The coronavirus pandemic has underscored the need for the United States to move away from its reliance on communist China, Indian American Republican politician Nikki Haley said on Tuesday.
While Beijing has abused the free market in order to destroy it, America must harness the free market to protect our freedom and national security, Haley, a former Governor of South Carolina and US Ambassador to the United Nations said in an op-ed on Medium.
The United States, she said, should start by setting up stronger guardrails to prevent China from exploiting America's economic openness and punish it for its predatory actions.
It involves pushing back against Beijing's manipulation of international forums like the World Trade Organization. It means ensuring that our most important security-related industries  from essential medicine to semiconductors  have American-friendly supply chains, instead of depending on an authoritarian rival state, she wrote.
Americans, she wrote, have always ...

US should end reliance on China: Haley

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Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has been inaugurated for a second term amid increasing pressure from China on the self-governing island democracy it claims as its own territory.
Tsai represents the ruling Democratic Progressive Party which advocates Taiwan's formal independence, something Beijing says it will use force to prevent.
She won in a landslide last year after the repression of pro-democracy protests in the nearby Chinese semi-autonomous region of Hong Kong solidified public opinion in Taiwan against moves toward accepting rule by Beijing.
The sides split amid civil war in 1949 and Beijing has cut off ties with Tsai's government over her refusal to accept its demand that she recognize the island as a part of China.
Beijing's diplomats have shut Taiwan out of international gatherings such as the World Health Assembly and poached away its diplomatic allies while its military has boosted patrols and exercises aimed at intimidating the island's population.
Following Wednesday ...

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen inaugurated for a second term

Amidst global economic recession due to coronavirus, foreign investors have pulled out an estimated USD 26 billion from developing Asian economies and over USD 16 billion out of India, a latest Congressional report has said.
Foreign investors have pulled an estimated USD 26 billion out of developing Asian economies and more than USD16 billion out of India, increasing concerns of a major economic recession in Asia, independent Congressional Research Center said in its latest report on global economic effects of COVID-19.
In Europe, over 30 million people in Germany, France, the UK, Spain, and Italy have applied for state support, while first quarter 2020 data indicates that the eurozone economy contracted by 3.8 per cent, the largest quarterly decline since the series started in 1995, it said.
In the US, preliminary data indicated that the GDP fell by 4.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2020, the largest quarterly decline since the fourth quarter of 2008 during the global financial ...

Foreign investors pull out USD 26 billion from Asian economies; USD 16 billion from India

A document released Tuesday in a Canadian court details warning signs of paranoid behaviour and the stockpiling of guns and gasoline by the man who went on a rampage that killed 22 people in Nova Scotia last month.
In the document made public following an application by media organisations, seven witnesses who had encountered Gabriel Wortman told of his personality issues or recounted seeing some of his weapons at his clinic in Dartmouth and a property in Portapique that he dubbed the warehouse.
One witness described the now dead gunman as an abusive sociopath who kept a rifle by the fireplace that was described as "like a machine gun".
A former colleague told officers that Wortman was "paranoid" about the COVID-19 pandemic and added that he had experienced a mental breakdown while discussing a deed for a property in Portapique.
That witness was among those who said the killer talked about various types of guns, assault rifles and handguns.
The 40 pages offer glimpses of Wortman's ...

Document details Canada mass shooter's paranoia, weapons

The recent seizure by Cuban police of hundreds of sacks of onions was a big news item on state television, a warning to suspected hoarders and speculators who seek to benefit from harsher economic conditions during the pandemic.
The broadcast was also highly unusual because government-controlled media in Cuba rarely report on police raids and other operations.
Instead, in the last two weeks, state media have embarked on a campaign to show that there is zero tolerance for anyone attempting to cash in on the fallout from the spread of the new coronavirus.
The publicity campaign has also drawn criticism that suspects are not given due process, and highlighted problems with Cuba's state production of essential goods and mixed messaging on private enterprise.
It comes as the pandemic imposes even more distress and hardship on Cubans who were already used to shortages and long lines in their efforts to find basic necessities.
The onions were confiscated in Mayabeque province, and police ...

Cuba highlights campaign against hoarders during pandemic

The top UN official in Libya warned Tuesday that the war in the north African country will intensify, broaden and deepen because of increasing foreign intervention and the massive influx of weapons, military equipment and mercenaries to both sides.
Acting UN special envoy Stephanie Williams said the escalation will have devastating consequences for the Libyan people who are getting lost in the mix, their voices crowded out.
She urged the UN Security Council to apply consistent and credible pressure on those regional and international actors that are fuelling the conflict.
Williams' video briefing to the council came a day after forces allied with Libya's UN-supported government wrested control of a key military base on the outskirts of the capital Tripoli from eastern-based forces under commander Khalifa Hifter who have been trying to capture the city of two million since April 2019.
Loss of the al-Waitya airbase in Tripoli's southwestern desert reaches was a heavy setback for ...

UN official warns of escalating Libyan war citing foreigners

US births continued to fall last year, leading to the fewest number of newborns in 35 years.
The decline is the latest sign of a prolonged national baby bust that's been going on for more than a decade. And some experts believe the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on the economy will suppress the numbers further.
"This unpredictable environment, and anxiety about the future, is going to make women think twice about having children, said Dr Denise Jamieson, chair of obstetrics and gynaecology at Emory University.
The latest numbers were released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report, which is considered preliminary, is based on a review of more than 99% of birth certificates issued last year.
The CDC found the number of births fell about 1% from 2018, to about 3.7 million. Birth rates continued to fall for teen moms and for women in their 20s.
Aside from a one-year uptick in 2014, U.S. births have been falling every year since 2007, when a recession 

US births fall, and virus could drive them down more

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended his taking antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a line of defence' against coronavirus.
I think it's worth it as a line of defence and I'll stay on it for a little while longer. I'm just very curious myself, but it seems to be very safe, Trump told reporters at the White House, a day after he disclosed that he has been taking the drug to ward off the deadly infection.
The US president said the drug has gotten a bad reputation only because 'he was promoting it'.
"So, I am obviously a very bad promoter. If anybody else were promoting it, they would say this is the greatest thing ever," he said.
It is a very powerful drug I guess but it doesn't harm you and so I thought as a frontline defence, possibly it would be good, and I have had no impact from it," Trump said, adding that the antimalaria drug has received tremendous reviews from doctors all over the world.
There have been some great studies about it in countries like Italy, France ...

Hydroxychloroquine a 'line of defence' against virus, says Trump defending drug

Once dubbed as historic by him, US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he now feels differently' about the trade deal he signed with China earlier this year.
He said this while once again venting out his frustration with the Beijing leadership, accusing it of letting coronavirus spread.
Till Tuesday, over 92,000 Americans have died and 1.5 million tested positive for coronavirus that has globally killed around 320,000 people.
The US and China had signed a deal in January to end their 22-month-long trade war during which the two countries slapped tit-for-tat tariff hikes on products worth nearly half a trillion USD.
Under it, Beijing agreed to increase its purchase of US goods by USD 200 billion in 2020-2021.
I feel differently now about that deal than I did three months ago, Trump told reporters during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
We will see what all happens, but it's been a very disappointing situation. Very disappointing thing happened with China because the plague ...

Now, feel 'differently' about trade deal with China: Trump

One of Syria's wealthiest businessmen who is a cousin of President Bashar Assad said Tuesday the government has ordered the seizure of his assets and barred him from doing business with the state for five years, escalating a dispute that has been deeply mixed in family affairs.
The latest decisions against Rami Makhlouf come after weeks of highly publicized and unusual disputes over outstanding payments that the government is seeking from the country's largest telecommunication company, which he heads.
In an unprecedented move, Makhlouf took his grievances to social media early this month, challenging claims he owes the state any money and asking Assad to be the arbiter to prevent his business from collapsing.
Makhlouf, who was once a close Assad aide, posted several videos and statements on his Facebook page indicating that he has been isolated from the president and can only address him through social media.
Makhlouf said the government decree to confiscate his assets and those of ..

Cousin of Syria's Assad says state confiscates his assets

A Virginia family out for a ride to get a change of scenery after being holed up due to the coronavirus found nearly USD 1 million in two bags lying in the road.
David and Emily Schantz left their Caroline County home with their children last Saturday and drove their pickup truck over what they thought was a bag of trash, then stopped and picked it up as well as another bag nearby, news sources reported Tuesday.
The Schantzes tossed the bags in the back of their pickup truck and kept riding, according to Emily Schantz.
Only when the Schantzes returned home did they discover the bags contained money, she said.
Inside of the bag, there were plastic baggies and they were addressed with something that said 'cash vault,' Schantz told WTVR.
They contacted the Caroline County Sheriff's Office, which sent deputies to the home. The deputies took inventory and determined the money totalled nearly USD 1 million.
Caroline Sheriff's Maj. Scott Moser said authorities have since determined where the 

Virginia family out for ride finds nearly $1 million in road

Egypt has announced further anti-virus measures to follow Eid al-Fitr, the three-day festival that marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly says that starting May 30, the government will require people to wear face masks in public places, with violators fined 4,000 pounds (around $250) by police.
As Egypt's curve accelerates, calls for tighter movement restrictions in the Arab world's most populous country are growing. The number of detected cases in the state jumped by 720 on Tuesday to 13,484 infections and 659 deaths, the highest single-day increase.

Egypt announces more anti-coronavirus measures

Beyond the hotspots of Brazil and Mexico, the coronavirus is threatening to overwhelm Latin American cities stretching from Chile to the Colombian Amazon in an alarming sign that the pandemic may be only at the start of its destructive march through the region.
More than 90% of intensive care beds were full last week in Chile's capital, Santiago, whose main cemetery dug 1,000 emergency graves to prepare for a wave of deaths.
In Lima, Peru, patients took up 80% of intensive care beds as of Friday. Peru has the world's 12th-highest number of confirmed cases, with more than 90,000.  We're in bad shape," said Pilar Mazzetti, head of the Peruvian government's COVID-19 task force. This is war.
In some cities, doctors say patients are dying because of a lack of ventilators or because they couldn't get to a hospital fast enough.
With intensive care units swamped, officials plan to move patients from capitals like Lima and Santiago to hospitals in smaller cities that aren't as busy  running ...

'This is war': Virus charges beyond Latin American hotspots

Twenty-six Indian scientists stranded in South Africa's Cape Town due to a coronavirus lockdown will be heading back home this week.
They had been on a mission to Antarctica and stuck in South Africa three months ago after the imposition of the lockdown.
The scientists are among around 150 Indian nationals who will be returning home on a South African Airways (SAA) flight that will leave Johannesburg on Friday for Mumbai and Delhi.
Indian Consul General in Johannesburg, Anju Ranjan, said over 1,000 Indian nationals had registered for the the flight.
Passengers had to be vetted by the Indian mission based on a criteria set by the South African Department of Home Affairs.
We had to select priority passengers depending on their need, Ranjan said in a Facebook broadcast.
The diplomat said those left out are likely to be repatriated on an Air India flight under the Indian government's Vande Bharat mission.
People who are going back on this flight include 26 scientists from India who were ..

26 scientists among 150 Indians returning home from S Africa this week

The world cut its daily carbon dioxide emissions by 17% at the peak of the pandemic shutdown last month, a new study found.
But with life and heat-trapping gas levels inching back toward normal, the brief pollution break will likely be a drop in the ocean" when it comes to climate change, scientists said.
In their study of carbon dioxide emissions during the coronavirus pandemic, an international team of scientists calculated that pollution levels are heading back up  and for the year will end up between 4% and 7% lower than 2019 levels.
That's still the biggest annual drop in carbon emissions since World War II.
It'll be 7% if the strictest lockdown rules remain all year long across much of the globe, 4% if they are lifted soon.
For a week in April, the United States cut its carbon dioxide levels by about one-third.
China, the world's biggest emitter of heat-trapping gases, sliced its carbon pollution by nearly a quarter in February, according to a study Tuesday in the journal Nature 

Study: World carbon pollution falls 17% during pandemic peak

Annie Glenn, the widow of astronaut and US Sen. John Glenn and a communication disorders advocate, died Tuesday of complications from COVID-19. She was 100.
Glenn died at a nursing home near St Paul, Minnesota, said Hank Wilson, a spokesman for the Glenn College of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University.
At the time of John Glenn's death in 2016, the two had been married 73 years. She had moved out of the apartment they shared in Columbus in recent years and gone to live with her daughter, Lyn, according to Wilson.
Annie Glenn was thrust into the spotlight in 1962, when her husband became the first American to orbit Earth. She shied away from the media attention because of a severe stutter.
Later, she underwent an intensive programme at the Communications Research Institute at Hollins College, now Hollins University, in Roanoke, Virginia, that gave her the skills to control her stutter and to speak in public.
By the time 77-year-old John Glenn returned to space in 1998 aboard ...

Annie Glenn, widow of US Sen. John Glenn, dies at 100

As large parts of the US ease their lockdowns against the coronavirus, public health officials in some states are being accused of bungling infection statistics or even deliberately using a little sleight of hand to make things look better than they are.
The result is that politicians, business owners and ordinary Americans who are making decisions about reopenings and other day-to-day matters risk being left with the impression that the virus is under more control than it actually is.
In Virginia, Texas and Vermont, for example, officials said they have been combining the results of viral tests, which show an active infection, with antibody tests, which show a past infection. Public health experts say that can make for impressive-looking testing totals but does not give a true picture of how the virus is spreading.
In Florida, the data scientist who developed the state's coronavirus dashboard, Rebekah Jones, said this week that she was fired for refusing to manipulate data to drum up 

States accused of fudging or bungling COVID-19 testing data

The Russian military said one of its helicopters crash-landed in an uninhabited area north of Moscow late Tuesday, killing all crew members.
The Defense Ministry said the incident involving a Mi-8 helicopter occurred near the town of Klin, about 90 kilometers (56 miles) from Moscow. The incident may have been caused by a technical malfunction, officials said.
The ministry didn't clarify how many crew members were on board, but said that the helicopter wasn't carrying ammunition and landed in a desolate area."
The Chief Command of the Russian Aerospace Forces has dispatched a commission to the site of the incident, officials added.

Russia: Military helicopter crash lands killing all crew

The Senate intelligence committee has approved the nomination of Texas GOP Rep John Ratcliffe to be Director of National Intelligence, sending the nomination to the Senate floor for confirmation.
Ratcliffe's nomination was approved 8-7 in a closed committee hearing, with senators voting along party lines, according to a committee aide. The aide was granted anonymity to discuss the closed proceedings ahead of an official announcement.
Republicans have praised Ratcliffe, who has been ardent defender of President Donald Trump, while Democrats have been skeptical that he would serve with the independence they say is crucial for the job.
Ratcliffe sought to shed his reputation as a Trump loyalist at his confirmation hearing earlier this month, insisting he would lead the nation's intelligence agencies without partisan influence.
Ratcliffe would replace Dan Coats, a former GOP senator who was popular in Congress but who clashed with Trump in his two years in the job. Richard Grenell, who is 

Committee approves Ratcliffe for DNI, sends to full Senate

Schools in South Africa will reopen in a phased manner from June 1 after a nine-week COVID-19 lockdown, bringing a drastic change in its curriculum and prohibiting extra-curricular activities like sports, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said on Tuesday.
The Minister said that the National Coronavirus Command Council and the Cabinet have approved the reopening of schools from June 1.
The school curricula will also be drastically revised and extra-curricular activities such as sports will be prohibited, Motshekga said.
"Independent and public ordinary schools will open even in the metropolitan areas, Motshekga said, adding that this was subject to every school adhering to the health and safety protocols.
We will start with grades 7 and 12 (respectively the last grade in primary and high schools). The other grades will follow in due course.
All learners, educators and support staff will receive orientation and training at the start of the school reopening," the minister ...

COVID-19: Schools in S Africa to reopen from June 1 in phased manner

Israeli archaeologists on Tuesday exhibited a recently uncovered, unusual series of 2,000-year-old chambers carved out of the bedrock beneath the Western Wall plaza in Jerusalem.
The Israel Antiquities Authority's excavations are uncovering new sections of a sprawling network of ancient subterranean passageways running alongside a contested Jerusalem holy site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.
The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism, while the compound is the third-holiest site in Islam. It was the site of two Jewish temples in antiquity and today is home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock.
Archaeologists began excavating a large, late Byzantine building located around 35 meters (120 feet) from the base of the wall last year. Beneath the plain white mosaic tiled floor of the monumental structure, they discovered a series of small chambers hewn out of the bedrock. Fragments of clay oil lamps and limestone cups helped date the ...

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