Tokyo: The International Olympic Committee is “fully committed” to holding the 2020 Games in Tokyo as planned despite the widening new coronavirus outbreak, the body’s president has pledged.
The IOC “is fully committed to a successful Olympic Games in Tokyo starting July 24”, Thomas Bach told Japanese media in a conference call late Thursday, according to Kyodo News.
The comments came as the viral outbreak across Japan and dozens of other countries has fuelled concerns about the Summer Games, with a swathe of other sports events postponed or cancelled.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has stepped up national measures to contain the virus, calling on organisers of large events to consider cancelling or delaying them.
Everything from football matches and music concerts to the rituals that mark the opening of the March sumo tournament have been affected.
On Thursday, Abe requested a nearly month-long closure of schools in a drive to curb the spread of COVID-19, linked to four deaths so far among nearly 200 known infections among the general Japanese public.
Some 700 infections were also detected among about 3,700 passengers and crew on a cruise ship that was quarantined off Japan after one of its former passengers tested positive.
Bach avoided directly addressing comments by senior IOC member Dick Pound, who hinted the Games could be cancelled if health authorities block travel.
Pound also said, however, there has been no formal discussion among IOC members about cancelling the Games.
In an interview with AFP, Pound said the Tokyo Games will go ahead as scheduled “absent some very serious and specific admonitions or regulations stemming from the WHO or the appropriate regulatory authorities”.
“Unless there is a world situation that is so serious that the games cannot be held or that the regulatory authorities prohibit travel or that sort of thing, we’re carrying on,” he said.
“But it would be irresponsible to carry on without having at least in the back of your mind that something might happen.”
Bach said the priority now “is to ensure the qualification procedure and protecting the safety of athletes at the same time”, according to Kyodo.
“This is what we’re doing in cooperation with the Japanese authorities, the World Health Organisation, the Chinese Olympic Committee and many NOCS,” Bach said, referring to national Olympic committees.
Disruption caused by the virus has affected Olympic qualifying in several sports, including football, boxing, badminton, handball and wrestling and sailing.
Tokyo’s Olympic organisers have repeatedly said they are focused on holding a safe Olympics and Paralympics with the IOC’s full backing.
Stung by the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook has filed a federal lawsuit in California court against New Jersey-based data analytics firm OneAudience for secretly harvesting its users` data.
According to the lawsuit, OneAudience improperly accessed and collected user data from Facebook and other social media companies by paying App developers to install a malicious Software Development Kit (SDK) in their apps.
See Zee Business live streaming below:
“After a user installed one of these apps on their device, the malicious SDK enabled OneAudience to collect information about the user from their device and their Facebook, Google, or Twitter accounts, in instances where the user logged into the app using those accounts,” read the lawsuit.
Security researchers first flagged OneAudience`s behaviour to Facebook as part of its data abuse bounty programme.
Facebook, and other affected companies, then took enforcement measures against OneAudience.
“Facebook`s measures included disabling apps, sending the company a cease and desist letter, and requesting their participation in an audit, as required by our policies. OneAudience declined to cooperate,” said Jessica Romero, Director of Platform Enforcement and Litigation.
“This is the latest in our efforts to protect people and increase accountability of those who abuse the technology industry and users,” she added.
In November last year, Facebook and Twitter admitted that data of hundreds of users was improperly accessed by some third-party apps on Google Play Store as they logged into those apps.
Security researchers discovered that the One Audience and Mobiburn software development kits (SDK) provided access to users` data, including email addresses, usernames, and recent tweets, on both the platforms.
Twitter and Facebook said they will notify those whose information was likely shared through apps.
Facebook has sued several third-party platforms in the recent past for scrapping users` data, including Israeli surveillance vendor NSO Group that sells malicious software Pegasus to government agencies.
“Through these lawsuits, we will continue sending a message to people trying to abuse our services that Facebook is serious about enforcing our policies, including requiring developers to cooperate with us during an investigation, and advance the state of the law when it comes to data misuse and privacy,” said the company.
A six-member Afghan government team has left for Qatar where they will meet Taliban members after the militant groups sign the long-awaited peace deal with the US on Saturday in Doha, according to the sources.
In a statement on Thursday, the Presidential Palace called the team “a group to establish initial contacts” with the Taliban and they were meeting with the militant group at their request and also of the US, TOLO News reported.
This meeting will be the first between the Afghan government and the Taliban.
Part of the US-Taliban agreement was the release of 5,000 prisoners, about which the Washington government wanted a meeting between the militant and representatives of the Afghan government, the sources said on Thursday.
According to the sources, India’s Ambassador to Qatar will also attend the signing of the landmark peace deal between the US and the Afghan Taliban in Doha.
Sources said India has been invited by the Qatar government for the ceremony where the deal will be signed and Indian ambassador P Kumaran will attend it. It will be for the first time India will officially attend an event involving the Taliban.
More than 10,000 civilians were killed or wounded in Afghanistan’s war last year, the United Nations announced Saturday, as a historic partial truce kicked in across the country. India did not recognise Afghanistan diplomatically when Taliban was ruling the country from 1996 to 2002.
Last year, in September, Zalmay Khalilzad, Washington’s Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation had said that the US and Taliban are “at the threshold of an agreement” that would reduce violence and open the door for Afghans to sit together and negotiate.
On December 19, Khalilzad also said that the US and Taliban were approaching an important stage in the Afghan peace process.
But US President Donald Trump called an abrupt halt to the process after an American was killed in a Taliban attack in Kabul
The draft agreement ensured that over 5,000 US troops will withdraw from five American bases in the first 135 days after the signing of the deal.
Since the end of the NATO combat mission in January 2015, the US maintains one contingent within the framework of the new allied mission of advising Afghan troops and another for “anti-terrorist” operations.
Sri Lankan Government formally notified the United Nations that it will withdraw from the UNHRC (United Nations Human Rights Council) resolution for investigating alleged war crimes. The case was dealing with a decade-old clash with Tamil separatists.
The UNHRC resolution 40/1 was co-sponsored by Sri Lanka and 11 other countries. The main aim of the resolution is investigation of war time violence against Tamil Tiger rebels. The Tamil Rebels were demanding separate homeland. They were claiming that they were ethnic tamil minority and hence are eligible for separate homeland.
Three pro-democracy figures, including a newspaper founder, were arrested and charged in Hong Kong on Friday over a banned protest held in August 2019 amid anti-government demonstrations that gripped the city.
In the early hours of the day, police arrested Apple Daily founder and media mogul Jimmy Lai for illegal assembly and intimidating a reporter using foul language during anti-government protests in the city, according to the local media.
The Apple Daily is known to support the pro-democracy movement, and therefore the protests, and for its opposition to the pro-Beijing government.
Two former pro-democracy politicians, Yeung Sum and Lee Cheuk-yan were also arrested on Friday morning, according to state news outlet RTHK.
Yeung is the chairman of the Hong Kong Labor Party and general secretary of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions.
During a press briefing, Acting Senior Superintendent of Police Wong Tung-Kwong said the police arrested three Hong Kong men aged between 63 and 72 in connection with a case of the illegal assembly during the unauthorized rally on August 31, 2019.
The 72-year-old was also allegedly involved in a case of intimidation on June 4, 2017.
Last week, a popular slogan of Hong Kong’s months-long anti-government protests was spray-painted on the wall outside one of the Chinese Army’s bases in the city.
The eight words in Chinese – “Liberate Hong Kong; Revolution of our times” – were found daubed on the external walls of Gun Club Hill Barracks.
The 11-hectare military site is one of the barracks occupied by China’s People’s Liberation Army since the transfer of sovereignty of Hong Kong from Britain on July 1, 1997.
Demonstrations in Hong Kong began in June following a controversial extradition bill, already withdrawn by the government, but have mutated into a movement seeking to improve Hong Kong’s democratic mechanisms and safeguard the region’s partial autonomy from Beijing.
Hong Kong’s protests are largely leaderless and organised online. They were initially sparked by a now-abandoned attempt to allow extraditions to the mainland but have since morphed into a popular revolt against Beijing’s rule.
In 2018, the Hong Kong government had disqualified the candidacy of another pro-democracy activist, Agnes Chow, for the Legislative Council by-election in March of the same year due to her stance on advocating self-determination for the former British colony.
The controversial China extradition bill was withdrawn in early September but the movement has morphed into a wider campaign for greater democracy and against alleged police brutality.
New Delhi: India’s Ambassador to Qatar will attend the signing of the landmark peace deal between the US and the Afghan Taliban in Doha on Saturday, official sources said on Thursday.
The deal would allow for the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan. The US has lost over 2,400 soldiers in Afghanistan since late 2001.
Sources said India has been invited by the Qatar government for the ceremony where the deal will be signed and Indian ambassador P Kumaran will attend it.
It will be for the first time India will officially attend an event involving the Taliban.
India has been a key stakeholder in the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan.
In a significant move, India had sent two former diplomats in “non-official” capacity to a conference on the Afghan peace process in Moscow in November 2018.
The conference organised by Russia was attended by a high-level Taliban delegation, representatives of Afghanistan as well as from several other countries, including the US, Pakistan and China.
Major powers such as the US, Russia and Iran have been reaching out to the Taliban as part of efforts to push the stalled Afghan peace process.
India has been supporting a national peace and reconciliation process which is Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan controlled.
India has also been maintaining that care should be taken to ensure that any such process does not lead to any “ungoverned spaces” where terrorists and their proxies can relocate.Qatar govt invites India to attend signing of landmark peace deal between US and Taliban in Doha tomorrow
Makkah: Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia is being washed and sterilized four times a day due to the fear of contagious Coronavirus that has claimed the lives of thousands of people across the globe.
In order to ensure the safety of pilgrims and visitors, workers associated with Cleaning and Carpets Department are folding 13500 huge prayer rugs before washing and sterilizing the floor. After cleaning the floor, they are spreading the rugs again.
As per the details provided by Jaber Widaani, director of Cleansing and Carpets Department at the holy mosque, the workers are using highly advanced equipment and materials for cleaning and sterilizing the floor of the Grand Mosque.
On Thursday, Saudi Arabia authorities have temporarily suspended entry for people planning to visit the Kingdom for Umrah or for visiting the Prophet’s mosque in Medina over fears of the deadly coronavirus, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
The Kingdom has also suspended the entry of tourist visa holders coming from countries where the coronavirus was spreading at an accelerated rate.
The Ministry said that this precautionary step comes in completion of the efforts taken to provide the utmost protection to the safety of citizens and residents and everyone who intends to come to the Kingdom to perform Umrah or visit the Prophet’s Mosque or for the purpose of tourism.
In addition, Saudi nationals and citizens of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations will not be able to use a national identity card to travel to and from the Kingdom for the time being.
Exceptions to this will be granted to Saudis returning home, and citizens of the GCC members who are in the Kingdom and want to return to their home countries provided that they left or entered the nation using a national identity card.
Overall, 220 coronavirus cases have been detected in the Middle East.
London: Canada will no longer pick up the security tab for protecting Prince Harry and his wife Meghan starting in March, the office of Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said Thursday.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been living part-time in an oceanside mansion in westernmost British Columbia province since November.
Last month, they made a shock exit from life as working royals.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have provided security for the couple in this country under the internationally protected persons’ convention.
But that will end “in the coming weeks, in keeping with their change in status,” said a statement.
Canadians have been welcoming of the royal runaways. Local monarchists surveyed by AFP are excited, while tourism groups are even giddier about the prospects of a boost from the global attention on the couple.
But a recent poll found that 77 percent of Canadian taxpayers were not keen to pay for their security costs.
Ankara: At least 33 Turkish soldiers were killed in Syria’s Idlib province after an air strike blamed on Damascus, prompting condemnation from Washington and a UN warning on the rapidly-rising risk of escalation.
Dozens more soldiers were injured and taken to Turkey for treatment, Rahmi Dogan, governor of Turkish Hatay – bordering Syria – said Friday.
The heavy losses in northwestern Idlib come after weeks of growing tensions between rebel supporter Ankara and Damascus ally Moscow.
“Without urgent action, the risk of even greater escalation grows by the hour,” United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement that reiterated Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s call for an immediate ceasefire.
A US State Department spokesperson said Washington stands by its NATO ally Turkey and continues to call “for an immediate end to this despicable offensive by the Assad regime, Russia and Iranian-backed forces.”
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg urged de-escalation by all parties of “this dangerous situation”, his spokesman said.
In a phone call with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Stoltenberg “condemned the continued indiscriminate air strikes by the Syrian regime and its backer Russia in Idlib province”, according to the spokesman.
Turkey has urged the Syrian regime to withdraw from Turkish observation posts in Idlib, while Moscow has accused Ankara of aiding “terrorists” in Syria.
Under a 2018 deal with Russia meant to bring calm to Idlib, Turkey has 12 observation posts in the region – but several have come under fire from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hastily convened an emergency meeting in Ankara after the Idlib attack.
Erdogan’s top press aide, Fahrettin Altun, said Turkey’s military retaliated against all known positions of the regime after the air strike.
The latest attack means 53 Turkish security personnel have been killed in the province this month.
There was a flurry of diplomatic activity as Turkey’s presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin spoke with US national security advisor Robert O’Brien, state news agency Anadolu reported without giving detail.
Jihadists and Turkish-backed rebels on Thursday re-entered Saraqeb, a key Idlib crossroads town they had lost earlier in February, reversing one of the main gains of the government’s devastating offensive.
The counteroffensive could, however, be short-lived as Russian-backed Syrian troops continued to chip away at other parts of the rebel bastion, capturing 20 localities.
Seven civilians, including three children, were killed in regime and Russian bombardment of Idlib, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, adding to more than 400 such deaths since December.
The UN Security Council, where Moscow has systematically vetoed truce initiatives, met again Thursday amid growing concern Idlib is witnessing the nine-year-old war’s worst humanitarian emergency.
State news agency SANA acknowledged there were “fierce clashes” between the army and “terrorist groups on the Saraqeb front”.
An AFP correspondent accompanied the rebels into Saraqeb, where he found a ghost town of bombed out buildings.
The counterattack temporarily reverses one of the key gains of the government since its offensive against the country’s last rebel enclave in December.
The cash-strapped government had been keen to fully secure the M5, a highway that connects Syria’s four main cities and passes through Saraqeb.
The Syrian Observatory said the air strikes were carried out by Assad government ally Russia, heavily criticised by the West for the high civilian death toll from its bombing campaign.
State media accused the “terrorists” of launching car bombings and other suicide attacks against government forces attempting to retake the town.
It said the army had inflicted heavy losses on the attackers, despite the military support it said they had received from Turkey.
Some 950,0000 civilians have fled the government offensive, raising fears in Ankara of a new influx of refugees.
Turkey already hosts the world’s largest number of Syrian refugees – around 3.6 million people – placing an increasingly unpopular burden on public services.
The country’s ruling party spokesman Omer Celik told CNN Turk broadcaster on Friday that Ankara was not in a position to “hold” refugees any longer and called on the European Union to do more.
More than half a million of those displaced since December are children, tens of thousands of whom are sleeping rough in northern Syria’s harsh winter.
The Turkish president vowed on Wednesday that Ankara would not take the “smallest step back” in the standoff with Damascus and Moscow over Idlib.
Erdogan warned the Syrian government to “stop its attacks as soon as possible” and to pull back by the end of the month.
The UN has repeatedly warned the fighting in Idlib could potentially create the most serious humanitarian crisis since the civil war’s start in 2011.
Russian vetoes, often backed by C
Ankara: At least 33 Turkish soldiers were killed in Syria’s Idlib province after an air strike blamed on Damascus, prompting condemnation from Washington and a UN warning on the rapidly-rising risk of escalation.
Dozens more soldiers were injured and taken to Turkey for treatment, Rahmi Dogan, governor of Turkish Hatay – bordering Syria – said Friday.
The heavy losses in northwestern Idlib come after weeks of growing tensions between rebel supporter Ankara and Damascus ally Moscow.
“Without urgent action, the risk of even greater escalation grows by the hour,” United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement that reiterated Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s call for an immediate ceasefire.
A US State Department spokesperson said Washington stands by its NATO ally Turkey and continues to call “for an immediate end to this despicable offensive by the Assad regime, Russia and Iranian-backed forces.”
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg urged de-escalation by all parties of “this dangerous situation”, his spokesman said.
In a phone call with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Stoltenberg “condemned the continued indiscriminate air strikes by the Syrian regime and its backer Russia in Idlib province”, according to the spokesman.
Turkey has urged the Syrian regime to withdraw from Turkish observation posts in Idlib, while Moscow has accused Ankara of aiding “terrorists” in Syria.
Under a 2018 deal with Russia meant to bring calm to Idlib, Turkey has 12 observation posts in the region – but several have come under fire from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hastily convened an emergency meeting in Ankara after the Idlib attack.
Erdogan’s top press aide, Fahrettin Altun, said Turkey’s military retaliated against all known positions of the regime after the air strike.
The latest attack means 53 Turkish security personnel have been killed in the province this month.
There was a flurry of diplomatic activity as Turkey’s presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin spoke with US national security advisor Robert O’Brien, state news agency Anadolu reported without giving detail.
Jihadists and Turkish-backed rebels on Thursday re-entered Saraqeb, a key Idlib crossroads town they had lost earlier in February, reversing one of the main gains of the government’s devastating offensive.
The counteroffensive could, however, be short-lived as Russian-backed Syrian troops continued to chip away at other parts of the rebel bastion, capturing 20 localities.
Seven civilians, including three children, were killed in regime and Russian bombardment of Idlib, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, adding to more than 400 such deaths since December.
The UN Security Council, where Moscow has systematically vetoed truce initiatives, met again Thursday amid growing concern Idlib is witnessing the nine-year-old war’s worst humanitarian emergency.
State news agency SANA acknowledged there were “fierce clashes” between the army and “terrorist groups on the Saraqeb front”.
An AFP correspondent accompanied the rebels into Saraqeb, where he found a ghost town of bombed out buildings.
The counterattack temporarily reverses one of the key gains of the government since its offensive against the country’s last rebel enclave in December.
The cash-strapped government had been keen to fully secure the M5, a highway that connects Syria’s four main cities and passes through Saraqeb.
The Syrian Observatory said the air strikes were carried out by Assad government ally Russia, heavily criticised by the West for the high civilian death toll from its bombing campaign.
State media accused the “terrorists” of launching car bombings and other suicide attacks against government forces attempting to retake the town.
It said the army had inflicted heavy losses on the attackers, despite the military support it said they had received from Turkey.
Some 950,0000 civilians have fled the government offensive, raising fears in Ankara of a new influx of refugees.
Turkey already hosts the world’s largest number of Syrian refugees – around 3.6 million people – placing an increasingly unpopular burden on public services.
The country’s ruling party spokesman Omer Celik told CNN Turk broadcaster on Friday that Ankara was not in a position to “hold” refugees any longer and called on the European Union to do more.
More than half a million of those displaced since December are children, tens of thousands of whom are sleeping rough in northern Syria’s harsh winter.
The Turkish president vowed on Wednesday that Ankara would not take the “smallest step back” in the standoff with Damascus and Moscow over Idlib.
Erdogan warned the Syrian government to “stop its attacks as soon as possible” and to pull back by the end of the month.
The UN has repeatedly warned the fighting in Idlib could potentially create the most serious humanitarian crisis since the civil war’s start in 2011.
Russian vetoes, often backed by China, have chronically crippled UN action in Syria.
UPHINDIA 