical”.
WAVE OF CRISES
The new framework also goes further by requiring all public creditors to participate, after China was criticised by G20 partners for not including debt owed to its state-owned banks.
Wary about debt write-offs, Beijing has defined the state-owned China Development Bank as a private institution, resisting calls for full participation in debt relief.
While China signed on to the framework, it remained unclear how it would implement the measures, one source familiar with the negotiations told Reuters.
Tim Jones, head of Policy at Jubilee Debt Campaign, said in a statement that the G20 announcement allowed for, but discouraged outright debt cancellation, and did not create a mechanism to compel private sector participation.
“This announcement falls far short of what is needed to tackle the wave of debt crises in poorer countries,” he said.
“With many countries facing debt crises and Zambia today on the verge of default, the G20 need to stop kicking the can down the road,” he added.
Eric LeCompte, a United Nations adviser on debt and executive director of Jubilee USA Network, said inclusion of private sector creditors was a significant step, but criticised the G20 for failing to include middle-income countries.
“Unfortunately, middle-income countries that will see some of the highest poverty increases due to the crisis, are excluded from this process, LeCompte said.
The Paris Club, which is organised by the French Finance Ministry, and G20 countries had already agreed last month to extend this year’s debt freeze under which they deferred $5 billion in debt servicing to help the world’s poorest countries.
G20 leaders are expected to endorse the common framework at a virtual summit meeting next week.
The post G20 strikes historic debt pact to help poorer states hit by COVID appeared first on ARY NEWS.
https://ift.tt/3ksVZ4t
0 notes
Link
BERLIN: German prosecutors have charged 12 men with plotting well-funded, armed attacks on mosques in which they planned to kill or injure as many Muslims as possible, authorities said on Friday.
“They aimed through attacks on mosques and the killing and wounding of as many Muslims as possible to create civil war-like conditions,” prosecutors said in a statement.
Prosecutors said the suspects, 11 gang members and one accomplice, had met regularly to plan, with all but one of them pledging to contribute thousands towards a 50,000-euro ($59,000) pot to finance the purchase of weapons.
The suspects, aged between 31 and 61, are all Germans and all but one of them has been detained. The twelfth is still at large, prosecutors in the southeastern city of Stuttgart said.
Another suspect had died while in custody. A prosecution official said he had killed himself and that there was nothing to indicate foul play.
The official said cash sums in the “mid four-digit range” had been found in suspects’ houses.
Germany has experienced a spate of right-wing attacks in recent years directed at minorities and those perceived to support them.
Members of the so-called National Socialist Underground were convicted in 2018 for a decade-long spree of murders of ethnic Turks. Last year, another right-wing extremist targeted a synagogue in Eastern Germany, killing two bystanders.
A suspected far-right sympathiser is on trial for killing conservative politician Walter Luebcke. Luebcke, a vocal supporter of Chancellor Angela Merkel, had called for refugees to be given the support and welcome they needed during the 2015 refugee crisis.
Far-right sympathisers have also been unmasked in the police and armed forces.
Far-right extremism is particularly sensitive in Germany because of its responsibility for the Nazis’ World War Two genocide of six million European Jews.
The post Twelve charged in Germany with plotting mosque attacks, murders appeared first on ARY NEWS.
https://ift.tt/3eTxv3a
0 notes
Link
STAR CITY: The Star City Closed Administrative Territorial Unit is barely an hour’s drive northeast of the Kremlin, but for decades the town never appeared on any maps. Only after the Soviet Union fell apart was its location revealed.
Even now, it is shrouded by forests, and behind its tall concrete walls lies the somber infrastructure of Russia’s legendary space program, and the Soviet-era apartment blocks that its cosmonauts and scientists call home.
Star City’s medical clinic stands in a wooded area just past a monument to Yuri Gagarin, who became the first man in space in 1961, and a soaring symbol of Cold War-era glory. To this day, flowers are often placed at his feet.
For around a decade, physician Natalya Lebedeva worked out of the Star City clinic as a paramedic. One autumn, she and another doctor were called out to the 12th-floor apartment of a young musician.
“We walk in and he’s in nothing but his underwear,” the other paramedic recalled. “And Natalya screams, ‘Grab him!’”
The young man was heading for the open window.
“If she hadn’t screamed, I wouldn’t have noticed. It didn’t even cross my mind that he might try to jump,” the paramedic said.
They wrestled the young man away from the ledge. “It’s good that he was wearing underwear, at least. Otherwise, I don’t know what I might have grabbed.”
Bleak tales peppered with black humor were part of everyday life for Lebedeva and her team as they navigated Russia’s often maddeningly bureaucratic and underfunded medical system.
So was the pressure, working in a close-knit and closed-off town, a place of rumor and recrimination, heroism and national pride.
“Star City is not just some city. The residents there are not easy,” said Irina Antropova, who worked with Lebedeva on the town’s ambulance service from 2006 until 2009. Fewer than 6,000 people live in the town’s dozen or so apartment blocks, many of them working for the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. “They are cosmonauts, the families of cosmonauts, military personnel.”
In the circular building housing the training center’s centrifuge, a 300-ton arm spins cosmonauts around an 18-meter radius until the force of gravity acting on their bodies is multiplied up to eight times, replicating the feeling of re-entering the atmosphere, of falling to Earth.
A NEW DISEASE
When the first whispers of a new disease in China reached Russia in January, Lebedeva, a doctor trained in neurology, was working as the head of Star City’s ambulance service.
The team was close, ambulance driver Vladimir Chizhenko said. “We all lived as one collective.”
But medical work in Star City wasn’t standard fare. The clinic’s head doctor, Olga Minina, once received a late-night call on her mobile father was cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev, and he was calling from space.phone from a worried father asking about the health of his child.
The town’s status, and the fame of its residents, ramped up the stress. Rumors spread fast in the insular town. “As it is a closed city, and outsiders do not have access to the territory, they all live there, stewing in this world of theirs,” Antropova said.
Lebedeva, 51, wasn’t married and lived alone. Private and independent by nature, friends said, she responded to the panopticоn in which she lived by keeping to herself.
“Of course, everyone was interested in her personal life,” Antropova said. “So she kept it all very secret.”
Lebedeva had moved to the Moscow region from her hometown in southern Russia after her mother died, and she began working as a Star City doctor in the 2000s.
In 2009, the town stopped being a military base. But its clinic, though now fully civilian, didn’t join the standard Russian healthcare system. Instead, in 2010 it entered the structure of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency (FMBA), a sparse network of medical facilities servicing Russia’s nuclear facilities and security services, the high-level scientific research sector and aerospace.
Under the FMBA, with its direct reporting line to the Kremlin, Star City’s clinic was a highly strung place.
Lebedeva was a buffer, shielding her team of drivers and paramedics, defending them in disputes, four members of the team said, recalling fierce arguments with the head doctor over hours and pay.
“Then we would spend time ‘resuscitating’ her after those meetings,” said a medical worker who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Minina, the head doctor, said that she and Lebedeva were close, even in the tense atmosphere of Star City.
“The residents who are on my watch, each one of them is a celebrity,” Minina said. “So, of course I can be quite tough, because for me – one misstep and it’s the firing squad.”
Minina recalled occasions when she too would shield Lebedeva and the ambulance team from complaints. They’d leave work together, exhausted, she said, but Lebedeva would still suggest they get coffee together, or go visit the church across town.
“We may have had our differences,” Minina said. “But she was a person that I could call at 4 a.m. and she’d get the job done. I trusted her very much.”
Antropova, the ambulance leader’s former coworker, said Lebedeva would take all the stress in her stride, saying, “Well, yes, well, yes, it’s not easy, but Irina, I’ll survive it.”
But even before the pandemic hit, she seemed different, ambulance driver Chizhenko said. She’d stopped joining the team on their lunch breaks, going for a walk instead, he said.
“I would tell her, why are you putting up with this? Leave this job. With your qualifications, you can always find another job. And recently, she had started to agree with me.”
On February 28, Chizhenko, tired of battles over pay, worked his last shift before handing in his notice. Two days later, the first confirmed case of the novel coronavirus in Moscow was discovered.
PREPARING FOR SPACE
That day, March 1, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy arrived in Star City to prepare, together with two Russian cosmonauts, for a six-month stint on the International Space Station.
As they trained, coronavirus cases in Russia crept up, and restrictions grew. “I hear the streets in Moscow are quiet and empty,” Cassidy told a specialist spaceflight magazine toward the end of the month. “Here in Star City, it’s kind of like this oasis in the woods.”
On March 23, the astronauts laid flowers by Gagarin’s statue, and the next day set off for Russia’s space launch facility in Kazakhstan. It would be Star City’s last public event before lockdowns began.
Within a week, the number of reported coronavirus cases in Russia had shot up four times to more than 1,500. Moscow and the surrounding region – including Star City – went into lockdown. Regulations were strict: Residents could leave their homes only to reach the nearest shop or pharmacy, or to walk pets within a 100-meter radius.
Hospitals and healthcare workers across Moscow began to prepare for a crisis.
“HE WARNED US”
Raisa Ketseleva, daughter of Star City ambulance driver Victor Ketselev, 59, said her father had planned to be on holiday in Belarus in April.
“When this whole pandemic started … Dad had a big meeting at work and they said that it would reach their facility, too,” she said. So he canceled his trip. “He said: ‘I’m not going to abandon my colleagues. I will stay and work.’”
Ketseleva said that at first, she didn’t understand how serious the pandemic was. Many friends simply didn’t believe the coronavirus was real. “They didn’t show us that sort of thing” on state TV. Her father, though, “understood that it was an illness that could end in death. He warned us.”
He also told her that despite his ambulance work, the only protective equipment he had was a basic face mask.
Lebedeva was keenly aware of the danger facing her team. “She was very anxious about her work, about her department, about us … and members of our families, because all this fell on her shoulders,” her deputy, senior paramedic Marina Izmaylova, recalled.
Lebedeva began to lobby for staff to have access to protective gear and coronavirus tests, former coworker Antropova said.
“They were not being tested at the start of April,” Antropova said Lebedeva told her at the time. “The head doctor was refusing to test them, because if anyone tested positive, they would have had to put everyone” on quarantine. And if that happened, Star City would be left without medical care.
Head doctor Minina, however, painted a different picture: She said she personally secured 200 test kits – hard to come by at the time – from a research institute in Moscow. But there were guidelines and systems in place, and it was too early to test staff when there were no confirmed cases in the town, she said.
Some protective gear, earmarked for pandemic response, had been provided by the FMBA, and the team had far better kit than in neighboring clinics. Still, Minina said, she searched hard for additional supplies, amid a “super deficit” of masks on the market. In a statement, the FMBA said Star City’s clinic was provided with sufficient PPE for visits to patients with suspected COVID-19 and that testing of staff began March 25.
On April 2, the problem of testing and protective equipment blew up into an argument in the Star City clinic, said a doctor at the clinic who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Everything started boiling there,” the doctor said.
THE VIRUS REACHES STAR CITY
On April 11, on the eve of Star City’s annual celebration of Gagarin’s liftoff into space, ambulance driver Ketselev developed a sore throat.
On April 13, his temperature began to rise, his daughter said.
On April 15, his colleagues from the Star City clinic showed up to do a coronavirus test. A top Gagarin Training Center official had just tested positive, and mass testing of clinic staff had begun.
The next day, Ketselev’s test came back positive, his daughter said.
By that point, his shift partner had developed a cough. The partner’s wife and child were coughing, too, Ketselev’s daughter said. The third ambulance driver, a young man who had replaced Chizhenko when he quit, also fell ill, Chizhenko said.
On April 18, with his temperature soaring, Ketselev called Lebedeva and told her he was in agony. She said he should go to hospital, and after a long night searching for bed space, Ketselev was taken away in an ambulance. His daughter spent the next morning frantically ringing hospitals in the area, trying to work out where he might be.
By April 22, 27 staff members of the Star City clinic had tested positive for coronavirus, a letter sent to the town’s mayor on that date showed. So had 10 of their family members. Head doctor Minina, too, was in the ICU, with damage to 75% of her lungs, she said.
In the letter, cardiologist Svetlana Zakharova, who had taken over from Minina, asked the mayor to press the Moscow region health ministry for support.”The organization of medical support for the population of the Star City Closed Administrative Territorial Unit has become exceptionally difficult, especially the provision of emergency medical care,” according to the letter, seen by Reuters.
“At that point … we were truly fighting for our lives,” said senior paramedic Izmaylova, who was also hospitalized with severe COVID symptoms.
On April 20, Lebedeva was hospitalized in Moscow after testing positive.
BEFORE LIFTOFF, A CLOSE ENCOUNTER
In the days before the virus started to spread in Star City, the three astronauts were preparing for liftoff at the Russian cosmodrome in Baikonur.
On the morning of April 9, liftoff day, the three men, dressed in their white spacesuits, met with Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Russian space agency. They also met with Evgeny Mikrin, deputy head of RSC Energia, which had built the Soyuz rocket they were about to take.
The astronauts spoke with the officials through a wall of glass, a quarantine measure. They walked out to the launchpad without the traditional crowds of well-wishers lining their way. At 11:05 a.m. Moscow time, they blasted into space.
Two days after returning from the liftoff, rocket designer Mikrin, 64, started to feel unwell. A coronavirus test came back positive.
On April 12, Andrey Voloshin, a pilot and Gagarin Training Center official, also tested positive, a test results message seen by Reuters showed, becoming Star City’s first confirmed case. He had not attended the liftoff, but had met the party returning from Baikonur, Star City Mayor Evgeny Barishevsky said.
By the end of the month, 10 employees of the Gagarin Training Center had tested positive, local authorities reported. The space agency said 173 employees of Russia’s overall aerospace industry were sick, and six had died.
Mikrin would die of the disease on May 5. President Vladimir Putin wrote a short statement expressing his condolences online.
A spokesman for the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, said that the liftoff group had tested negative immediately before and after the trip to Baikonur. Although tests were known to be unreliable in those early days, he said, there was no concern because strict quarantine measures had been followed throughout the liftoff.
Still, within weeks of Russia’s first confirmed case, the coronavirus had penetrated the closed walls of Star City and crossed the high-security gates of its cosmonaut training center. It had radiated across Russia’s revered space program during a moment of international attention and national pride, and had, potentially, come within an inch of glass away from traveling to space in a cosmonaut.
THE SEARCH FOR SOMEONE TO BLAME
In Star City, with the clinic in the grip of the outbreak, a hunt was launched for someone to blame, the doctor at the clinic said.
“They wanted to blame us, that it was us that infected them, not the other way around,” the doctor said of officials with the space program. “They wanted to blame the doctors.
“And then they started coming down hard on [Lebedeva], claiming she fell ill, infected everyone,” the doctor said.
Head doctor Minina said she didn’t know of any probe into the outbreak at the time; she herself was already in the hospital. But she said that reports had spread widely around the town blaming Lebedeva for rocket designer Mikrin’s positive test – despite the fact that he wasn’t a resident, and the two had had no contact at all. But the rumor was there.
A Roscosmos spokesman said he recalled some talk of accusations of negligence at the time, but it did not come from the space agency. “We did not initiate [any investigation] … nor add to any rumors,” he said. That wouldn’t even be within the agency’s purview, he said.
According to the Gagarin Training Center, responding to a request for comment, the center had no issues with the Star City clinic’s work at all.
Lebedeva phoned several colleagues and close friends from her hospital bed, four people said. She had been admitted to the central FMBA hospital #83 in Moscow.
Her illness wasn’t severe. “Her temperature was a little over 37 degrees,” or 98.6 Fahrenheit, and “her lungs were affected only to a small degree,” her friend Antropova said.
During several calls from the ward, Lebedeva repeatedly said that she was being blamed for being the source of the outbreak, a friend said. “She called me and said … ‘I am going to be jailed. It’s the end for me.’”
“I said … ‘How were you supposed to have prevented this, how? How? Come on. What are you, God?’” the friend recalled.
But Lebedeva was in tears. She said she had been contacted by investigators from the police.
Ketseleva, the ambulance driver’s daughter, said that some weeks later, Star City police officer Maxim Statsenko visited her at home. He refused to disclose what he was investigating, she said. “But I asked him questions, of course, and I understood that they were searching for who fell sick first.”
Reuters called Officer Statsenko to ask him about Lebedeva and his investigation. “I don’t know anything,” he said, and hung up.
In a statement, the FMBA said: “The detection of COVID-19 among the employees of [the Star City clinic] led to an internal audit by the management of the FMBA’s interregional directorate #170. No charges were brought against N.V. Lebedeva as a result of the audit. The management of the FMBA and the [Star City clinic] also had no issues with the work of N.V. Lebedeva.”
Star City doctors criticized the idea of blaming anyone at all during a pandemic or searching for who infected whom. “We did everything by the book,” head doctor Minina said. “I’m a doctor, not a ballerina. I got sick because I was on the front line.”
On April 23, ambulance driver Ketselev was hooked up to a ventilator. Chances of recovery for patients on a ventilator were known to be low.
From her hospital bed, Lebedeva wrote a WhatsApp message to Minina: “I have understood that this is the virus of panic and fear.”
A FALL TO EARTH
Lebedeva was last active on WhatsApp at 00:21 on Friday, April 24, said a friend and former colleague at the Star City clinic, Natalya Zhernakova.
That day, several friends couldn’t reach her by phone. They began calling the FMBA hospital, friend Antropova recalled, but “the hospital told them that all information about Lebedeva was ‘closed.’”
On Saturday, Lebedeva’s friends contacted the Star City clinic ambulance service, Antropova said. “And her colleagues already… They had already received the information,” Antropova said, her voice breaking.
“They had been told that Natalya … had committed suicide.”
She had fallen from the window of the Moscow hospital’s coronavirus ward and died from her injuries, a television channel reported.
The FMBA released a statement on April 27: “On April 24, 2020, as the result of an unfortunate accident, Natalya Lebedeva tragically died.”
The word “accident” angered many of Lebedeva’s friends, who believe she committed suicide out of desperation.
Responding to a request for comment, the FMBA said her death was a tragic event and that law enforcement officials have opened an investigation.
With no confirmation of the manner of Lebedeva’s death from the FMBA, the town stewed.
“They’ll cover it all up, because it’s space. Serious people are involved,” the doctor at the clinic said. “That’s why they wanted to blame it all on the ambulance service.”
A week after Lebedeva’s death, Ketseleva was told that her father, the ambulance driver, had died. Her mother was left to grieve alone and in quarantine for another month.
Ketseleva was sent a video, seen by Reuters. The person recording it walks through the empty corridors of Star City’s clinic. Benches are cordoned off with red-and-white hazard tape. At reception, the camera turns a corner.
There, under a bouquet of flowers, stand portraits of Ketselev and Lebedeva, a black ribbon on each.
SWAN SONG
In early May, a funeral cortege traveled slowly through Star City, followed by two ambulances with sirens on throughout. The coffin for Lebedeva, whose surname is derived from the Russian word for swan, lebed, was white.
Star City resident Dmitry Saraev and others wrote on social media of watching from their windows. “This mourning escort became Natasha’s swan song, performed not by her but by her staff and vehicles,” Saraev wrote.
Star City ambulance dispatcher Tatyana Krivushina, 65, fell sick soon after her mother, who died in late May. Krivushina died on June 6.
In the last days of August, the head of the FMBA, Veronika Skvortsova, visited Star City. Pulling up in a black Mercedes, she toured the Gagarin Training Center, posing for a photograph in front of а Soyuz rocket training simulator.
Skvortsova also toured the Star City clinic. Among her festive welcome party was Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space.
Skvortsova talked to doctors and inspected the clinic’s equipment, an official video showed. In the 2.5-minute clip, the outbreak at the clinic wasn’t mentioned.
At one point on her tour, Skvortsova visited the clinic’s reception area. A press photo shows her standing in the corner by a noticeboard.
Behind her is the table on which the memorial bouquet was placed next to the framed photographs of Ketselev and Lebedeva. By the time of the official visit, the flowers and the portraits were gone.
The post The woman who fell from the sky appeared first on ARY NEWS.
https://ift.tt/3kwIHUq
0 notes
Link
WASHINGTON: President-elect Joe Biden cemented his US electoral victory by capturing the battleground state of Arizona late on Thursday, but the official transition to his administration remains stalled as President Donald Trump refuses to accept defeat.
Biden was projected to win Arizona after more than a week of vote counting from the Nov. 3 election, Edison Research said. He becomes only the second Democratic presidential candidate in seven decades to win the traditionally Republican state.
Biden’s win in Arizona gives him 290 electoral votes in the state-by-state Electoral College that determines the winner.
Biden had already cleared the 270 vote threshold to win the election, setting him on course to be sworn in on Jan. 20. Arizona’s 11 additional electoral votes put any longshot challenge by Trump even further out of reach.
Biden also holds a lead of more than 14,000 votes in the uncalled state of Georgia, nearly certain to survive a manual recount. Nationally, Biden is winning the popular vote by more than 5.3 million votes, or 3.4 percentage points.
Trump, a Republican, has claimed without evidence that he was cheated by widespread election fraud, but his legal challenges have failed in court and state election officials report no serious irregularities.
In order to stay in office for a second term, Trump would need to overturn Biden’s lead in at least three states, having failed to find evidence that could do so in any of them. States face a Dec. 8 “safe harbor” deadline to certify their elections and choose electors for the Electoral College, which will officially select the new president on Dec. 14.
Trump’s refusal to accept defeat has stalled the process of transitioning to a new administration. The federal agency that releases funding to an incoming president-elect, the General Services Administration, has not yet recognized Biden’s victory.
Biden’s pick for White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, told MSNBC on Thursday that starting the transition is particularly crucial now, as the Biden administration will inherit a coronavirus vaccination campaign as soon as he takes office.
“The sooner we can get our transition experts into meetings with the folks who are planning a vaccination campaign, the more seamless the transition to a Biden presidency from a Trump presidency can be,” Klain said.
Regardless of the impediments, Biden will sign a “stack” of executive orders and send high-priority legislation to Congress his first day in office, Klain said.
“He is going to have a very, very busy Day One,” Klain said, citing a return the to Paris accord on climate change, immigration reform, strengthening the “Obamacare” healthcare law and environmental protection as issues Biden would address on Jan. 20.
The post Biden cements victory by winning Arizona, but Trump still refuses to concede appeared first on ARY NEWS.
https://ift.tt/38aUg1h
0 notes
Link
ALEXANDER COUNTY: The incident of a bridge collapse was recorded by news crew during live TV reporting in Alexander County of North Carolina hit by disaster rainfall.
At the time of the collapse, FOX 46 reporter Amber Roberts was reporting on significant flooding near the Hiddenite Bridge in Alexander County when a portion of the bridge broke off and fell into the raging waters. The news crew managed to move off of the bridge to a safe location.
North Carolina is hard hit with heavy rainfall Thursday while the Alexander County recorded more than 10 inches of water Thursday and reported at least 50 roadways that have been compromised, as well as four bridges that have washed away, according to Fox8.
A 1-year-old baby and an adult went missing in the county as raging floodwaters destroyed multiple homes. The body of a person was discovered inside a camper Thursday afternoon in Alexander County and a second person died in a car accident on Hopewell Church Road in Gwaltneys.
Moreover, two more bodies were located Thursday afternoon at Hiddenite Family Campground. Details surrounding the circumstances of their deaths have not yet been released.
An additional 1-3 inches of rain is possible, along with higher totals, especially east of Charlotte, North Carolina, if the front slows even more. The rain is expected to clear by Thursday evening.
The post Bridge collapses during live TV report appeared first on ARY NEWS.
https://ift.tt/36vGxzF
0 notes
Link
WASHINGTON: Senior US federal and state election officials said Thursday that there was “no evidence” that votes were lost or changed, or voting systems corrupted, in the presidential election.
The officials, responsible for election security across the country, rejected claims made by President Donald Trump and Republicans that fraud and lost ballots led to his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in last week’s election.
“The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history,” they said in a statement.
“There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised,” they said.
“While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections, we can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should too.”
The statement was issued by the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council, a public-private umbrella group under the primary federal election security body, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
It was signed by the heads of the National Association of State Election Directors and the National Association of Secretaries of State — the officials who manage elections at the state level — and by the chairman of the US Election Assistance Commission.
It came hours after Trump retweeted a baseless claim that an election equipment maker “deleted” 2.7 million votes for him nationwide and switched hundreds of thousand from him to Biden in Pennsylvania and other states.
It was the latest in a series of bogus assertions Trump and Republicans have put forth in order to reject Biden s victory.
The company, Dominion Voting Systems, and the Pennsylvania Department of States flatly denied Trump s claims.
The statement from the election security officials also came amid reports that Trump could fire the head of CISA, Chris Krebs, who has made a strong effort to stifle unsupported allegations of fraud that have surfaced while the votes have been counted around the country.
Despite that, rumors and conspiracy theories of a corrupted vote that allegedly “robbed” Trump have flooded the internet, and Republicans and the Trump campaign have filed multiple lawsuits around the country claiming irregularities.
So far none have been substantiated in court.
The statement said that election officials across the country are currently “reviewing and double-checking” their state and local results prior to certifying the numbers.
“When states have close elections, many will recount ballots. All of the states with close results in the 2020 presidential race have paper records of each vote, allowing the ability to go back and count each ballot if necessary,” the officials said.
The post US presidential election declared most secure in country’s history appeared first on ARY NEWS.
https://ift.tt/2IpTSS6
0 notes
Link
A helicopter with the US-led Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) in the Egyptian Sinai crashed on Thursday near the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, killing eight members of the peacekeeper force, the MFO said.
Those killed were six Americans, a French national and a Czech national, all of them military service members, the MFO said in a statement. It added that one American MFO member survived and was medically evacuated.
An official briefed on the incident, and who could not be identified by name or nationality, told Reuters it was an accident caused by mechanical failure.
The MFO was installed to monitor the demilitarization of the Sinai under the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace accord. It has decreased in size in recent years as the neighbouring countries tightened security cooperation against Islamist-led Sinai insurgents.
However, both Israel and Egypt have, in the past, opposed proposals by Washington to reduce U.S. participation in the MFO, whose website lists some 452 Americans among the force’s 1,154 military personnel.
Cairo sees the MFO as part of a relationship with Israel that, while unpopular with many Egyptians, has brought it billions of dollars in U.S. defence aid, sweetening the foreign-enforced demilitarisation of its sovereign Sinai territory.
For Israel, the MFO offers strategic reassurance in a region where allegiances can shift. In a statement of condolence, Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi described the MFO as “extremely important … to maintaining security and stability”.
The MFO statement said the helicopter was on a “routine” mission when it crashed. The Israeli military said in a statement it had offered to send a rescue team to the scene.
According to its website, the MFO draws personnel from 13 countries and covers an area of more than 10,000 square kilometres (3,860 square miles) in the Sinai.
The post Eight peacekeepers, including six Americans killed in Sinai helicopter crash appeared first on ARY NEWS.
https://ift.tt/3nixsku
0 notes
Link
TOKYO: For a mask producer in Japan, the transition from President Donald Trump to Joe Biden has been a smooth one, as it switches production to masks of the Democrat president-elect.
Ogawa Studios, a small producer in Saitama, north of Tokyo, starting making rubber Biden masks earlier this year but since his election win last week, it has ramped up production.
In October alone, 1,000 Biden masks were sold for 2,400 yen ($22.81) each, and the company has set a goal of producing a further 25,000 by year’s end.
Meanwhile, the Trump masks, which cost the same, have been relegated to the bottom of the company��s product line.
Ogawa Studio manager Koki Takahashi said it was much easier to produce a caricature of Trump, whose mask appears to be shouting, than it was for Biden.
Biden’s caricature is much more low-key, with a gentle smile.
“We didn’t have any background information on Biden so it was hard to grasp his character,” said Takahashi.
“But we especially paid close attention to the corner of his eyes and his mouth to make it.”
The real-life Biden continues to lay the groundwork for his administration, against the backdrop of a resurgence of COVID-19 cases across the United States, while Trump refuses to accept the election’s outcome.
The post Smooth transition: Mask maker dumps Trump, embraces Biden appeared first on ARY NEWS.
https://ift.tt/35lcvPE
0 notes
Link
WASHINGTON/WILMINGTON: President-elect Joe Biden will press on with building his governing team on Thursday, ignoring President Donald Trump’s refusal to accept defeat.
New records for coronavirus infections and hospitalizations ensured that the transition will be dominated by the response to the pandemic, which has accelerated since the Nov. 3 election. Trump remains in office until Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
On Wednesday, Biden, who has shrugged off Trump’s challenge to his victory, named long-time adviser Ron Klain as his White House chief of staff, his first major appointment.
Attention is now expected to shift to Biden’s picks for cabinet posts, though aides have so far given few clues about when announcements will be made.
On foreign policy, Antony Blinken, a diplomat and longtime confidant, is seen as a possible choice for Secretary of State or National Security Adviser.
Whoever is chosen for Treasury Secretary will have to cope with a recession and joblessness, as well as serving as the fulcrum to address wealth inequality, climate change and other issues.
Klain, who served as President Barack Obama’s “Ebola Czar” in 2014 during an outbreak of that virus in West Africa, is expected to take a leading role in the Biden administration’s response to the nationwide spike in COVID-19 cases.
The United States set records on Wednesday with more than 142,000 new coronavirus infections and nearly 65,000 hospitalizations, according to a Reuters tally. The death toll rose by 1,464, approaching the levels reached during a catastrophic first wave early this year.
In Klain, Biden brings in a trusted and experienced operative who also served as Vice President Al Gore’s top aide during Bill Clinton’s administration.
“He was always highly informed and his advice was always grounded in exceptional command of the policy process, the merits of the arguments, and the political and justice context,” Gore told Reuters.
As Biden’s chief of staff during the 2008-2009 financial crisis, Klain helped oversee the implementation of the $787 billion Recovery Act that boosted the then-cratering economy.
Meanwhile Trump has focused on efforts to overturn the election’s results in closely contested states, despite presenting no evidence of irregularities that could affect the outcome, and a skeptical reception from judges.
Since the election was called for Biden by major news organizations on Saturday, Trump has maintained a minimal public schedule, preferring instead to air his grievances on Twitter, and has not addressed the climbing virus caseload nationwide.
WORLD LEADERS CONGRATULATE BIDEN
Biden has claimed enough of the battleground states to surpass the 270 electoral votes needed in the state-by-state Electoral College that determines the presidency. He is also winning the popular vote by more than 5.2 million votes, or 3.4 percentage points, with a few states still counting ballots.
World leaders have recognized Biden’s victory, with Australia, Japan and South Korea joining the list of allies congratulating Biden in phone calls and reaffirming plans to form close ties with the president-elect.
China and Russia, however, have held off.
As Trump, the first U.S. president to lose a re-election bid since 1992, desperately tries to cling to power, Democrats and other critics have accused him of aiming to undermine public trust in the U.S. election system and delegitimize Biden’s victory through unproven, anecdotal claims of voter fraud.
He has also been pondering another run for the presidency in 2024. On Wednesday he endorsed a close ally, Ronna McDaniel, to remain in her job as the chair of the Republican National Committee – an unusual move for an outgoing president.
In the meantime, Trump’s 2020 campaign continued to fight a rearguard action, bringing a new lawsuit in Michigan, where Trump was losing by more than 148,000 votes, or 2.6 percentage points, according to Edison Research.
Judges have tossed out several Trump lawsuits, and legal experts say the litigation has no serious chance of changing the overall outcome.
“They’re looking at throwing up a hundred Hail Marys,” one Republican strategist with ties to the White House said, using a football term referring to a long, desperate pass at the end of a game by a losing team with only a slim chance of success.
The post #USElection2020: Biden ignores Trump to build team appeared first on ARY NEWS.
https://ift.tt/3mX3NwO
0 notes
Link
PARIS: People are becoming weary of the coronavirus pandemic but should remain vigilant and continue to take precautions while the world awaits a vaccine, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Thursday.
Eleven months into the pandemic that has killed more than 1.2 million people, derailed economies and turned daily lives upside down around the world, he said relying on promising but as-yet unproven vaccines was a risky bet.
“We may be tired of COVID-19 but it is not tired of us. European countries are struggling but the virus has not changed significantly, nor the measures to stop it,” Tedros told the Paris Peace Forum.
A recent resurgence in coronavirus infections has led many countries to adopt new lockdown measures to contain the spread of the virus and protect their creaking healthcare systems.
On Monday, US drugmaker Pfizer and German partner BioNTech SE said a vaccine they are developing was 90% effective against COVID-19, based on initial results from its large, late-stage trial
The results need to be confirmed by safety data.
“A vaccine is needed urgently, but we cannot wait for a vaccine and put all our eggs in one basket,” Tedros said on Thursday, repeating a call for any COVID-19 vaccine to be shared fairly with poor countries.
The post WHO chief says coronavirus is ‘not tired’, urges vigilance appeared first on ARY NEWS.
https://ift.tt/35xZBNe
0 notes
Link
EINDHOVEN: Dutch students have created a fully functioning electric car made entirely out of waste, including plastics fished out of the sea, recycled PET bottles and household garbage.
The bright yellow, sporty two-seater which the students named ‘Luca’, can reach a top speed of 90 kilometres (56 miles) per hour and has a reach of 220 kilometres when fully charged, the Technical University of Eindhoven said.
“This car is really special, because it’s made all out of waste”, project manager Lisa van Etten told Reuters.
“Our chassis is made out of flax and recycled PET bottles. For the interior we also used unsorted household waste.”
Hard plastics normally found in televisions, toys and kitchen appliances were used for the car’s body, while the seat cushions consist of coconut and horse hairs.
The car was designed and built by a group of 22 students in around 18 months, Van Etten said, as an effort to prove the potential of waste.
“We really hope that car companies will start using waste materials”, production team member Matthijs van Wijk said.
“It’s possible in many applications. More and more companies use waste or biobased materials in the interior, we want to show that it’s also possible to build a chassis out of it.”
The post WATCH: Students build electric car from recycled material appeared first on ARY NEWS.
https://ift.tt/3niTK5v
0 notes
Link
Italy, one of the European countries hit hardest by COVID-19, surpassed the one-million infections mark on Wednesday, leap-frogging Mexico to become one of the top 10 worst-affected countries globally, according to a Reuters tally.
The Italian health ministry said the country had registered 32,961 new cases over the past 24 hours, taking its total tally since the contagion first struck in February to 1.028 million.
The Reuters tally showed that top 10 countries accounted for over two-thirds of all the global coronavirus cases. The United States leads the list, which includes four other European countries besides Italy – Russia, France, Spain and Britain.
Italy has reported some 42,953 deaths so far, the health ministry said – the second-highest number in Europe after Britain. The country also has the highest fatality rate on the continent, at over 4.18%, the Reuters tally showed. By comparison, the United States has a 2.33% fatality rate.
In Italy, which became a global symbol of the crisis when army trucks were called in to transport the dead during the early months of the pandemic, daily average new cases are at a peak at more than 34,000 in the last seven days.
Deaths have been rising by more than 455 per day over the same period, but the rate appears to be picking up, with the health ministry reporting 623 COVID-related deaths on Wednesday – the highest figure since April 6.
Read more: Sinopharm says data ‘better than expected” from COVID-19 vaccine trials
For every 10,000 people in Italy, at least 170 are reported as COVID positive and over seven deaths are reported due to COVID.
More than 300,000 people have died of COVID-19 across Europe, according to a Reuters tally on Tuesday, and authorities fear that fatalities and infections will continue to rise as the region heads into winter despite hopes for a new vaccine.
With just 10% of the world’s population, Europe accounts for almost a quarter of the 1.2 million deaths globally, and even its well-equipped hospitals are feeling the strain.
More than 51.66 million people have been reported to be infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 1,276,397 have died, according to a Reuters tally.
The post Italy surpasses one million COVID-19 mark: Reuters tally appeared first on ARY NEWS.
https://ift.tt/3bESMdZ
0 notes
Link
HONG KONG/BEIJING: China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm) said on Wednesday the data from large-scale, late-stage clinical trials for its unit’s COVID-19 vaccine are “better than expected”.
Sinopharm’s unit China National Biotec Group (CNBG) has moved two vaccine candidates into Phase 3 clinical trials outside China in multiple countries including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt involving more 50,000 participants in total.
The trials are nearing their ends, Sinopharm said in a statement on Chinese social media WeChat.
It did not offer details on the better-than-expected data, or specify which vaccine candidate the data are generated from.
Earlier this month, Bahrain had granted emergency approval for the use of Sinopharm’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate on frontline workers.
The UAE in September authorised similar emergency use of the same vaccine for frontline workers at high risk of infection with the new coronavirus.
The post Sinopharm says data ‘better than expected” from COVID-19 vaccine trials appeared first on ARY NEWS.
https://ift.tt/2DDrjy7
0 notes
Link
ISLAMABAD: Iran’s foreign minister Dr Mohammad Javad Zarif called on Prime Minister Imran Khan in his two-day visit to Pakistan as they discussed on Wednesday prospects of bilateral interests and trade prospects, ARY News reported.
In the meeting wherein Pakistan-Iran relations were cherished and deliberated over, the PM expressed his condolences on the fatalities in Iran due to Covid-19 pandemic.
The PM said the smart lockdown strategy implemented in Pakistan alongside other steps taken to contain viral spread proved beneficial for Pakistan.
https://arynews.tv/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/PM-FM-Pakistan-Iran.mp4
Matters such as bilateral cooperation and economic relations between the neighbouring states were brought up in the scheduled meeting today, as well.
Reportedly, Iranian FM conveyed the message of their supremo to Pakistani premier expressing his interest in enhancing bilateral trade.
FM Zarif said Iran is interested in increasing the bilateral cooperation with Pakistan in some sectors.
On the other hand, both of them concurred that with peace in Afghanistan, which is contiguous to both the countries, the region will see rising economic cooperation and growing trade aspects.
READ: Pakistan committed to complete CPEC projects on time: PM Imran
Prime Minister Khan said there was no military solution to the Afghan conflict and noted efforts by Pakistan to contribute to the peace process in long-embattled Afghanistan. He maintained Pakistan will continue its support up until Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process has come to fruition.
Furthermore, the Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif, on behalf of his government, said their support to Pakistan for Kashmir cause remains unhindered. Both PM Khan and Iran’s FM noted that in order to maintain peace in the region, both countries will have to work together.
The post Pakistan, Iran pledge to strengthen bilateral cooperation appeared first on ARY NEWS.
https://ift.tt/3ngfKhu
0 notes
Link
KHAN YOUNIS: On the roof of an apartment block in one of Gaza’s most crowded cities, two lion cubs prowl among the water tanks and dine on slaughtered chickens as children take selfies.
It is a bizarre sight even in a war-scarred Gaza Strip that has become accustomed to the unaccustomed.
The 75-day-old male and female cubs, Fathy and Filisteen (Palestine), have become playthings for bored neighbours of their owner, bakery owner Naseem Abu Jamea, though animal experts expressed concern on hearing of the situation.
“It is my hobby, I was attached to them and I love to have them,” Abu Jamea, 27, told Reuters. “I hope one day I can have my own zoo.”
Abu Jamea said he got the cubs from a local zoo but declined to give further details.
As his nephews, brothers and neighbours’ children played with the animals, he dismissed the risks.
“When you raise them as babies, a harmony will grow between both of you and (they) will not hurt you,” he said.
However, Amir Khalil, a veterinarian who has led several trips to Gaza by the animal welfare organisation Four Paws to rescue mistreated zoo animals, said he was alarmed to hear about the cubs.
“I advise the Gaza authorities to take away those lions,” Khalil told Reuters by phone from Pakistan.
“At the age of six months a lion becomes more dangerous as his size gets bigger and his muscles become stronger.”
ANIMAL WELFARE
Khalil also feared for the cubs’ own welfare.
“Raising lions at home may deprive them of health, sufficient food and medical care and may result in acute health problems. Especially to the muscles, joints and bones,” he said.
Gaza’s zoos complain of a fall in visitor numbers, which harms their ability to feed and look after the animals properly.
Even before the coronavirus pandemic, they had to contend with an Israeli-led land, sea and air blockade, which controls the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza, a 360 sq. km coastal strip run by Hamas.
Asked about the lion cubs, Hassan Azzam, director of veterinary services at Gaza’s agriculture ministry, said they had received no complaints, but that the ministry intended to investigate.
“Palestinian law does not permit raising wild animals in people’s homes,” he told Reuters. “Wild animals must be kept in proper zoo houses.”
The lion cubs’ neighbours seemed untroubled.
“I am not afraid. On the contrary, we are proud that we have lions in our area,” said Wissam Al-Qarra.
The post Palestinian baker keeps lion cubs as pets on apartment roof appeared first on ARY NEWS.
https://ift.tt/3eWxX0E
0 notes