Japanese government spokesperson Hirokazu Matsuno said no damage was reported from the missile, which landed within Japan’s exclusive economic zone, about 125 miles west of Oshima island. Oshima lies off the western coast of the northernmost main island of Hokkaido
North Korea’s Foreign Ministry on Friday threatened with “unprecedently” strong action against its rivals, after South Korea announced a series of military exercises with the United States aimed at sharpening their response to the North’s growing threats.
While the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said the launch did not pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel, territory, or its allies, the White House National Security Council said it needlessly raises tensions and risks destabilizing the security situation in the region.
“It only demonstrates that the DPRK continues to prioritize its unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs over the well-being of its people,” it said, calling it a “flagrant violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions.”
The office of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said his national security director, Kim Sung-han, presided over an emergency security meeting that accused the North of escalating regional tensions. It denounced North Korea for accelerating its nuclear arms development despite signs of worsening economic problems and food insecurity, saying such actions would bring only tougher international sanctions.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Tokyo was closely communicating with Washington and Seoul over the launch, which he called “an act of violence that escalates provocation toward the international order.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Sailors assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group 2 recover a high-altitude surveillance balloon off the coast of Myrtle Beach. | U.S. Navy via AP
The military has concluded its efforts to recover debris from what the U.S. government says was a Chinese government surveillance balloon that was downed off the coast of South Carolina.
U.S. Northern Command officials said Friday that it wrapped up recovery efforts Thursday and is sending the final pieces of debris to an FBI lab in Virginia for analysis.
The balloon, which was shot down Feb. 4, was the first of four objects downed after flying in U.S. airspace in recent weeks. Three smaller objects, which have not been similarly identified by the U.S. government as surveillance equipment, were subsequently shot down over Canada, Alaska and Lake Huron.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
New Delhi: South Africa on Friday translocated 12 cheetahs to India in a Cooperation Agreement, an official said, adding the animals were sent to India as part of an initiative to expand the cheetah meta-population, and to reintroduce cheetahs to a former range state following their local extinction due to over-hunting and loss of habitat in the last century.
A media statement in this regard was also issued by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, South Africa.
The cheetahs will join eight of the mammals relocated to India’s Kuno National Park from Namibia in September 2022.
Earlier this year, the governments of South Africa and India signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Cooperation on the Reintroduction of Cheetah to India.
The MoU facilitates cooperation between the two countries to establish a viable and secure cheetah population in India; promotes conservation and ensures that expertise is shared and exchanged, and capacity built, to promote cheetah conservation.
This includes human-wildlife conflict resolution, capture and translocation of wildlife and community participation in conservation in the two countries.
Conservation translocations have become a common practice to conserve species and restore ecosystems.
South Africa plays an active role in providing founders for the population and range expansion of iconic species such as cheetahs.
“It is because of South Africa’s successful conservation practices that our country is able to participate in a project such as this — to restore a species in a former range state and thus contribute to the future survival of the species,” said the South African Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Barbara Creecy.
The cheetah was declared extinct in India in 1952.
Restoring cheetah populations is considered by India to have vital and far-reaching conservation consequences, which would aim to achieve a number of ecological objectives, including re-establishing the function role of cheetah within their historical range in India and enhancing the livelihood options and economies of the local communities.
Lauren James’s electric form was rewarded with a first goal for England in a 4-0 defeat of South Korea in the Arnold Clark Cup to continue Sarina Wiegman’s unbeaten run as the Lionesses’ manager.
“She has been a talent for a long time, she just needed to be available and needed some time at Chelsea,” said Wiegman of James. “She worked really hard at Chelsea. That’s what you have seen this season, then she can take the next step to the national team.
“Now, when she starts playing at this level with Chelsea, and in the Champions League, and on this international level, and gets those minutes, she can improve. I hope now she gets consistency, she stays fit and keeps enjoying herself.”
At Stadium MK, it took England 40 minutes to find a way past South Korea’s banks of red but Georgia Stanway’s penalty broke the deadlock shortly before half-time and goals from Chloe Kelly, Alessia Russo and James in the second half ensured a stylish win to kickstart the European champions’ year.
The team news delivered a surprise, albeit a familiar one, with Leah Williamson shifted from centre-back into the midfield to compensate for the loss of the influential Keira Walsh, who was ruled out with a stomach bug. Wiegman has played the captain further forward before. In the run-up to the Euros last summer Williamson played alongside Walsh in a double pivot several times, but for the tournament itself the manager reverted to a centre-back pairing of Millie Bright and Williamson behind Walsh.
Wiegman had said before that tournament that her captain had not felt totally comfortable in the middle, but if the team’s first outing at the Arnold Clark Cup is anything to go by, she clearly still views Williamson as one of the best options to act as a back-up for Walsh.
The manager had promised rotation, but was equally keen to get off to a strong start in defence of the Arnold Clark Cup and restart their World Cup preparations on the front foot, so the starting XI was strong.
England were dominant, with South Korea’s back three spending much of the game as part of a back five. It took three minutes for James to show why she is probably vying with Kelly and Lauren Hemp for one of the two places alongside Russo in the summer, the Chelsea forward lashing wide of the far post from the edge of the area.
It was one-way traffic, with the Lionesses controlling 83% of possession and having 14 shots to one in the first half. In the 37th minute the crowd was roaring, but the ball that looked to be going in rattled back off the inside of the far post from Russo.
The inevitable came three minutes later. The ever-dangerous James was tripped by Jang Sel-gi and the Brazilian referee Andreza Siqueira pointed to the spot. Stanway’s penalty was emphatic, sent powerfully beyond the reach of Kim.
Georgia Stanway’s penalty puts England ahead late in the first half. Photograph: Marc Atkins/Getty Images
“She is very tight on the ball and can dribble well too,” said Wiegman of James. “That is a strength from herself and also our team. It was nice with her dribble that she got fouled and won that penalty.”
At half-time the Williamson experiment was over. Jess Carter was substituted for the Manchester United midfielder Katie Zelem, with Williamson slotted in alongside Bright and more normal service was resumed.
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England doubled the lead within a minute of the restart. Kelly, the scorer of the Euro 2022 final winner, collected the ball after a defensive muddle, drove forward and fired in a shot that took a deflection and looped into the back of the net.
Breached so soon after the break, the South Korea defence crumbled and, four minutes later, Russo clipped Alex Greenwood’s wicked cross from the left over Kim at the near post.
James would eventually be rewarded for her constantly threatening presence, starting a move from the halfway line that ended with her collecting the ball and smashing it past Kim. She was engulfed by her delighted teammates as the Chelsea manager, Emma Hayes, watched the player she has desperately tried to shield from the spotlight and pressures that come with it bask in the glow.
“Lost for words really,” said James. “I just like to stay humble, continue giving to the team and continue improving.”
Lucy Bronze praised the 21-year-old playing in front of her. “Everyone knows the quality that LJ’s got,” she said. “Technically on the ball she’s probably one of the best there is. It’s fun for me to play with her because I know she’s always going to get the ball in the right place.
“It’s crazy that she’s so young because this is the player that everyone has been talking about for five years now. Everyone has been waiting for this superstar and it’s exciting to be here now at the start of her England career.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
I spent my early adulthood in South Africa during the apartheid era. In 1974, the government passed a law stipulating that all lessons for black children had to be in Afrikaans, which most could not speak, and which was considered the language of the oppressor. By 1976, Black schoolchildren took to the streets of Soweto to protest and were met with police violence, with over 176 deaths. It was then that the tide turned, the protest movement grew and people worldwide became more aware of the injustices of apartheid.
Sensing the country was on the cusp of change, I went out to try to photograph what was happening around me. I was in my early 20s and working for a company that printed magazines, so I’d take my own pictures at weekends. I’d had no photographic training and because I could hardly afford film, I bought bulk reels of black and white, which were cheaper. I had to limit the number of exposures I could make due to the cost, and used cat litter trays for developing the silver gelatin prints.
I had a manual Canon FTb camera and a standard 50mm lens, which approximates the field of view of the eye. I would visit and photograph squatter towns where Black people were living as family units in defiance of the labour laws, and I also went to District Six, a mixed-race community where homes were demolished and the inhabitants evicted to make way for white housing. I’d knock on doors and ask if I could photograph people in their homes.
When I took pictures of people on the streets, they were often absorbed in their own worlds. I spotted the couple in this photograph in Green Point, Cape Town, near where I lived. The man was tenderly caring for his sick partner, and a smartly dressed woman walked past them, totally oblivious to their existence. The man looked up at her and the white of his eye caught the light as I took the picture. There are two other photographs I took showing a pair of white kids walking past the same couple without appearing to notice them, and then on their return journey, eating ice creams they’d just bought.
I felt my pictures needed to be seen and a local publisher was interested in producing a book, which reached the dummy stage before he decided the project was going to be too risky. But a photograph I sent to the British Journal of Photography made their front page in 1977, so that same month I packed a box of prints into a suitcase and flew to Heathrow. I only had a couple of dozen or so prints, and lent these to the International Defence and Aid Fund, which campaigned to defend people in race trials and raise awareness of apartheid internationally. My pictures were exhibited and published widely and, as a consequence, I was unable to return to South Africa until apartheid was abolished over 13 years later.
Under apartheid, anti-racist behaviour was spurned by the government, interracial sex was illegal and the best jobs, housing and education were strictly reserved for whites. One of the other photographs I brought to the UK is a portrait of a man I worked with at the printing company. He was an experienced technician, but I remember once asking him to prepare two exposures on a contact sheet. He had to remind me he was only allowed to make one exposure, as two were classed as “skilled” work, which was reserved for white technicians.
Apartheid, meaning “apartness”, was a deliberate process of engendering indifference between the races, which I think this photograph demonstrates. When you walk into my new exhibition at Leicester Art Gallery, it’s the first picture that strikes you, because it has been printed a couple of metres tall. There’s a resonance when people realise that such social and economic differences are still present 45 years later. The difference with this image is that the couple were denied equal opportunities by law.
After the end of apartheid and the election of Nelson Mandela, I trawled through the old negatives, discovering images I’d forgotten I had. I became a wildlife photographer in midlife and now it feels like the photographs I took at 23 belong to another lifetime. They act as a poignant reminder of why history must never be buried or forgotten and how we need to be constantly reminded of such injustices to help prevent them from happening again.
Steve Bloom’s CV
Photographer Steve Bloom
Born: Johannesburg, 1953 Trained: Self-taught Influences: “Photojournalist W Eugene Smith, with his powerful features in Life magazine.” High point: “Seeing my first photography book roll off the press. It’s the knowledge that the images will be seen. I think reaching an audience is a joy for any photographer.” Low point: “The phone call from a processing lab in the analogue film days to say that there had been a chemical ‘incident’ and the films I had brought back from a shoot in Kenya had been destroyed.” Top tip: “In this age of billions of pictures being made each day, it’s tempting to take multiple pictures of the same subject without actually concentrating too much on composition, lighting and timing. Photograph as if you only get one chance at it, and that discipline will sharpen your creative mind.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Srinagar, February 13(: Police on monday claimed to have arrested two Jash-e-Mohammad Militant associates along with huge cache of arms and ammunition in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district.
In a handout to GNS, thw police said that on specific input regarding delivery of consignment of weapons in general area of Pulwama , a special team of Pulwama Police & Army ( 55RR) was formed and deployed in covert at different suspicious locations. At Naina Bhatpora jurisdiction of PS Litter, two scooty born suspect were seen moving along with the consignment bag. The covert team swung into action and tactfully nabbed the duo and recovered the cache.
According to police spokesman, the two suspects disclosed their name as Showkat Ahmed Digoo son of Abdul Wahab Digoo resident of Naina (30) driver by profession and his cousin name held (Juvenile) resident of Sethar. While questioning Showkat Ahmed disclosed that he was in contact with Jailed OGW Firdous Ahmed Bhat S/O Abdul Ahad Bhat R/O Naina presently lodged in central Jail Rajouri in case FIR No 118/2021 of P/S Litter. Suspect was working for JeM outfit and this huge cache of Arms and ammunition recovered was for further distribution and to carry out attacks on Police and security forces.
The details of recovery are as 25 Chinese Grenade, one Pistol, 02 Pistol Magazines, 230Catridges of Pistol, 10 AK Magazine and 300 AKCartridges, reads the statement.(GNS)
“Countries need to invest in vaccines, education campaigns and effective treatments for people who show up sick,” said David Harvey, the executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors. “Neighboring countries to the U.S. not investing in a broad-based approach to the problem will ultimately affect the U.S.,” he said.
For now, the situation here looks good. On the verge of spiraling out of control last summer, when cases exceeded 450 a day, mpox is now all but gone, with the CDC reporting an average of two new cases a day, as of Feb. 1.
But across the globe, cases started to rise again at the end of last month, according to the World Health Organization, which will decide on Thursday if the outbreak still constitutes an international emergency. The number of cases reported worldwide was slightly over 400, with most of the new ones in the Americas and Africa.
Of the 13 countries that saw an increase, Mexico reported the highest weekly hike, reaching 72 cases.
The United States’ southern neighbor is now among the 10 countries in the world with the highest overall number of cases during the current outbreak. But unlike the other nine — which include the United States, Spain, and France — Mexico has not acquired any vaccines against mpox, nor seems to be planning to.
Top Mexican health officials have claimed the shot has not yet been proven safe and effective.
Jorge Alcocer Varela, Mexico’s health secretary, told the country’s Senate in November that the vaccine also didn’t prevent people from developing symptoms. He wasn’t encouraging its use, he said, because the number of people dying from the disease was low, according to Mexican media reports.
Choosing not to vaccinate
The strain of mpox that swept the world last year isn’t particularly deadly. The WHO knows of at least 90 deaths in the current outbreak. But the ailment can cause a painful rash. It’s endemic in parts of Africa, but had never before spread so widely in the U.S. as it did last year.
Preliminary data the CDC published in September on the efficacy of Jynneos, the vaccine the U.S. and many other countries used to fight the outbreak, contradicts Mexico’s health secretary. People who had a dose of the vaccine were 14 times less likely to get infected than those who were unvaccinated, the CDC said.
Updated data since showed two doses of the vaccine given 4 weeks apart is nearly 70 percent effective in preventing people from developing mpox that needs to be treated by a doctor.
U.S. health officials attribute the decline in cases here to the efforts of public health officials last summer to get the vaccine to the people who were most likely to catch the disease: gay and bisexual men who regularly had sex with multiple partners.
The U.S. teamed with state officials and community groups, and made the shot available at large events for the LGBTQ community. Fewer than 700,000 people have received the full, two-dose regimen, but public health officials believe that the highest-risk people mostly did, and that, combined with education about the need to change sexual behavior, has helped eradicate the disease.
The Mexican health secretary didn’t respond to an emailed request for an interview.
Representatives of the Mexican LGBTQ community took to the streets last summer to demand vaccines. Those who could afford to travel and get a visa went abroad to get vaccinated.
“In Mexico the government was never actually interested in buying the vaccines,” said Ricardo Baruch, a public health activist working on LGBTQ issues. It also didn’t want to buy antivirals, another way to show “they didn’t really care about the outbreak,” he said.
Civil society organizations stepped in to communicate the risk of infection to gay men, Baruch said. He believes that led members of the community to take additional precautions.
That’s unsustainable in the long run, however.
And the pride festival season, which contributed to the spread of the virus globally last year, is about to start, with WorldPride kicking off in Sydney, Australia, next week.
Yet Mexico is hardly the only country in the Americas relying only on behavior modification.
Most countries in the region have tried to stem the outbreak without vaccines, said Rubén Mayorga Sagastume, the mpox incident manager at the Pan-American Health Organization.
Only a dozen countries bought shots through a PAHO joint purchase mechanism: Bahamas, Belize, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, Peru and Trinidad and Tobago. Colombia in December made a deal with Japan to get 25,000 doses of a Japanese-made vaccine initially developed for smallpox to immunize people as part of a clinical trial.
Several countries that didn’t get vaccines said they couldn’t agree to waive liability for the vaccine manufacturer, the Danish firm Bavarian Nordic, as pharma companies typically demand during outbreaks, Mayorga Sagastume said. “Others, I imagine that was because of financial constraints, because vaccines were expensive,” he said.
Bavarian Nordic spokesman Rolf Sass Sørensen said the company doesn’t comment on price, but that it does offer differentiated prices to countries. “The vaccine has been sold and distributed to all countries expressing an interest in receiving it,” he said.
Barely any shots for Africa
The success of the vaccination campaign in the U.S. also isn’t helping Africa, where mpox has long been endemic, where the current outbreak originated, and where the next one could emerge.
The African Union, which represents all the 55 countries on the continent, has not requested shots, Sørensen said.
That’s despite the virus being deadlier there.
One in three people confirmed to have mpox in Africa since the beginning of the year has died, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
That’s likely due to the deadlier virus clade circulating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is different from the milder clade that infected people globally. Jynneos is effective against both clades, Bavarian Nordic said. And the number of mpox cases in Africa is most likely an undercount, as many countries still lack the capacity to test for the virus.
Testing is a bigger challenge in the DRC right now than access to vaccines, said Anne Rimoin, a UCLA epidemiologist who studies mpox.
The outbreak in African countries has been different in terms of people affected and needs compared to the rest of the world, she said. There, the virus mostly infects heterosexual people, usually in remote areas. But countries like the DRC don’t have the capacity or equipment to test people and keep a close eye on the real number of cases.
That also makes it harder to rapidly assess who needs to get vaccinated.
A World Health Organization-backed working group is now studying how human-to-human transmission works in endemic countries and how the virus spills over from animals, said Rosamund Lewis, the WHO’s technical lead for mpox.
Scientists need to define the target population, the type of vaccine to use, the frequency of immunization and the age of people to be vaccinated before any vaccination program starts, Lewis said.
The WHO has also been facilitating talks among countries with vaccine stockpiles and African countries that want them, said Patrick Otim, who handles health emergencies at WHO Africa. Late last year, South Korea committed to donate at least 50,000 doses to be used for health workers and people living in most affected areas.
But for Rimoin, who has seen attention and funding come and go with other international disease outbreaks, “the big question is what kind of sustained investment is going to be made to be able to be in front of these epidemics, as opposed to constantly chasing behind them.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
SRINAGAR: The Jammu and Kashmir Police have arrested an extortionist who was masquerading as a militant with toy weapons in Pulwama.
Details revealed that JKP in Rajpora received a written complaint stating that at about 19:30 hours, while on the way home from his clinic, some unknown person intercepted him, threatened him with weapons, and asked for money. They took away Rs 3300 from him, the only amount that he was carrying.
Upon this report, an FIR vide number 8/2023 under relevant sections of law was registered and an investigation was set into motion.
During the course of the investigation, several persons were rounded up, one among them identified as Adil Yousuf Dar of Bellow village was interrogated, who revealed that he has committed the said crime using toy pistols.
Upon his disclosure two toy pistols, 3 valets, one Redmi mobile phone, Rs 3330, 2ATM cards, Adhar Card, a driving license, Pan Card, Election Card, and Jio Sim belonging to the complainant were recovered from his possession.
Police said further investigation is underway.
(Photograph used in the report is merely representational)
United Nations: Warning that poverty and hunger are rising around the world, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has asked the G20 nations led by India to come up with a package offering investments and debt relief to nations of the Global South to help achieve the UN’s development goals.
Unveiling his proposal for a ‘New Agenda for Peace’ during a briefing on his priorities for this year, Guterres told the General Assembly on Monday that by the time of the summit on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September, “I urge the G20 to agree on the global SDG Stimulus that I proposed at last November’s G20 Summit to support the countries of the Global South”.
His New Agenda proposals covered a gamut of issues that included preventing a nuclear holocaust, reforms of the economic infrastructure, new technologies, social media and bigotry.
Guterres projected a gloomy picture of the world “staring down the barrel of a confluence of challenges unlike any other in our lifetimes” with wars, economic inequalities, Aclimate change and “epic geopolitical divisions”.
His most serious warning was about the threat of a nuclear war, pointing out that the “Doomsday Clock” of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that purports to show the likelihood of a nuclear holocaust was at 90 seconds to midnight.
“We are at the highest risk in decades of a nuclear war that could start by accident or design” from “the 13,000 nuclear weapons held in arsenals around the world,” he said.
“Nuclear-armed countries must renounce the first use of these unconscionable weapons,” he said.
India has declared that it will not use nuclear weapons first, as has China, but others with atomic weapons have not adopted the policy.
Guterres also called attention to “the dangers posed by new technologies”.
He said that the New Agenda should include “international bans on cyberattacks on civilian infrastructure, and internationally agreed limits on lethal autonomous weapons systems”, a reference to robots and drones.
He suggested a new type of counterterrorist operations by regional force under Security Council mandates as he unveiled his proposal for a New Agenda for Peace with a warning that humanity is facing its “darkest hour”.
He said, “The New Agenda for Peace must recognize the need for a new generation of peace enforcement missions and counter-terrorist operations, led by regional forces, with a Security Council mandate under Chapter VII” of the UN Charter that provides for action on threats to peace.
The prospect for peace is diminishing in the Russian invasion of Ukraine while “the chances of further escalation and bloodshed keep growing”, he said
“I fear the world is not sleepwalking into a wider war. I fear it is doing so with its eyes wide open,” Guterres said.
In dealing with poverty and inequalities, he said “the global financial architecture does not need a simple evolution; it needs a radical transformation”.
“A new determination to ensure developing countries have a far greater voice in global financial institutions” and “a new commitment to place the dramatic needs of developing countries at the centre of every decision and mechanism of the global financial system, were needed”.
Focusing on the Abrahamic faiths, Guterres said, “antisemitism, anti-Muslim bigotry, the persecution of Christians, racism and white supremacist ideology are on the march” but left out the attacks on and threats faced by minorities belonging to religions like Hinduism, Sikhism and Bahaism.
More broadly, he said, “Ethnic and religious minorities, refugees, migrants, indigenous people and the LGBTQI-plus (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex and other) community are increasingly targeted for hate, online and off”.
He said that many in positions of power profit by sowing division and hatred and “weaponise cultural differences”.
“Social media platforms use algorithms that amplify toxic ideas and funnel extremist views into the mainstream” and “advertisers finance this business model while “some platforms tolerate hate speech – the first step towards hate crime”, Guterres said.
He said that all stakeholders should agree to a Code of Conduct for information integrity on digital platforms.
The UN chief said that “everyone with influence on the spread of mis- and disinformation on the internet – governments, regulators, policymakers, technology companies, the media, civil society -” should act.
(Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in and followed at @arulouis)
Juba: The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has condemned deadly violence in Kajo-Keji County in South Sudan’s Central Equatoria State that left at least 27 dead and several others injured on February 2.
Nicholas Haysom, the UN secretary-general’s special representative in South Sudan, called on the authorities to urgently launch an investigation and hold perpetrators to account, Xinhua news agency reported.
“This violence is unacceptable and was in sharp contrast to the message of the Ecumenical Peace Pilgrimage to South Sudan, which called for peace and reconciliation,” Haysom said in a statement issued in Juba, the capital of South Sudan.
He said at least 2,000 people, mainly women and children, have become internally displaced, including 30 unaccompanied children.
The UN expressed concern about the resurgence of killings and violence stemming from long-standing tensions between cattle-keepers and host communities in Central Equatoria State and in other parts of the country.
Over the past two weeks, the UNMISS said, escalating violence has resulted in at least 45 deaths among unarmed civilians in Kajo-Keji and Mangalla Payam, among other areas in Central Equatoria.
Haysom urged South Sudanese leaders to encourage restraint and avoid fueling any conflict, noting that the UNMISS is increasing patrols to the affected areas, and engaging the authorities as well as community leaders, to end these hostilities and seek peaceful solutions.
The UNMISS said it welcomes the government’s deployment of troops to the area to ease tensions and protect internally displaced persons.
