Diplomatic Affairs: Marking two years since the move of the embassy to Jerusalem, David Friedman talks about annexation, the peace process and rapprochement in the Gulf.

While admitting that the official death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in Iran has exceeded 6,000, the Islamic Republic Minister of Health warned of a heavy second wave of the disease next autumn and winter. ";A relatively heavy attack by a combination of flu and coronavirus is expected in the fall and winter";, the Minister, Saeed Namaki, reiterated.

If God’s people affirm the inerrancy of Scripture—that the Bible is without flaw—along with the authority of Scripture—that it speaks conclusively on all matters of Christian life and practice—why do we also need to affirm the sufficiency of Scripture? Is that theological distinction redundant? Why does the sufficiency of Scripture matter outside of theological academia? Why would Grace to You make that topic the focus of the upcoming Truth Matters conference?

We recently put those questions to Phil Johnson—our executive director and one of the keynote speakers at Truth Matters. This is what he had to say.

Registration for Truth Matters is now closed. However, we will be streaming every session of the conference. So even if you did not reserve a spot in advance, we hope you will join us remotely for this rich time of Bible teaching and worship. Watch this space for more details on the livestream in the days ahead.

Some athletes cannot afford personal training equipment and rely on gymnasiums.

“The crisis has helped us learn, react, engage and think deeper,” said Mutuku.

She got a job as an office assistant but still kept to her passion for rescuing animals.

A top police officer told me an interesting story about the siege of Polytechnic University last year, when anti-government protesters of the militant persuasion had occupied the campus. He recalled intercepting and arresting a group of youngsters trying to flee the war zone and how he was struck by the reaction of a petrified teenager among them when she was being booked. “Absolutely terrified, shaking,” was how he remembered her. “She thinks I will take her around the back and shoot her…

Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service; a journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

The post Press Freedom Needs Protection from Pandemic too appeared first on Inter Press Service.

BEIJING: China should expand its stock of nuclear warheads to 1,000 soon, Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin said on Friday, even as US President Donald Trump repeats his call for China to join an...

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BEIJING: China should expand its stock of nuclear warheads to 1,000 soon, Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin said on Friday, even as US President Donald Trump repeats his call for China to join an arms control treaty, foreign media reported.The Global Times is published by the People’s...

BEIJING: China should expand its stock of nuclear warheads to 1,000 soon, Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin said on Friday, even as US President Donald Trump repeats his call for China to join an arms control treaty, foreign media reported.The Global Times is published by the People’s...

To get energy efficiency programs back on track, governments need to focus on education, incentives and improved regulations, as well as artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Collecting sex-disaggregated data on asset ownership is an important step in achieving gender equality and empowerment of women and girls in Asia and the Pacific.

There’s one big element missing before we can create a truly transparent, seamless and open international trading framework.

Climate-smart and resource-saving farming technologies could be one way to address hunger in Asia.

After a disappointing 2019 United Nations Climate Change Conference, there is a need to restore confidence that the intergovernmental process can deliver on mitigation, adaptation, and finance.

To be resilient, urban poor and informal households need secure tenure, which is a household’s right to reside on the land on which they are living.

Complex, carefully managed financing structures can provide the funding needed for island states and others seeking to develop energy projects.

Asian cities act as engines of economic growth, providing jobs, expertise, and the sharing of resources. But in some cases, these powerful engines are sputtering due to insufficient infrastructure, inadequate planning, and poor governance.

Solar power is helping Asia get electricity to people, particularly in rural and remote areas, but it has fallen behind in its use as a clean energy cooking source.

Millions of families who were already poor and vulnerable before the COVID-19 outbreak face impossible decisions about food, healthcare, and survival. We have a responsibility to act immediately and protect those most in need.

The COVID-19 pandemic underscores the need to support trade to not only move medical supplies but also to bolster economies

Bank-held nonperforming loans in some Asian economies have risen in recent years. Policy makers should address this growing risk now.

For many of Indonesia’s urban poor who work in the informal sector, social distancing is nearly impossible if they want to maintain their income. Two key policies can help.

With timely and well-targeted programs, policy makers can prevent the health crisis from deepening into a wider economic and financial crisis. This could sow the seeds of economic recovery.  

Hunger and malnutrition were an increasing problem worldwide before the pandemic. Restrictions imposed to curb disease spread have disrupted local and international food supply chains, making the problem even more urgent.

As the pandemic continues, the supply chains producing vital personal protective equipment are starting to fail, causing shortages. Countries and international organizations can fill these gaps by working together.

Islamabad : The coronavirus pandemic has increased the transgender persons' socioeconomic vulnerability and isolation, so short and long-term measures, especially by the government, are imperative to support them and ensure alternate means of livelihood in the changing environment.This was the...

A wholesale market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan played a role in the outbreak of the novel coronavirus last year, as the source or possibly as an “amplifying setting”, the World Health Organisation said on Friday, calling for more research.

Chinese authorities shut down the market in January as part of efforts to stop the spread of the virus and ordered a temporary ban on trade and consumption of wildlife.

“The market played a role in the event, that’s clear. But what role we don’t know; whether it was the source or amplifying setting or just a coincidence that some cases were detected in and around that market,” said Dr Peter Ben Embarek, a WHO expert on food safety and zoonotic viruses that cross the species barrier from animals to humans.

It was not clear whether live animals or infected vendors or shoppers may have brought the virus into the market, he told a Geneva news briefing.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said there is “a significant amount of evidence” the virus came from the Wuhan laboratory, although he has also said there wasn’t certainty.

Read: The Wuhan lab at the core of a virus controversy

No public evidence has linked the outbreak to the lab in Wuhan and scientists have said the coronavirus appears to have developed in nature. A German intelligence report cast doubts on Pompeo’s allegations, Der Spiegel reported.

Ben Embarek did not address the accusations. He noted that it took researchers a year to identify camels as the source of the Mers (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) virus, a coronavirus that emerged in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and spread in the Middle East, adding: “It’s not too late.”

“What is important, what would be of great help, is to get hold of the virus before it adapted to humans, before the version we have now. Because then we would better understand how it adapted to humans, how it evolved,” he said.

“In terms of investigations, China has most probably, most likely, all the expertise needed to do these investigations. They have lot of very qualified researchers to that,” he said.

A common sight across Asia, wet markets traditionally sell fresh produce and live animals, such as fish, in the open air.

Many markets worldwide that sell live animals must be better regulated and hygiene conditions improved, and some should be closed down, Ben Embarek said. “But the vast majority can be fixed, can be better organised.”

It is often a question of controlling waste management, the movement of people and goods, and of separating live animals from animal products and from fresh goods, he said.

WASHINGTON: Some debts were not sustainable and needed to be restructured, re-profiled or written off, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in an interview recorded earlier this week.

In this interview to ITV News, Ms Georgieva also urged governments to spend more money on health workers to protect the most vulnerable.

“There is a possibility that in some cases debt simply is not sustainable and therefore some action has to be taken either to re-profile or restructure or in some cases write off this debt,” she said.

Although G20 countries have promised some debt relief, a transcript of the interview, released by the IMF headquarters in Washington, indicated that Ms Georgieva believed the crisis required them to go further.

Imran has argued that heavy debt burdens are preventing countries from focusing on the challenge of saving people from pandemic as well as hunger

Last month, Prime Minister Imran Khan appealed to the leaders of rich countries, the UN secretary general and heads of financial institutions to give debt relief to developing countries like Pakistan so that they could combat the deadly Covid-19 in a better way.

The prime minister argued that heavy debt burdens were preventing some countries from focusing on the real challenge of saving their people from the deadly pandemic and hunger that extended lockdowns would trigger.

The IMF chief, while acknowledging the need to restructuring loans, also said the first priority was to combat the disease that has already killed hundreds of thousands and infected several millions across the globe.

“The only thing we ask countries is please spend more money for your doctors and nurses — and please, please use the money to protect the most vulnerable,” she said.

The interviewer, Julie Etchingham, noted that loans usually came with conditions — such as tightening public spending — that were difficult to implement during the Covid-19 crisis.

Ms Georgieva said she was aware of the risks ahead for the IMF. “We are looking to the transparency and accountability in countries. They themselves are coming up with commitments to audit the use of the funds we provide, but there are no strings attached,” she said.

The IMF chief said that more than 100 countries had reached out to them for help to fight the pandemic and 50+ requests were swiftly approved for a total of about $18 billion.

Asked to assess the scale of the crisis facing the global economy, Ms Georgieva did not mince her words. “It is the worst crisis since the Great Depression. But it is more than that because it is a combination of a health crisis and an economic shock,” she said. “And it is truly global.”

The IMF now has about $1 trillion dollars lending capacity — four times more than in the last financial crisis.

The IMF approved $1.386 billion of assistance for Pakistan under the Rapid Financing Instrument to address the economic impact of the Covid-19 shock.

Published in Dawn, May 9th, 2020

"The COVID-19 pandemic is not an excuse for human rights violations. Excessive force and brutality are unacceptable from any of our enforcement or security forces."

ADB needs to address issues causing weak sustainability of its projects to improve performance, says the 2020 Annual Evaluation Review (AER) conducted by ADB’s Independent Evaluation Department.

ADB's support to Asia and the Pacific’s transport sector has helped improve domestic connectivity and economic efficiency in the region, says a report released by ADB’s Independent Evaluation Department.

ADB needs to address issues causing weak sustainability of its projects to improve performance, says the 2020 Annual Evaluation Review (AER) conducted by ADB’s Independent Evaluation Department.

The particle physics discoveries have dried up but in politically uncertain times CERN's cooperative model is an example to the world, says its chief Fabiola Gianotti

Baristas normally aim to grind coffee finely to maximise surface area and extract the most coffee compounds, but a mathematical analysis has found that coarse grounds are better as they reduce clogging

All animals rely on oxygen at least at some stage of their life, but a parasite that infects fish seems to have completely lost the ability to use it – where it gets its energy from is still a mystery

If you want to save Earth, argues a new book, quit sitting around in the present hoping for the best and learn to think really long term, like a geologist

In his new book Upheaval, polymath Jared Diamond says nations need a special kind of therapy to solve big problems like climate change, Brexit and nuclear proliferation

EU states should guarantee vouchers for travel cancelled during the coronavirus pandemic and start lifting internal border restrictions in a bid to salvage some of the summer tourism season, the bloc's executive will say next week.

Concerns about adversaries hacking democracy abound, but it’s sheer incompetence we should really be worried about, writes Annalee Newitz

The data centres servicing our beloved digital devices gobble huge amounts of electricity. A new way to think about heat and energy could help us meet growing demand without burning through the world's resources

* Tourism, travel, hospitality business hit the hardest by COVID

Healthcare systems need to prepare for the extensive physiotherapy and mental rehabilitation that people put on ventilators for covid-19 will need as they recover

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