Free Republic

Hyderabad: COVAXIN, India's first vaccine against the novel coronavirus, developed by Bharat Biotech, Hyderbad-based biotechnology firm in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the National Institute of Virology (NIV), gets nod from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) to conduct Phase I and 2 human trials. According to the vaccine maker, human clinical trials of the experimental COVID-19 are scheduled to start across the country in July 2020. A note issued by the company says, "The SARS-CoV-2 strain was isolated in NIV, Pune and transferred to Bharat Biotech. The indigenous, inactivated vaccine was developed and...

Kuwait's Al-Jarida newspaper on Friday reported that Israel was responsible for a Thursday "accident" at an Iranian nuclear facility in Natanz. It is believed that the Natanz facility is used to enrich uranium. According to the Al-Jarida report, the explosion was caused by an "Israeli cyber attack" which targeted the computers which control the pressure gauges inside gas containers. Tehran has allegedly lost 80% of the uranium hexafluoride gas it needs in order to enrich uranium. The report also claimed that Israel is responsible for the Parchin blast which occurred last week. On Thursday, Iran's state news agency IRNA published...

New Delhi: The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the country’s apex body in the field, has found that consuming the drug hydroxychloroquine reduces the chances of getting infected with Covid-19. As a result, ICMR released an advisory Friday to expand the usage of HCQ — an anti-malarial drug — as a preventive treatment against the novel coronavirus. The conclusion has been drawn on the basis of three studies conducted by the ICMR. The advisory suggests surveillance workers, paramilitary and police personnel, as well as medical staff working in non-Covid hospitals and blocks to start consuming the pill as “preventive...

NEW DELHI—India has ordered telecom companies and other internet providers to stop access to 59 banned Chinese-origin apps, according to notices seen by Reuters, intensifying efforts to crack down on such businesses following a border clash between the nations. The Department of Telecommunications (DOT) said internet operators should “immediately block” access to such apps and their websites, warning of legal action if they fail to do so, according to notices issued late on June 30. The department’s order came after India’s government this week banned several Chinese apps, including ByteDance’s TikTok, Alibaba’s UC News, and Tencent’s WeChat, citing “threat to...

Vietnam and the Philippines on Thursday criticised China’s holding of military drills in a disputed part of the South China Sea, warning it could create tension in the region and impact Beijing’s relationship with its neighbours. Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said China’s exercises in the waters near the Paracel Islands were “highly provocative”, while Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry called them a violation of sovereignty that could be “detrimental” to Beijing’s relationship with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean). China scheduled five days of drills from Wednesday near the Paracels according to a June 27 announcement by the Hainan’s Maritime...

NEW YORK (AP) — California regulators have sued Cisco Systems, saying an engineer faced discrimination at the company's Silicon Valley headquarters because he is a Dalit Indian. India’s caste system long placed Dalits at the bottom of a social hierarchy, once terming them “untouchables.” Inequities and violence against Dalits have persisted for decades after India banned caste discrimination. The engineer worked on a team at Cisco’s San Jose headquarters with Indians who all immigrated to the U.S. as adults, and all of whom were of high caste, according to the lawsuit filed Tuesday by the California Department of Fair Employment...

Washington DC: Disgruntled retired and serving Chinese Army cadres, who are hurt by the treatment meted out by the government, can launch an "armed" anti-regime action against Xi Jinping's government, said Jianli Yang, a Chinese dissident and son of a former Communist Party leader. In an opinion piece in The Washington Post, Jianli Yang, the founder and president of Citizen Power Initiatives for China, writes that Beijing fears that the admitting that it had lost troops, that too more in number than its opponent, could lead to major domestic unrest that can even put the regime of Chinese Communist Party...

Signalling that it is all for peaceful restoration of status quo ante in East Ladakh but is also prepared for the worst case scenario, the Indian Army has deployed six T-90 missile firing tanks and top-of-the-line shoulder fired anti-tank missile systems in the Galwan Valley sector. The senior military commanders from India and China are meeting at Chushul on Tuesday to work out the de-escalation and disengagement process on mutual terms.\ The army's decision to deploy the T-90 Bishma tanks was taken after the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) had beefed up its positions on the river bed with armoured...

In 2008, as the Obama administration prepared to take control in Washington, retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey offered a list of bold predictions for the coming five years. Some of them bore out: The economy performed well globally despite the Great Recession, relations with Russia became more hostile without devolving into outright dysfunction, and the United States withdrew from Iraq right at the 36-month mark, which McCaffrey specified. Other predictions, such as a North Korean collapse, improved prospects for success in Afghanistan following a massive commitment of resources, and a nuclear breakout for Iran, never occurred.A year later, geopolitical analyst...

CHINA is flexing its muscles with a series of war games in the South China Sea in a show of force aimed at reinforcing its bid to dominate the disputed waters. China, which claims sovereignty over large areas of the South China Sea, has fortified numerous uninhabited islands there. Zhou Zhirong, a flight commander of the army aviation brigade involved in the training, said: "In the exercise, we conducted the training through day and night, set multiple kinds of targets on land, at sea and in the air, and stressed on the tactical coordination in continuous strikes by multiple projectiles....

The private-equity tycoon Stephen A. Schwarzman, backed by an array of mostly western blue-chip companies with interests in China, is creating a $300 million scholarship for study in China that he hopes will rival the Rhodes scholarship in prestige and influence. The programme, whose endowment represents one of the largest single gifts to education in the world and one of the largest philanthropic gifts ever in China, was announced by Mr. Schwarzman in Beijing on Sunday. The Schwarzman Scholars programme will pay all expenses for 200 students each year from around the world for a one-year master’s programme at Tsinghua...

Arizona Republican Governor Doug Ducey signing executive orders with one to shut down bars, movie theaters, water parks and tube rentals for one month starting at 8 pm local tonight (11 pm Eastern US time). Ducey also prohibiting "social gatherings" of 50 or more people..... Florida authorities moving to close some beaches for the July 4th weekend out of fear of the coronavirus. Republican Governor Ron DeSantis speaking of "widespread noncompliance" with coronavirus restrictions among reopened businesses in the state..... Republican Chief Justice John Roberts again joining the Supreme Court liberals in a 5-4 ruling. This time the decision involves...

India deployed surface-to-air missiles to its border with China in the Himalayan Mountains after a clash with Chinese troops left 20 Indian soldiers dead. The weekend deployment to Ladakh, in Kashmir state, was comprised of Indian-made Akash, Israeli-made Spyder and Soviet-era Pechora and OSA-AK missiles. India and China have increased troop presence and the number of fighter planes, helicopters, tanks and heavy artillery in the region since a June 15 incident between Indian and Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley. An Indian colonel was among the 20 people who died in fighting late Monday, authorities said, adding that they were...

Joint exercises by the Indian and Japanese navies in the Indian Ocean at the weekend suggest the two countries are drawing closer to face what they perceive as a common threat from China, analysts say. While joint military exercises involving the two countries are not uncommon, the latest activity comes amid tensions both are experiencing with Beijing. Indian and Chinese troops remain locked in a face-off along the disputed Himalayan border where 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a recent clash with their Chinese counterparts, while Japan and China are locked in a war of words over a Japanese move...

India's government has banned TikTok and dozens more Chinese-made apps it says are a danger to the country. In a statement, it said the apps were "prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order". In total, 59 different apps were banned - including popular messaging app WeChat. TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, is headquartered in Beijing and the app first became popular in the Chinese market before spreading worldwide. As it grew in popularity, it has faced accusations of links to the Chinese state, and of sending user data into China. Many of...

In this Friday, Oct. 26, 2018 file photo, released by Oman News Agency, Oman's Sultan Qaboos, left, receives Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Muscat, Oman. (Oman News Agency via AP, File) The “last decade,� notes James Sinkinson in a perceptive article, has seen a “sea change� in Israel’s ties with “key Arab states.� And that last decade is also the one in which Benjamin Netanyahu (again, after a stint in the 1990s) has been Israel’s prime minister — specifically since March 2009.True, conditions for enhanced Arab-Israeli ties have been propitious — particularly the behavior of regional bully Iran, a...

New Delhi: The Centre has blocked 59 apps with Chinese links that included the hugely popular TikTok, WeChat and UC Browser, amid a huge economic backlash against China following the June 15 clashes at Ladakh in which 20 Indian soldiers died in action. Sources said inputs from intelligence agencies suggested that the apps have been violating the terms of usage, compromising users privacy, and being used as spyware or malware. Within minutes of the announcement, the Indian government's TikTok account MyGov, which had 1.1 milliorn followers, was disabled. The move comes a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India...

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has miniaturized an electromagnetic railgun and developed pistol- and rifle-sized synchronous induction coilgun prototypes. These weapons’ technical capabilities were recently revealed to the general public for the first time in a demonstration session. Developed by the PLA Army Logistics University, the weapons, named Small Synchronous Induction Coilguns, come with pistol-sized, rifle-sized and land robot-mounted variants, according to a report by Chinese military news website js7tv.cn last week. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); The coilguns are essentially miniaturized, portable electromagnetic railguns so they can be used by single foot soldiers, the report said. To deal...

BENGALURU: Till last month, Mandya district had a record number of Covid-19 cases causing concern. But to everyone’s surprise, it has been recording an impressive turnaround despite continuing arrivals from hot spot states. Health officials claim that one of the reasons is because they are giving hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) to all those quarantined, including the Maharashtra returnees. They also quoted the government guidelines which permit prophylactic usage of HCQ (prevention). While the matter evoked mixed response from health professionals including concerns of side-effects on aged population as well as consent, top officials in the district declared it as a successful move,...

....A week later, Apple announced it would move a significant amount of its iPhone production out of China and into India. It took about a month since that announcement for Chinese soldiers to club their Indian counterparts to death with sticks wrapped in barbed wire. ................... Polls show that Australians, Filipinos, Kenyans, Indians, and a growing chorus of other nationals around the world have seen their opinions sour on China in recent history, not only as a product of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic but in response to China’s colonization projects, such as its illegal reclamation of the South China Sea...