The furore surrounding top Downing Street aide Dominic Cummings' perceived breach of the coronavirus stay-at-home lockdown rules by travelling 260 miles to his parents' home refused to die down on Monday.
The Opposition branded British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's defence of Cummings as an "insult" to all the sacrifices made by the British public during the pandemic, with a growing number of parliamentarians within Johnson's own Conservative Party calling for his Chief Strategy Adviser to be sacked.
"This was a test of the Prime Minister and he has failed it. It is an insult to sacrifices made by the British people that Boris Johnson has chosen to take no action against Dominic Cummings," said Keir Starmer, the Leader of the Opposition Labour Party.
His Indian-origin shadow foreign secretary, Lisa Nandy, added: "The Prime Minister confirms it's one rule for his friends and another rule for the rest of us. All that sacrifice, stress and pain. What an insult."
Acting Liberal Democrats 

Furore rages on over UK PM's defence of top aide's lockdown breach

PTI Automatic

A 50-year-old Indian teacher has died of coronavirus in the UAE, according to a media report.
Anil Kumar, a Hindi teacher at Sunrise School in Abu Dhabi, died on Sunday morning, the Gulf News reported. Kumar was detected with COVID-19 on May 7.
In a statement, the Sunrise School said, "The sad and shocking demise of Mr Anil Kumar, a senior Hindi teacher of Sunrise School on May 24, has left the entire Sunrise family in a pall of gloom.
"The bond that he had developed over the years, just as how we have with each faculty, makes the loss unbearable. The entire school is shaken and finds it hard to come to terms with this most saddening news," the daily quoted the statement.
Kumar is survived by his wife and two children. His wife Rajini teaches mathematics at the Sunrise School.
The coronavirus, which first emerged in China's Wuhan city in December last year, has claimed 245 lives with nearly 30,000 confirmed cases in the UAE. The virus has so far killed over 3,45,000 people across the .

Indian teacher dies of COVID-19 in Abu Dhabi

The International Hockey Federation (FIH) paid glowing tributes to legendary Balbir Singh Sr, who passed away on Monday, describing the three-time Olympic gold winner as an outstanding player who dedicated his life to the sport.
Singh died at a hospital in Mohali on Monday morning after battling multiple health issues for over two weeks. He was 96.
In a condolence letter addressed to Hockey India chief Md Mushtaque Ahmed, FIH president Narinder Batra and CEO Thierry Weil said the global hockey fraternity was with Singh's family at this hour of grief.
"It is with great sadness that we have learnt of the passing away of hockey legend and three-time Olympic Games gold winners Padma Shri Balbir Singh. Our thoughts are  very much with his family at the very difficult time," the FIH letter read.
"Padma Shri Balbir Singh will be remembered not only as a highly talented and outstanding international player who represented India in three Olympic Games from 1948 to 1956, but also as a man ...

FIH pays tribute to Balbir Singh Sr, says he dedicated his life to hockey

Sri Lankan police have detained international cricketer Shehan Madushanka on a charge of possessing heroin, officials said Monday.
Madushanka, 25, who took a hat-trick of wickets on his international debut in 2018, was remanded in custody for two weeks by a magistrate.
He was carrying just over two grams of heroin when detained in the town of Pannala on Sunday, a police official said.
Madushanka was stopped while driving with another person in a car during a nationwide coronavirus curfew, police said.
The right-arm pace bowler took a hat-trick against Bangladesh on his one-day international debut in January 2018. He also played two T20 matches against Bangladesh in 2018, but has not played an international since due to injuries.
Sri Lanka is due to relax its curfew from Tuesday, but police have arrested nearly 65,000 people for breaking the restrictions imposed on March 20.

Sri Lanka cricket star held on drug charge

Scientists on Monday said they have achieved a world record for high data transmission over 75 kilometres of standard optical fibre, using a powerful class of micro-comb called soliton crystals.
"This is one of the most efficient transmission systems implemented in a standard telecom network, given the record amount of information that can be encoded and propagated in an optical fibre with minimum loss of data," said Professor Roberto Morandotti, of the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS) in Canada.
Telecommunication networks use many different frequencies, or colours, to transfer as much information as possible, the researchers said.
Current networks need typically a separate laser for every colour, which is difficult and costly to set up properly, they said.
"Here, we decided to use a micro-comb to replace the multiple lasers. Like a hair comb, we can generate a set of frequencies which are equally distant, and the phase and amplitude of which can be easily and ...

'Scientists set new record for data transmission'

Syria's Health Ministry is reporting 20 new cases of coronavirus in the country, the highest daily count since the new virus was first reported here in late March.
Monday's announcement raises to 106 the number of confirmed cases. There have been four deaths.
The ministry said all 20 new cases are of Syrians who returned from abroad. They comprise 15 people who came back from Kuwait, three from Sudan, one from Russia and one from the United Arab Emirates.
Syria recently began easing restrictions imposed over the past weeks.
Earlier in May, President Bashar Assad issued a decree postponing the country's parliamentary elections until July  the second such delay in light of restrictions in place to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

Syria reports 20 new coronavirus cases

Hollywood star Matthew McConaughey, along with his wife, model Camila Alves, has delivered 110,000 masks to the local hospitals in his home state of Texas amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The Oscar winner teamed up with car company Lincoln, with whom he is a spokesperson, for the initiative.
McConaughey took to Facebook to share his picture with Alves in a truck on delivery duty.
"Me and Camila Alves hitting the road to get em to rural hospitals in need across Texas," he wrote alongside the photo which showed the couple in masks and headgear.
Last month, McConaughey hosted a virtual bingo night for isolated seniors in Texas.

Matthew McConaughey delivers 110,000 masks to Texas hospitals

A coal mine in northeastern Czech Republic near the border with Poland has halted work after a major COVID-19 outbreak among the miners.
In recent days, tests of some 2,400 people revealed a total of 212 positive for coronavirus, mostly miners from the Darkov mine in the town of Karvina and their family members. It's currently the biggest local outbreak in the country.
Ivo Vondrak, the head of the regional government, said Monday that only workers who are necessary to deal with ventilation and water pumping remain in the mine.
Local health authorities have limited public gatherings in Karvina county to 100, while it is 300 in the rest of the country.
Visits to nursing homes and hospitals are banned The daily increase of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the entire Czech Republic was 65 on Sunday. A total of 8,957 people have tested positive in the country, while 315 have died.

Czech coal mine stops work after outbreak

The coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns coupled with travel restrictions and social distancing norms have muted the Eid celebrations in Pakistan and Bangladesh as worshippers in the two Muslim-majority countries marked the end of Ramzan in strictly-regulated prayer congregations.
A large number of people in the two countries were forced to stay indoors on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of the fasting month of Ramzan, due to the fears of contracting the novel coronavirus which has killed nearly 3.5 lakh people and infected over 5.4 million across the world.
In Pakistan, the government has issued strict instructions to observe social distancing while offering Eid prayers and asked people to avoid visiting relatives and hosting parties.
As the railways remained closed, many people could not travel to their hometowns for the most important festival.
Eid congregations were held at open places, mosques and Eidgahs in all major cities and towns while following strict standard ...

Eid: COVID-19 dampens festive spirits in Pakistan, Bangladesh

Plans by the British government to announce a further easing of lockdown measures are being overshadowed by an outcry over a senior aide accused of flouting restrictions imposed during the coronavirus pandemic.
Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson is standing by adviser Dominic Cummings, who drove 250 miles (400 kilometres) from his London home to his parents' house while he was infected with the virus.
Johnson said Cummings acted out of concern for his 4-year-old son, but many Britons see it as a clear breach of the government's national stay at home order.
Stephen Reicher, a social psychologist who sits on a group advising the government, said more people are going to die because the episode will undermine trust in government and adherence to the lockdown rules.
Bishop of Leeds Nick Baines said the public had been lied to, patronised and treated...as mugs.
The scandal shows no signs of dying down, with the conservative Daily Mail newspaper running the front-page headline What ..

Coronavirus: UK PM struggles to shift attention from aide's trip

Montenegro's health minister has urged citizens to help keep the small Balkan country "corona-free" in the future after authorities said there are no more cases of infection at the moment.
Minister Kenan Hrapovic on Monday described the current situation in the country as a joint success of the health authorities and the citizen of Montenegro.
The Public Health Institute said Sunday that all of the 140 tests in the past 24 hours were negative and that there are no people currently reported sick with the virus.
Hrapovic said, "Responsible behaviour and joint health care will be out trump card in the days ahead so that we can remain proud bearers of the title of a corona-free country."
The Balkan country of some 620,000 people imposed strict lockdown measures to curb the outbreak. A total of 324 cases have been recorded and nine people have died.

Montenegro health minister urges citizens to help keep country 'corona-free'

The coronavirus lockdown has pushed the number of road deaths in Germany to a record monthly low.
Official figures released on Monday show 158 people died in traffic accidents in March, compared with 234 deaths in the same month last year.
The Federal Statistical Office said it was the lowest monthly death toll on Germany's roads since reunification in 1990.
Germany imposed significant restrictions on people's movements in March to lessen the spread of the coronavirus.
The total number of traffic accidents in Germany sank to 166,000 in March, a 23% drop from the same month in 2019.

Road deaths plunge to record low in Germany during coronavirus lockdown

Bars, restaurants and cafes are returning to full service in the Czech Republic as the government takes further steps to ease coronavirus restrictions.
As of Monday, those establishments can serve customers in interior spaces. Hotels are also reopening together with public swimming pools, wellness centres and saunas.
Sports, cultural and other public events for up to 300 people will be allowed, up from the previous 100.
Restrictions have been only partially lifted for schools. Students up to fifth grade can attend on a voluntary basis under strict conditions starting Monday.
There must be no more than 15 students in a class and they must stay together the whole day. Remaining elementary school students and all high school students won't return to their schools until the start of the new school year on September 1.
Face masks are now mandatory only on public transport, in enclosed spaces and inside buildings. Outside, masks must be used if two unrelated people are less than two metres .

Bars, restaurants return to full service in Czech as govt further eases COVID-19 restrictions

Russia's coronavirus caseload exceeded 350,000 on Monday, with health officials reporting almost 9,000 new infections over the past 24 hours and 92 deaths, which brought the overall death toll to 3,633.
The country's comparatively low mortality rate raises questions among experts both in Russia and in the West, with some suggesting the government may be manipulating the statistics and underreporting virus-related deaths.
Russian officials vehemently deny the allegations and attribute the low numbers to the effectiveness of measures taken to curb the spread of the outbreak.

Russia reports nearly 9,000 new coronavirus infections, 92 deaths

A key indicator of German business outlooks bounced upward in May as more businesses and activities re-opened  but the index remained far below normal readings as Germany faced a long journey toward full recovery from the coronavirus downturn.
Revised official figures released separately Monday showed the economy has now recorded two straight quarters of falling output, meeting a commonly used definition of recession.
The Ifo institute index based on surveys of businesses rose to 79.5 from 74.2 in April, a strong increase but still far below normal. The gradual easing of the lockdown offers a glimmer of hope, said Ifo President Clemens Fuest.
Carsten Brzeski, chief eurozone economist at ING, said in a research note that today's Ifo index echoes more real-time signals that economic and social activity has started to pick up significantly since the first lifting of the lockdown measures in late April. He said the upturn from historic lows was highly welcome but no reason for complacency 

German activity picks up, can't escape official recession

Thomas Waerner won this year's Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in March, yet he is still waiting to return to his home in Norway.
The Anchorage Daily News reported Waerner and his 16 dogs have been stranded in Alaska by travel restrictions and flight cancellations caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The 47-year-old Waerner plans to fly home in early June. He has five children and 35 other sled dogs in Torpa, Norway.
He missed the 10th birthday of one of his children and misses morning coffee with his wife, who left Alaska in March, shortly before health restrictions stopped travel.

Virus strands Norway racer in Alaska after Iditarod win

Opener Dean Elgar has expressed his interest in becoming South Africa's next Test captain, saying leadership comes naturally to him and he would think "long and hard" if approached for the job.
Du Plessis had resigned as Test captain in February and Quinton de Kock was expected to take the reins but Cricket South Africa ruled him out of the job, saying they don't want to overburden the wicketkeeper-batsman.
With a three-Test series scheduled against the West Indies in July, CSA is still figuring out the Test captaincy conundrum.
"It's definitely not an easy journey being a Test captain but I think leadership is something that comes extremely naturally to me," Elgar said during an interview with Cricket South Africa (CSA) which was released on Monday.
"I've captained teams in the past, right up from school level to provincial level and at franchise level. I enjoyed it extremely and if I was asked to take on the captaincy, it's definitely something I would think long and hard about ...

Elgar shows interest in becoming South Africa's Test captain

A coronavirus outbreak linked to a slaughterhouse in the Netherlands has spread across the border to Germany.
Dutch regional health authorities said Monday that tests showed 147 of the 657 employees at a meat processing plant in Groenlo were positive for COVID-19.
They said 79 of those infected live in Germany, while 68 are resident in the Netherlands.
There have been several clusters of COVID-19 among slaughterhouse workers in Germany in recent weeks, prompting a government pledge to crack down on conditions in the industry.
Many workers in German abattoirs are migrants from Eastern Europe employed by subcontractors. They often live in shared housing and are transported to and from the slaughterhouses by shuttle bus, increasing the likelihood of infection.

Outbreak linked to Dutch slaughterhouse spreads across the border to Germany

It's not quite a case of coitus interruptus, but efforts to create a very special baby are definitely on hold. Blame the pandemic.
Groundbreaking work to keep alive the nearly extinct northern white rhino subspecies  population, two  by in-vitro fertilization has been stalled by travel restrictions. And time is running out.
The two northern white rhinos are female. The goal is to create viable embryos in a lab by inseminating their eggs with frozen sperm from dead males, then transfer them into a surrogate mother, a more common southern white rhino.
As of January, three embryos had been created and stored in liquid nitrogen. But further key steps now have to wait.
It has been disrupted by COVID-19, like everything else, said Richard Vigne, managing director of Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, home of the two remaining rhinos.
That is, the process of collecting more eggs from the females as well as the process of developing the technique to introduce the northern white rhino embryo into 

Virus stalls work to keep alive a rare rhino subspecies

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe lifted a coronavirus state of emergency in Tokyo and four other remaining areas on Monday, ending the restrictions nationwide.
Experts on a government-commissioned panel approved the lifting of the emergency in Tokyo, neighbouring Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama prefectures, and in Hokkaido to the north, which had remained under the emergency declaration after it was removed in most of Japan earlier this month.
Japan, with about 16,600 confirmed cases and about 850 deaths, has so far avoided the large outbreaks that have been experienced in the US and the Europe despite its softer restrictions.

Japan lifts coronavirus emergency in all remaining areas

The European Union's top diplomat has called for the bloc to have a more robust strategy toward China amid signs that Asia is replacing the United States as the center of global power.
EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell told a gathering of German ambassadors on Monday that analysts have long talked about the end of an American-led system and the arrival of an Asian century.
This is now happening in front of our eyes," he said.
Borrell said the pandemic could be seen as a turning point in the power shift from West to East, and that for the EU the pressure to choose sides is growing." He said the 27-nation bloc should follow our own interests and values and avoid being instrumentalised by one or the other.
But while China's rise was impressive, Borrell said current relations between the Brussels and Beijing weren't always based on trust, transparency and reciprocity.
Borrell said we only have a chance if we deal with China with collective discipline, noting that an upcoming EU-China 

Page 8 - PTI Stories National