|
|
|
|
|
WHO promises analysis of Ebola response, won’t comment on flaws
Govt to open talks with democracy protesters on Oct 21
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Anxious wait for girls after ‘deal’ with Boko Haram
NY restaurant declined Obama’s credit card
Top-secret space plane lands on California coast
|
|
WHO promises analysis of Ebola response, won’t comment on flaws
Geneva, October 18 The WHO said in a statement that it would not comment on an internal document cited in an Associated Press story on Friday, saying it was a first draft that had not been fact-checked and was "part of an on-going analysis of our response". "We cannot divert our limited resources from the urgent response to do a detailed analysis of the past response. That review will come, but only after this outbreak is over," the organisation said. The WHO has been widely criticised for its slow response to the epidemic and its early reassurances, despite repeated public warnings from the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, which was leading the fight against the virus on the ground. Ebola has killed at least 4,546 people in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the WHO said on Friday. However, with at least half the cases going unreported and a 70 per cent fatality rate, by WHO estimates, the true toll is probably more than 12,000. There is no sign of a slowdown in the outbreak, which was first confirmed in May but not declared to be an international public health emergency by WHO until August 8. WHO Director General Margaret Chan has defended her handling of the epidemic. But the internal document cited by AP said experts should have realized that traditional containment methods wouldn't work in a region with porous borders and broken health systems. "Nearly everyone involved in the outbreak response failed to see some fairly plain writing on the wall," the document said. It also said WHO bureaucracy was also to blame, with WHO's Africa head, Luis Sambo, appointed by African member countries, not by Chan. Sambo's tenure is ending at the end of this year. — Reuters Now, TV series on ‘Ebola virus’
Director-producer Ridley Scott and producer Lynda Obst will be developing TV series for Fox on the deadly pathogen, Ebola virus, which will be based on Richard Preston's 1994 non-fiction best-seller ‘The Hot Zone’. Pak sets up screening facility
Pakistan has set up a special counter at the international airport in the capital Islamabad to screen passengers for the deadly Ebola virus. The measure was taken just days after the officials of WHO met Pakistani health officials. |
||
|
Govt to open talks with democracy protesters on Oct 21
Hong Kong, October 18 The city's leader Leung Chun-ying made a dramatic U-turn on Thursday as he announced a resumption of talks with the Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS), one of the groups leading the protests, after abruptly pulling out of discussions a week earlier. "Right now we are planning that it will take place on the afternoon of Tuesday, October 21," Leung's deputy Carrie Lam told reporters today. Lam said the talks would be focused on constitutional reform. There was no immediate response from protesters, who have held sit-ins at three major intersections causing significant disruption to a city usually known for its stability. Demonstrators are calling for Beijing to grant the former British colony full democracy and for Leung to resign. Beijing insists that candidates for the 2017 vote must be vetted by a loyalist committee-and Leung warned that China's Communist authorities have no intention of backing down. Violent clashes took place late Friday night where police used batons and pepper spray against protesters shielding themselves with umbrellas on a normally busy road in the Mongkok region of the city. — AFP
|
||
|
Anxious wait for girls after ‘deal’ with Boko Haram
Kano (Nigeria), October 18 The deal reportedly included the release of the 219 girls whom the extremists seized from their school in April in a case that drew global outrage and sparked a #BringBackOurGirls campaign that included the likes of US First Lady Michelle Obama and Pakistani Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai. "Chibok was thrown into a joyous mood yesterday with people prancing and jumping with happiness when the news was aired on the radio," Enoch Mark told AFP from the town where the girls, including his daughter and two nieces, were kidnapped. But Boko Haram's leader has yet to comment on the deal and a precedent of previous government and military claims about an end to the deadly five-year conflict and the fate of the missing teenagers have left the relatives cautious. "We hope it is not deception because we have some doubt," Mark said. — AFP A case that drew global outrage
The deal reportedly included the release of the 219 girls whom the extremists seized from their school in April in a case that drew global outrage and sparked a #BringBackOurGirls campaign that included the likes of US First Lady Michelle Obama and Pakistani Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai.
|
||
|
NY restaurant declined Obama’s credit card
Melbourne, October 18 The bill had to be paid by the First Lady, Michelle Obama, and the President added that the restaurant staff believed that there had been some fraud. As 100 million people had faced breaches last year, Mr. Obama has introduced a new data protection plan, in which all government-issued credit cards shall have an internal chip that would replace the old magnetic strips to reduce the potential for fraud and protect from identity theft. — ANI
|
|
Top-secret space plane lands on California coast Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, October 18 The plane spent nearly two years circling Earth on a classified mission. Known as the X-37B, it resembles a mini space shuttle. It safely touched down at 9:24 am on Friday, officials at Vandenberg Air Force Base said. Just what the plane was doing during its 674 days in orbit has been the subject of sometimes spectacular speculation. Several experts have theorised it carried a payload of spy gear in its cargo bay. Other theories sound straight out of a James Bond film, including that the spacecraft would be able to capture the satellites of other nations or shadow China's space lab. In a written release announcing the return of the craft, the Air Force only said it had been conducting "on-orbit experiments." The X-37B programme has been an orphan of sorts, bouncing since its inception in 1999 between several federal agencies, NASA among them. It now resides under the Air Force's Rapid Capabilities Office. The plane that landed today is one of two built by Boeing. This is the program's third mission, and began in December 2012. The plane stands 2.9 meters tall and is just almost 9 meters long, with a wingspan under 4.5 meters. It weighs 4,989 kilograms and has solar panels that unfurl to charge its batteries once in orbit. The Air Force said it plans to launch the fourth X-37B mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida, next year. — AP
|
||||||
London Los Angeles New York
|
||||||
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | E-mail | |
A top-secret space plane landed yesterday at an Air Force base on the Southern California coast.
The plane spent nearly two years circling Earth on a classified mission. Known as the X-37B, it resembles a mini space shuttle. It safely touched down at 9:24 am on Friday, officials at Vandenberg Air Force Base said.
