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The World Health Organization, WHO, Regional Office for Africa in Brazzaville, Congo, has said that the number of Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in Africa has risen to over 56,000 in the past 24 hours. The UN health agency gave the update on its official Twitter account on Saturday. According to the tweet, COVID-19 has killed 2,100 […]

Coronavirus: WHO releases list of African countries with highest cases, deaths

Having inherited the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 on taking office, the UK Government had pledged to review them. That process is now underway but it seems the EU may pip the Government to the post, having conducted its own review of the parent D...

Precis Having inherited the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 on taking office, the UK Government had pledged to review them. That process is now underway but it seems the EU may pip the Government to the post, having conducted its own review of the ...

The rocky road travelled by the Agency Workers Directive since 2002 is nearing its end as a final version has been approved in Europe. After six years on the back burner, a slightly revised version of the Directive has been adopted. It is no longer ...

and underlining sharp differences in approach between wealthy societies such as the United States and Europe.

Parents frustrated at mixed COVID-19 school messages

[New Zimbabwe] THE Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) is expected to introduce a new set of higher denomination banknotes worth $600 million to increase the physical money supply and curb severe cash shortages in the country.

ISLAMABAD: US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad has sought Pakistan’s help in starting intra-Afghan dialogue.A statement issued by US Embassy in Islamabad says that the US special representative visited Islamabad on May 8. He met with Chief of Army Staff...

ISLAMABAD: US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad has sought Pakistan’s help in starting intra-Afghan dialogue.A statement issued by US Embassy in Islamabad says that the US special representative visited Islamabad on May 8. He met with Chief of Army Staff...

ISLAMABAD: US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad has sought Pakistan’s help in starting intra-Afghan dialogue. A statement issued by US Embassy in Islamabad says that the US special representative visited Islamabad on May 8. He met with Chief of Army Staff...

LONDON: Boris Johnson will reveal on Sunday the Government’s “road map” on how it will lift restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic.While the Government has stressed it wants all parts of the UK to move together in easing the measures, decisions in Scotland, Wales and...

Mohamed assured that it’s a countrywide drive, and not an exclusively Rift Valley project.

France and Spain, two of the countries hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic, were preparing on Sunday for an easing of lockdown rules as the global number of infections passed 4 million.In the US, the country with the world’s highest death toll, President Donald Trump faced sharp criticism from his predecessor Barack Obama who said on a leaked tape that Trump’s handling of the crisis was an “absolute chaotic disaster”.The virus has claimed more than 78,000 lives in the United States, which…

Miss Rizos uses African and African-American hairstyles to affirm blackness in straight-hair-obsessed country

Amid North Korea provocations, US could activate Pacific batteries at serene tourist locale

1. Coronavirus: Only severe cases need to be tested before discharge, says Centre in revised guidelines  Scroll.in
2. Govt revises Covid-19 patient discharge rules. Here’s what you need to know  Top Live News
3. Health Ministry shares 3-tier discharge policy for COVID-19 patients based on severity of symptoms  Times Now
4. Coronavirus Treatment: Blood Thinners Can Boost Survival Of COVID-19 Patients, Study Reveals  Medical Daily
5. Could Blood Thinners Be Crucial For Patients With COVID-19 Related Clots?  Forbes
6. View Full coverage on Google News

KASUR: One Covid-19 patient escaped from the DPS quarantine centre on Saturday. Seven days ago, Abubakkar, a resident of Gulburg Colony, was found Covid-19 positive. He was sent to the DPS quarantine...

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The Sindh High Court on Friday directed the food secretary to appoint the district food controllers within a month in accordance with the law.The direction came on a petition of Ali Ashgar who impugned the appointments of assistant food controllers to look after the work of district food...

On the directives of Karachi Additional Inspector General of Police Ghulam Nabi Memon, Deputy Inspector General Police Security and Emergency Service Division Maqsood Ahmed chaired a video link meeting regarding the establishment of a video conference system for the protection of witnesses and...

LONDON: Britain plans to introduce a 14-day mandatory quarantine for most international arrivals, reports said Saturday, despite growing pressure on the government to relax virus lockdown measures. It comes as the UK, which has the world’s second highest coronavirus death toll after the US,...

NEW DELHI: Nepal has protested to India over a border road, which it claims traverses its territory, a charge New Delhi has denied, The Wire news portal said on Saturday. It said the protest also flowed from a new map of the region India drew after the bifurcation of occupied Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories in December last year.

“Rumblings in Nepal about the boundary with India have now resulted in a full-scale eruption since India inaugurated a new road in Uttarakhand which leads to territory that is claimed by Kathmandu, near the border with China,” The Wire said.

On Friday, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated by videoconference the road between Dharchula and Lipu Lekh, which will reduce the length of the Hindu pilgrimage of Kailash Mansarovar Yatra inside China by several days.

Nepalese opposition leaders immediately raised the pitch, asking for the government to clear its public stance. A day later, Nepal’s foreign ministry expressed “regret” at India’s “unilateral act” and called upon India to refrain from carrying out any activity on Nepalese territory, portal said.

A new map of the region drawn by India after the bifurcation of occupied Jammu and Kashmir also behind the controversy

In a lengthy statement, Nepal’s foreign ministry reminded that Nepal claims all territories east of Mahakali river, “including Limpiyadhura, Kalapani and Lipu Lekh” as per the 1816 Sugauli Treaty”.

“This was reiterated by the Government of Nepal several times in the past and most recently through a diplomatic note addressed to the Government of India dated 20 November 2019 in response to the new political map issued by the latter,” the statement said.

“The context of the last diplomatic note is that months ago, India had issued a new political map to show the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir into two new Union Territories. In it, it depicted Kalapani as part of Indian territory, which led to a strong objection from Nepal,” The Wire said.

It further pointed out that when India and China had agreed to include Lipu Lekh pass as a bilateral trade route in a May 2015 joint statement, Nepal had issued separate diplomatic protest notes to the two Asian giants for not obtaining Kathmandu’s consent.

On the latest move, Nepal stated: “This unilateral act runs against the understanding reached between the two countries including at the level of prime ministers that a solution to boundary issues would be sought through negotiation.”

Stating that Nepal sought a diplomatic solution in the spirit of friendly relations, its foreign ministry asserted: “In light of this development, the Government of Nepal calls upon the Government of India to refrain from carrying out any activity inside the territory of Nepal.”

The Kathmandu Post had reported that Nepalese Foreign Secretary Shankar Das Bairagi spoke to Indian Ambassador Vinay Kwatra on Friday.

The statement issued in Kathmandu also reiterated that Nepal had twice proposed dates for holding meeting between the foreign secretaries of the two sides after the Kalapani controversy gathered momentum last year.

Nepal’s Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali had told visiting Indian journalists in February that if India could solve longstanding and complex boundary disputes with Bangladesh, then it should be able to do so with Nepal. He had also highlighted that India had still not given a concrete response for a meeting of the two foreign secretaries.

On Friday evening, India’s Ministry of External Affairs responded that the road section “lies entirely within the territory of India”. “Under the present project, the same road has been made pliable for the ease and convenience of pilgrims, locals and traders,” The Wire quoted MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava as saying.

He added that both countries had an established mechanism on boundary matters and that the delineation of the boundary was still an “ongoing process”. “India is committed to resolving outstanding boundary issues through diplomatic dialogue and in the spirit of our close and friendly bilateral relations with Nepal,” said Srivastava.

On the demand for a meeting of foreign secretaries, he said that the meeting would be held “once the dates are finalised between the two sides after the two societies and governments have successfully dealt with the challenge of Covid-19 emergency”.

Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2020

Brazil's Economy Minister Paulo Guedes on Saturday said the country's central bank is likely to shower the economy with money in case of an economic depression.

Brazil's Economy Minister Paulo Guedes on Saturday said the country's central bank is likely to shower the economy with money in case of a depression due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The two companies, plus the space firm Dynetics, will share $967 million from the space agency.

The Trump administration is considering a broad exemption to Obamacare's mandate on contraceptive coverage, according to a leaked draft of the proposed rule published by Vox on Wednesday.

Since 2011, the Obamacare provision has required that most employers provide insurance that covers birth control, without any cost to the patient. The rule has been the target of a number of lawsuits by religious employers who felt that the requirement violated their religious beliefs. Showing sensitivity to such concerns, in 2014 the Supreme Court ruled in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby that some religious employers could opt out of the coverage. But the court required them to file paperwork indicating their objection, in turn triggering separate contraceptive coverage for employees provided directly by the insurance company. That ruling, though, didn't settle the issue for religious groups. In a follow-up 2016 Supreme Court case, Zubik v. Burwell, a number of religious organizations said that even this accommodation required them to violate their beliefs, as the paperwork made them complicit in providing birth control coverage. The Supreme Court sent the case down to the lower courts, where it has still not been resolved.

Now, the Trump administration seems ready to extend the birth control exemption beyond just religious employers. According to the leaked draft, dated May 23, the new rule would allow virtually any organization to opt out of the mandate if they feel contraception coverage violates "their religious beliefs and moral convictions."

"This rule would mean women across the country could be denied insurance coverage for birth control on a whim from their employer or university," said Dana Singiser, vice president for public policy and government relations of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in a statement. "It would expand the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling to allow any employer—including huge, publicly traded companies—to deny birth control coverage to their employees. Think about it: Under this rule, bosses will be able to impose their personal beliefs on their female employees' private medical decisions."

What's more, this draft doesn't require employers opting out of the mandate to notify the government they are doing so; they're only required to notify employees of a change in their insurance plans. Insurance companies could also themselves refuse to cover contraception if it violates their religious or moral beliefs.

This appears to provide an even broader exemption than what team Trump has previously signaled it would enact. Throughout the campaign, Trump assured religious leaders their organizations would not have to comply with the contraception mandate: "I will make absolutely certain religious orders like the Little Sisters of the Poor are not bullied by the federal government because of their religious beliefs," he wrote in a letter to Catholic leaders last year, referring to the order of nuns that were party to the Zubik Supreme Court case. And on May 4, Trump, flanked by the Little Sisters of the Poor, signed an executive order about religious liberty, which encourages several agencies to address religious employers' objections to Obamacare's preventive care requirements, including contraception.

It is unclear what changes may have been made to this draft since May 23, but what is clear is that the rule is in an advanced stage of the process; the Office of Management and Budget announced that it is currently reviewing it, the penultimate step before the rule is enacted via posting in the Federal Register.

You can read the full draft, obtained by Vox, below:

The Trump administration's argument for letting lots of employers opt out of covering birth control is…not exactly bulletproof.

Yesterday, Vox reported that the Trump administration is considering a broad exemption to Obamacare's mandate on contraceptive coverage, according to a leaked draft of the proposed rule. If passed, the rule would allow virtually any employer, not just a religious one, to remove birth control coverage from its insurance plan if contraception violates the organization's religious beliefs or "moral convictions"—a broad and murky standard.

But, in a curious twist, part of the Trump administration's justification for the move hinges on the existence of hundreds of Planned Parenthood clinics, many of which the White House is actively trying to close by "defunding" Planned Parenthood.

As the draft text explains, the administration believes the past rationale for Obamacare's contraception mandate is insufficient. The document lists several reasons why this is the case. Here's one of them:

"There are multiple Federal, state, and local programs that provide free or subsidized contraceptives for low-income women, including Medicaid (with a 90% Federal match for family planning services), Title X, health center grants, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. According to the Guttmacher Institute, government-subsidized family planning services are provided at 8,409 health centers overall. Various state programs supplement Federal programs, and 28 states have their own mandates of contraceptive coverage as a matter of state law. For example, the Title X program, administered by the HHS Office of Population Affairs (OPA), provides voluntary family planning information and services for clients based on their ability to pay.

...

"The availability of such programs to serve the most at-risk women identified by IOM [Institute of Medicine, now known as the National Academy of Medicine] diminishes the Government's interest in applying the Mandate to objecting employers."

The implication here is that since there are already programs like Medicaid and Title X to help low-income women afford contraception, the requirement that most employers provide no-cost birth control is less pressing.

But there are a couple of glaring contradictions here: First of all, of the 8,409 health centers that provide Medicaid and Title X family planning services, as cited in the rule, 817 of them are run by Planned Parenthood—the very group that Congress and the administration are trying to exclude from using Title X and Medicaid funds to provide health care.

Trump has already signed a bill into law allowing states to exclude Planned Parenthood and other providers who offer abortions from receiving Title X family planning funding—never mind that Title X funding is used exclusively for nonabortion services. Beyond that, there are several more proposals moving through government—including in the House's American Health Care Act and in the Trump budget proposal—to withhold Medicaid and other federal dollars, including Title X, specifically from Planned Parenthood.

The problem with the White House's logic boils down to this: As the nation's largest provider of federal Title X-funded care, in 2015 Planned Parenthood centers served more than 40 percent of women nationwide using Title X-funded family planning care—a whopping 1.58 million patients. But if Planned Parenthood can no longer receive a single federal dollar to provide contraception and other family planning care—an oft-repeated goal of the Trump administration—then these nearly 1.6 million low-income patients will suddenly lose their family planning care. And now their employers may not cover that care either.

साउथ सुपरस्टार जूनियर एनटीआर (Jr NTR) 20 मई को अपना जन्मदिन मनाएंगे लेकिन उनके फैंस के बीच अभी से उनके जन्मदिन की खुशी है।

The Central government will bear the total cost of Rs 2,351 crore for supplying the free food grains to beneficiaries in Karnataka for the three months.

The Central government will bear the total cost of Rs 2,351 crore for supplying the free food grains to beneficiaries in Karnataka for the three months.

With no fanfare, Hollywood studios and leaders of the Writers Guild of America have moved back the start of masters contract negotiations a week to May 18. Representatives of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers were not immediately available for comment about the change, which was revealed Saturday. A WGA spokesman said, “It’s […]

History has all but forgotten them.

Baghel’s Congress government had recently also demanded that the steel ministry undertaking, NMDC, pay up its remaining Rs 1000 crore due. The CM has been very vocal about his displeasure with companies operating in his state being asked to donate to the newly funded PM Cares Fund instead of the Chief Minister’s fund.

For her latest single, "Say Too Much," on-the-rise Canadian country singer/songwriter Karli June teamed up with an unlikely ally in pop/rock producer and All-American Rejects keyboardist Scott Chesak. But while Chesak's success as a songwriter and producer largely stems from projects with the likes of Panic! at the Disco and Weezer, his first foray into country has been quite fruitful.

Andrew speaks with both artists about how they first came together, what drew Karli to the song despite the demo being straight-up pop, how the song evolved during their sessions, and lessons learned for both the emerging singer and touring vet throughout the process.

PLUS, because it's #BellLetsTalk Day, we're re-airing Mike's interview with Royal Mountain Records' Menno Versteeg from this past summer about the label's mental health fund and why musicians are particularly vulnerable to mental health struggles.

Check out Mike's feature on Music's Mental Health Crisis at: http://canadianmusician.com/features

This episode is sponsored by Bandzoogle. Try it free for 30 days and use the promo code “CMPOD” to get 15% off the first year of any subscription. https://bandzoogle.com/?pc=cmpod

Severine Erickson is the president of the recently-launched Triple A Talent, a Vancouver-based artist management and booking agency specializing in the electronic music scene. Severine explains how negative experiences with agents inspired him and the other Triple A co-founders to start their own company with a plan to do things differently. Severine also discusses the unique aspects of being an agent in the EDM scene compared to other genres, the health of underground EDM in Canada, and more.

http://canadianmusician.com http://triplea.agency/

This episode is sponsored by Bandzoogle. Try it free for 30 days and use the promo code “CMPOD” to get 15% off your first year of any subscription. https://bandzoogle.com/?pc=cmpod

Jordan Elliott (sometimes spelled Jordyn - you’ll hear why) got into the business of artist management when she was just 21 years old, signing a band to a major label contract while still in school. Since then, she’s continued on that path, working with artists like Meghan Patrick and Eric Ethridge and blazing a trail as one of the top female managers in Canadian country music.

Jordan tells us the story of her fascinating career as she examines the unique relationship between artist and manager, discusses the obstacles she faced as a young woman in a male-dominated field, and a lot more.

http://canadianmusician.com

This episode is sponsored by Bandzoogle. Try it free for 30 days and use the promo code “CMPOD” to get 15% off your first year of any subscription. https://bandzoogle.com/?pc=cmpod

This week, we bring you a special conversation with rap innovators Cadence Weapon, aka Rollie Pemberton, and Hua Li, aka Peggy Hogan, from the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. The two were part of the 20-day Banff International Songwriter Residency as a mentor and participant, respectively, and we dive into their experience, talk about the value of collaboration and idea-sharing, wax on the concept of "Canadian music," and more.

Plus, shortly after Canada started taking COVID-19 seriously in mid-March, a group of Toronto creatives launched a livestreaming initiative called URGNT. The idea was to broadcast sessions with a diverse array of artists from empty Toronto venues, ensuring every stakeholder would receive some compensation for their work at a time they'd really need it. We speak with co-founder Mark Marczyk about how everything came together.

http://canadianmusician.com

This episode is sponsored by Bandzoogle. Try it free for 30 days and use the promo code “CMPOD” to get 15% off your first year of any subscription. https://bandzoogle.com/?pc=cmpod

Homegrown Kelowna athlete Andrew Becker hopes to trade in his Regina Rams’ university jersey for a professional one.

China's central bank said on Sunday it will step up counter-cyclical adjustments to support the economy and make monetary policy more flexible to fend off financial risks.

Provincial health officials will open a second centre to test for COVID-19 in the southern Alberta city of Brooks, as an outbreak connected to a nearby slaughterhouse continues to grow.

Quebec's public health institute says deaths could spike in the greater Montreal area if physical distancing measures designed to limit the spread of COVID-19 are lifted.

Taliban leaders searched their ranks, including in the much-feared Haqqani network, and on Sunday told The Associated Press they are not holding Mark R. Frerichs, a Navy veteran turned contractor who disappeared in Afghanistan in late January. “We don't have any information about the missing American,” Sohail Shaheen, the Taliban's political spokesman, told the AP. A second Taliban official familiar with the talks with the United States said “formally and informally” the Taliban have notified U.S. officials they are not holding Frerichs.