Tag Archives: WorldNews

Trump says TikTok app will be banned in the US over security concerns

As per usual, no proof offered, claims to have power – next ban Twitter because it’s not “fair?”

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US President Donald Trump insists “I have that authority” to ban TikTok, a popular Chinese-owned video app that has raised national security and censorship concerns.

Japan’s Okinawa declares state of emergency as coronavirus cases soar

Governor Denny Tamaki on on Friday (July 31) asked residents to avoid non-essential outings following a record new daily addition to the southern island’s total cases, the majority of which have been detected among US forces based there.

“We’re seeing an explosive spread of infections. We declare a state of emergency” through August 15, Tamaki told reporters, adding hospitals were being overwhelmed by the surge.

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TOKYO (AFP) – Japan’s Okinawa region has declared a state of emergency and asked people to stay home for two weeks as the popular tourist destination sees an “explosive spread” of coronavirus cases.

Governor Denny Tamaki on on Friday (July 31) asked residents to avoid non-essential outings following a record new daily addition to the southern island’s total cases, the majority of which have been detected among US forces based there.

“We’re seeing an explosive spread of infections. We declare a state of emergency” through August 15, Tamaki told reporters, adding hospitals were being overwhelmed by the surge.

The measures are non-compulsory and without the aggressive enforcement measures seen in Europe, but similar requests from authorities have been widely respected in Japan.

Okinawa reported 71 new coronavirus cases on Friday, bringing its total to 395.

US forces account for 248 of those cases, according to the local government, which has created tensions with local officials, including the governor who has said he was “shocked” by the high numbers.

There are approximately 20,000 US Marines in Okinawa, along with thousands more troops from other US military services.

Their presence on the island is a longstanding sore spot, with many in the region arguing they bear a disproportionate share of the burden of hosting American forces.

Okinawa’s move comes as Tokyo called for restaurants, bars and karaoke parlours to shut at 10 pm from August 3 until the end of the month after the number of daily cases hit a new record.

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said the capital would have to issue a state of emergency if cases continued to rise.

Japan has so far escaped the worst of the epidemic, with around 35,200 infections and just over 1,000 deaths since the first case was detected in January.

The number of cases has been on the rise since the central government lifted a nationwide state of emergency in May.

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South Korea arrests head of religious sect linked to 36% of country’s coronavirus cases

Prosecutors allege the 89-year-old conspired with other sect leaders to withhold information from authorities during the peak of the outbreak among his more than 200,000 followers.

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Prosecutors allege the 89-year-old conspired with other sect leaders to withhold information from authorities during the peak of the outbreak among his more than 200,000 followers.

Millions lose everything as a quarter of Bangladesh is flooded

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DHAKA/NEW YORK • Torrential downpours have submerged at least one-quarter of Bangladesh, washing away the few things that count as assets for some of the world’s poorest people – their goats and chickens, mud houses, sacks of rice stored for the lean season.

It is the latest calamity to strike the delta nation of 165 million people. Only two months ago, a cyclone pounded the country’s south-west.

Along the coast, a rising sea has swallowed villages. And while it is too soon to ascertain what role climate change has played in these latest floods, Bangladesh is already witnessing a pattern of more severe and more frequent river flooding than in the past along the mighty Brahmaputra River, scientists say, and that is projected to worsen in the years ahead as climate change intensifies the rains.

“The suffering will go up,” said Mr Sajedul Hasan, the humanitarian director of BRAC, an international development organisation based in Bangladesh that is distributing food, cash and liquid soap to displaced people.

This is one of the most striking inequities of the modern era. Those who are least responsible for polluting Earth’s atmosphere are among those most hurt by its consequences. The average American is responsible for 33 times more planet-warming carbon dioxide than the average Bangladeshi.

This chasm has bedevilled diplomacy for a generation, and it is once again in stark relief as the coronavirus pandemic upends the global economy and threatens to push the world’s most vulnerable people deeper into ruin.

An estimated 24 per cent to 37 per cent of the country’s landmass is submerged, according to government estimates and satellite data. By Tuesday, according to the most recent figures available, nearly 1 million homes were inundated, affecting 4.7 million people. At least 54 have died, most of them children.

The current floods, which are a result of intense rains upstream on the Brahmaputra, could last through the middle of this month. Until then, Mr Taijul Islam, a 30-year-old sharecropper whose house has washed away, will have to camp out in a makeshift bamboo shelter on slightly higher ground.

At least he was able to salvage the tin sheet that was once the roof of his house. Without it, he said, his extended family of nine would be exposed to the elements.

His predicament is shared by the millions among those on the front lines of climate change globally.

The inequity is striking. One recent analysis has found that the world’s richest 10 per cent are responsible for up to 40 per cent of global environmental damage, including climate change, while the poorest 10 per cent account for less than 5 per cent.

  • IMPACT OF FLOODS

  • 1m

    Number of homes inundated.

    4.7m

    Number of people affected.

    54

    Death toll.

Another estimated that warming had reduced incomes in the world’s poorest countries by between 17 per cent and 30 per cent.

In Bangladesh, the floods began in June. Those who live along the Brahmaputra are no strangers to flooding. When the river starts swelling, work stops, the land erodes, people move to higher ground and wait for the waters to recede. They rely on their savings or aid to feed themselves.

This year was different. By the time the river flooded, in June, people were already running out of food, said Mr Hasan of BRAC.

Because of the lockdown, the people with jobs had all but stopped working. Remittances from relatives abroad, many of them newly unemployed, had dried up. In the countryside, people had begun to sell their goats and cattle at bargain prices. They had no food to eat.

The Brahmaputra is a fearsome, shape-shifting 3,840km river that erupts from the Tibetan Himalayas and spills into north-eastern India before merging with the Ganges in Bangladesh and emptying into the Bay of Bengal. Climate change, too, is altering the river’s fate.

The rains have become more unpredictable and the river is rising above dangerous levels far more frequently than it did before, according to 35 years of flooding data analysed by Mr A.K.M. Saiful Islam, a water management expert at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in Dhaka.

Meanwhile, more and worse floods loom and no matter what, Mr Islam said, the country will have to adapt. That requires money to dredge rivers, maintain embankments, improve drainage and offer aid to those who are repeatedly displaced and impoverished.

“People are losing whatever little they have,” said Ms Farah Kabir, the Bangladesh country director for ActionAid International, adding: “When and how are they going to be supported? When is the global community going to take responsibility?”

NYTIMES

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Analysis: We all want this to end. And right now, the solution actually resides with us

Something about the social contract between authority and how we see ourselves as a community has broken down during the pandemic, writes Virginia Trioli.

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Something about the social contract between authority and how we see ourselves as a community has broken down during the pandemic, writes Virginia Trioli.