Videos published by China’s state broadcaster CCTV showed destroyed houses with walls torn apart and rubble strewn across the ruins in the aftermath of the earthquake.

The quake struck Dingri county with a magnitude of 6.8 near the border with Nepal at 9:05 am (0105 GMT), according to the China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC). The US Geological Survey reported the tremor as magnitude 7.1.
“Thirty-two people have been confirmed dead and 38 injured during the 6.8-magnitude earthquake that jolted Dingri County in the city of Xigaze in Xizang (Tibet) Autonomous Region at 9:05 am Tuesday,” Xinhua news agency said, citing the regional disaster relief headquarters.
“Dingri county and its surrounding areas experienced very strong tremors, and many buildings near the epicentre have collapsed,” state broadcaster CCTV said earlier.

Xinhua said “local authorities are reaching out to various townships in the county to assess the impact of the quake”.

Temperatures in Dingri are around minus 8 degrees Celsius (46 degrees Fahrenheit) and will drop to minus 18 this evening, according to the China Meteorological Administration.
The high-altitude county in the Tibet region is home to around 62,000 people and situated on the Chinese side of Mount Everest.

While earthquakes are common in the region, Tuesday’s quake was the most powerful recorded within a 200-kilometre radius in the last five years, the CENC added.
‘Shook quite strongly’
As well as Kathmandu, areas around Lobuche in Nepal in the high mountains near Everest were also rattled by the tremor and aftershocks.

“It shook quite strongly here, everyone is awake,” said government official Jagat Prasad Bhusal in Nepal’s Namche region, which lies nearer to Everest.

But no damage or deaths had been reported so far and security forces had been deployed, Nepali Home Minister spokesman Rishi Ram Tiwari said.
Major geological faultline
Nepal lies on a major geological faultline where the Indian tectonic plate pushes up into the Eurasian plate, forming the Himalayas, and earthquakes are a regular occurrence.

In 2015, nearly 9,000 people died and more than 22,000 were injured when a 7.8-magnitude quake struck Nepal, destroying more than half a million homes.

Some tremors were felt in Bihar state in India but no injuries were reported.
Three people were killed and dozens injured after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck along the mountainous China-Kyrgyzstan border in January last year.

A quake in December 2023 in northwest China killed 148 people and displaced thousands in Gansu province.

That quake was China’s deadliest since 2014, when more than 600 people were killed in southwestern Yunnan province.

In the December 2023 earthquake, subzero temperatures made the aid operation launched in response even more challenging, with survivors huddled around outdoor fires to keep warm.

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The court found one boy, surnamed Zhang, guilty of intentional homicide and handed him a life sentence. A second boy, surnamed Li, received a 12-year prison term, while the third, surnamed Ma, was sentenced to correctional education after being found not to have directly harmed the victim.
The case has drawn national attention due to the severity of the crime and the age of the perpetrators. In 2021, China amended its criminal laws, lowering the minimum age of responsibility from 14 to 12 for “special cases” involving heinous crimes, such as murder committed with “extremely cruel means.”
The prosecution highlighted the “particularly cruel” nature of the killing and emphasized that the circumstances warranted criminal responsibility despite the defendants’ young age.

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Albin Joseph

The ongoing economic crisis in Sri Lanka has been sending shock waves not only within the island nation, but across the South Asia region. Soaring prices and lack of essential food supplies have created panic amongst the vast majority of the 22 million population. Moreover, the lackluster attitude of the government in dealing with the crisis resulted in people taking to the streets. Sri Lanka’s problem stems from the fact that the country is quickly running out of its foreign exchange reserves; and while this prognosis may seem right at first, it’s a symptom of a problem that is much deep-rooted. Let’s take a reality check on the core issues and the way forward in resolving this impending crisis.

Basically Sri Lanka falls under the category of a “Frontier Economy”, an economy that’s neither developed nor big enough to be branded as an emerging economy. It can be positioned somewhere in between these two spheres. Countries like these are usually reliant on a few focused sectors to generate national income. The nation’s economy has also been classified as a twin deficit economy by Asian Development bank in 2019. Twin deficits signal that the country’s national expenditure exceeds its national income and that its production of tradable goods or services is inadequate.

Sri Lanka’s national income is highly dependent on tourism, tea and a few other agricultural products. In fact, tourism accounts for more than 10% to its GDP and  when the pandemic hit, it was inevitable that the country would have to deal with unprecedented issues in this sector. Sri Lanka’s tourism industry took a severe beating, and the economy nosedived, with a shrinkage of 3.6% in 2020. Tourists were no longer thronging the fascinating beaches of the island and the nation’s foreign income dropped significantly. According to data from Trading Economics, Sri Lanka used to earn revenues to the tune of $455 million a month during the healthy pre-pandemic days, which plummeted to a meagre $3 million a month in the second half of 2021. While large economies such as US, Japan, China, and India were easily able to muster resources to fight the pandemic, frontier economies like Sri Lanka had to face an uphill task on this front.

As the country was reeling under the pressure of an economic crisis, its government took an untimely and unwarranted decision to go “hundred per cent organic” and in a bid to fully realise this vision, it banned the import and sale of all chemical fertilizers. This was a severe blow to the tea plantations and since tea exports accounted for a major chunk of the foreign trade, foreign exchange reserves took a hit once again. Tea accounts for the major share of Sri Lanka’s exports, generating more than $1.25 billion a year and making up almost 10% of the country’s export income. This “ill thought out” crusade not only cost tea plantations and farmers dearly but also impacted related services and financial sectors that fed off from tea exports. Eventually, tea industry capitulated, as did many other plantations. By the time the government relaxed some restrictions, the damage was already done beyond repair, and the country had already lost out on much needed foreign income.

At present, Sri Lanka is in a state of economic emergency. The nation’s foreign exchange reserves are getting depleted as it plummeted to $2.0 billion by the end of 2021 from $7.5 billion in November 2019. The outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war was the last nail in the coffin on the foreign exchange reserves of Sri Lanka, as fuel prices soared globally making imports too expensive. With the current state of affairs, the chances of making a major recovery at the foreign exchange reserves front seems to be very remote.

What makes foreign exchange reserves so precious?

Foreign exchange, basically dollars ,  is how a country makes payment  for importing goods from international markets. So, if Sri Lanka wants to buy fuel or foodstuff, it will have to pay for it with foreign exchange reserves they have earned. Unfortunately, they have been spending a lot of foreign currency while not earning as much. So, if they need to import basic amenities from the international markets anytime soon, they’ll be in a bit of a pickle.

That’s not the end of the nation’s woes. The country was heavily reliant on foreign loans to pursue developmental and infrastructure activities. Sri Lank must repay $26 billion of its loan by 2026 and by the end of 2022 alone, they will have to settle $7 billion as repayment of loans, that they have borrowed from countries like, China, Japan and India. With hardly $1.5 billion in its reserves, and deteriorating foreign exchange income, the repayment of loans would turn out to be a herculean task.

What’s the way forward?

Although there aren’t any quick fixes to resolve these issues, the first priority is to ensure that the nation’s loan repayments need to be restructured with the major lending countries. The forex reserves will get a sigh of relief, once a deferred and prolonged repayment schedule is charted out.  Subsequently, the government will have to come out with concrete and positive measures to boost its exports with impetus on tea and other agricultural products. Imported coal accounts for almost 44% of Sri Lanka’s electricity generation, which causes a major drain on the foreign exchange reserves. Long-term policies to reduce the dependency on coal for power generation are the need of the hour. Approaching International Monetary Fund for immediate financial assistance is very much on the cards to get an immediate bailout. Though this is viewed as one of the ideal measure to deal with this crisis, it can only be done by adhering to IMF’s stringent regulations and measures to restructure the economy in its entirety.

Lessons Learned

It’s quite imperative to have a look at the lessons learned from this crisis from a political point of view and from an academic perspective as well. Misappropriation of government funds and corruption at the peripheral level can ruin the economic stability of any nation and this is a key learning that one can infer from the current turmoil in Sri Lanka. Secondly, borrowing of loans has to be done with adequate due diligence and clear rationale. Obtaining foreign loans for the overall development of a nation is ideally right and this is something that most of the frontier economies and developing nations do on an ongoing basis. But these loans can turn out to be a heavy burden on the exchequer if they are not utilised in productive areas.

Sri Lanka is a classic example of an economy that took huge loans, particularly from China for infrastructure development, which hardly generated any significant revenue to the government directly or indirectly. A frontier economy such as Sri Lanka should have used these loans in highly productive areas that could enhance the technology to fuel agricultural and industrial growth. Last, but not the least, decision making on major policy change should be done rationally and logically instead of doing it in an ad hoc manner. The current regime did a historical blunder by taking a decision overnight to abolish the import of fertilizers in order to resort to hundred per cent organic farming. The end result of this immature decision-making was quite apparent, with drop in agricultural produce and resulting in acute food shortage.

The author is a Member of Loka Kerala Sabha.

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White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement that it is imperative that the report be independent and free from “alteration by the Chinese government”, echoing concerns raised by the administration of former President Donald Trump, who also moved to quit the WHO over the issue.

A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy fired back with a strongly-worded statement, saying the United States had damaged multilateral cooperation and the WHO in recent years, and should not be “pointing fingers” at China and other countries that supported the WHO during the Covid-19 pandemic.

China welcomed the U.S. decision to reengage with the WHO, but Washington should hold itself to the “highest standards” instead of taking aim at other countries, the spokesperson said.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Friday said all hypotheses were still open about the origins of Covid-19, after Washington said it wanted to review data from a WHO-led mission to China, where the virus first emerged.

A WHO-led mission, which spent four weeks in China probing the origins of the Covid-19 outbreak, said this week that it was not looking further into the question of whether the virus escaped from a lab, which is considered highly unlikely.

The Trump administration had said it suspected the virus may have escaped from a Chinese lab, which Beijing strongly denies.

Sullivan noted that U.S. President Joe Biden had quickly reversed the decision to disengage from the WHO, but said it was imperative to protect the organization’s credibility.

China refused to give raw data on early Covid-19 cases to the WHO-led team probing the origins of the pandemic, according to one of the team’s investigators, potentially complicating efforts to understand how the outbreak began.

The team had requested raw patient data on 174 cases that China had identified from the early phase of the outbreak in the city of Wuhan in December 2019, as well as other cases, but were only provided with a summary, Retuers reported.

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The move came after India decided to retain its ban on TikTok and 58 other Chinese apps following responses from the companies on issues such as compliance and privacy. The ban dates from last year when political tension between the neighbours rose over their disputed border.

“We initially hoped that this situation would be short-lived…we find that has not been the case,” ByteDance wrote in the memo to staff in India, seen by Reuters. “We simply cannot responsibly stay fully staffed while our apps remain un-operational…we don’t know when we will make a comeback in India.”

In a statement, Tiktok said it was disappointing that despite its efforts it had not received a clear direction on how and when its apps could be re-instated. “It is deeply regretful that after supporting our 2,000-plus employees in India for more than half a year, we have no choice but to scale back the size of our workforce,” it said, but gave no further specifics.

At the time of last year’s ban, the Indian government described the apps as “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India”. The move followed a skirmish with Chinese troops at a disputed Himalayan border site that killed 20 Indian troops.

TikTok had committed to spending $1 billion in the region. Before the ban, it had become one of the fastest-growing social media apps in India, once its largest market in terms of users.

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In the factsheet, US claims to have evidence that several researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick in autumn of 2019, before the first identified case of the coronavirus outbreak, with symptoms consistent with the both COVID-19 and common seasonal illness. US maintain its claims that the virus may have escaped the controversial Wuhan lab.

According to the factsheet , the department says that the virus could have emerged from human contact with infected animals or through a laboratory accident. The report says, “Scientists in China have researched animal-derived coronaviruses under conditions that increased the risk for accidental and potentially unwitting exposure”.

US released the fact sheets as 13 international experts of the World Health Organisation (WHO) arrived in China to probe the origin of the coronavirus.

Major claims

The fact sheet highlights three major elements about the COVID-19 virus- illness inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology(WIV), Research at the WIV and Secret military activity at WIV.

The factsheet claim that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in 2019 before the first outbreak was reported. This raises the questions about the credibility of WIV senior researcher Shi Zhengli’s public claim that there was “zero infection”among the WIV’s staff and students of SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-related viruses, the report says. It also mentioned about how accidental infections in Chinese labs have contributed to previous virus outbreak.

The US also claimed the involvement of Chinese military in secret military experiments in Wuhan lab since 2017.The report says, “The WIV has engaged in classified research, including laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017″. It added, “The United States and other donors who funded or collaborated on civilian research at the WIV have a right and obligation to determine whether any of our research funding was diverted to secret Chinese military projects at the WIV”.

The US asserted that the WHO investigators must have access to the records of the WIV’s work on bat and other coronaviruses before the coronavirus outbreak.

“As part of a thorough inquiry, they must have a full accounting of why the WIV altered and then removed online records of its work with RaTG13 and other viruses,” the US fact sheet said.

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This new contract intend to set a anticipated future exploitation of space resources by the private sector

As per the deal, the four companies will collect lunar samples and dirt in the next few years and then sign the material over to Nasa for $1 to $15,000.

“I think it’s kind of amazing that we can buy lunar regolith from four companies for a total of $25,001,” news agency AFP quoted Phil McAlister, director of Nasa’s Commercial Spaceflight Division, as saying.

The contracts are with Lunar Outpost of Golden, Colorado for $1; ispace Japan of Tokyo for $5,000; ispace Europe of Luxembourg for $5,000; and Masten Space Systems of Mojave, California for $15,000.

The companies plan to carry out the collection during already-scheduled unmanned missions to the Moon in 2022 and 2023.

The firms are to collect a small amount of lunar soil known as regolith from the Moon and to provide imagery to Nasa of the collection and the collected material.

The lunar soil will then be transferred to Nasa and it will become the “sole property of Nasa for the agency’s use under the Artemis program”, AFP quoted.

However, it’s unclear if the material will be brought to Earth, a report in space.com quoted agency officials as saying.

Offcials further said that the funding is low because Nasa “is paying solely for the collected material, without footing the bill for any of the companies’ development costs.”

Under the Artemis program, Nasa plans to land a man and a woman on the Moon by 2024 and lay the groundwork for sustainable exploration and an eventual mission to Mars.

“The precedent is a very important part of what we’re doing today,” said Mike Gold, NASA’s acting associate administrator for international and interagency relations.

“We think it’s very important to establish the precedent that the private sector entities can extract, can take these resources but NASA can purchase and utilize them to fuel not only NASA’s activities, but a whole new dynamic era of public and private development and exploration on the Moon,” Gold was quoted as saying.

“We must learn to generate our own water, air and even fuel,” he said. “Living off the land will enable ambitious exploration activities that will result in awe inspiring science and unprecedented discoveries.”

Any lessons learned on the Moon would be crucial to an eventual mission to Mars.

The United States is seeking to establish a precedent because there is currently no international consensus on property rights in space and China and Russia have not reached an understanding with the United States on the subject.

The 1967 Outer Space Treaty is vague but it deems outer space to be “not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”

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In a shocking revelation, international studies expert Jun Canrong claimed that China used microwave weapons against Indian soldiers. Jun told students in Beijing that microwave weapons forced Indian soldiers to retreat by making them violently sick during a recent stand-off in the Himalayas.

According to a report published in the Daily Mail, these microwave weapons heat water molecules in the same manner as kitchen appliances. These deadly weapons targeted the water molecules below the skin, and thus Indian soldiers felt unbelievable pain.

Jin claimed that Chinese soldiers beautifully executed this method, and cleared out Indian soldiers without violating the ban on gun fires.

The alleged microwave weapons were deployed in the border in August, following a border standoff between the Indian and Chinese soldiers that resulted in the death of more than 20 Indian army men.

According to Jin, Indian soldiers started vomiting within 15 minutes after the deployment of microwave weapons, and it helped China to reclaim the ground.

Even though countries like the United States have already developed microwave weapons, it is for the first time that a nation is using it against the army of another country.

However the Indian Army issued a denial and said that they remain in control of the high ground.

“The claims cited by these media reports are fake,” tweeted the Indian Army. “No such incident has taken place in Ladakh.”

Media articles on employment of microwave weapons in Eastern Ladakh are baseless. The news is FAKE. pic.twitter.com/Lf5AGuiCW0

— ADG PI – INDIAN ARMY (@adgpi) November 17, 2020

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You may ridicule her but you can’t ignore her bold initiatives in leading from the front against diseases. Kerala’s Virus Warrior, as one magazine had called State’s Health Minister K.K. Shailaja, has been featured in Science magazine published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Under the heading ‘How a communist physics teacher flattened the COVID-19 curve in southern India’ the magazine traces her work in controlling the spread of COVID-19 in Kerala. Even though she had been called names in the State Assembly by the Opposition, it was her alertness that had stemmed the spread the virus in the State quite early.
The report starts, ‘When the World Health Organization (WHO) issued its first statement on the spread of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China, on 18 January, few local governments in India paid close attention. But K. K. Shailaja, the diminutive woman running the health ministry in the southern state of Kerala, immediately perked up her ears.

Shailaja knew many students from Kerala were studying at Wuhan University, and she understood the havoc an outbreak could cause. In 2018, during her first stint as a minister, she faced an outbreak of Nipah virus, another deadly pathogen spread from animals to people. “We knew anything could happen at any time,” she says.

By 24 January, Shailaja had called a meeting of her rapid response team, set up a control room, and mobilized surveillance teams. On 27 January, the first group of students flew back from Wuhan. Three days later, one of them tested positive for COVID-19, becoming India’s first confirmed case.

It is to her credit that only 0.36% of confirmed cases have died, a mortality rate that is among the lowest in the world and reflects both Kerala’s young population and high-quality health care. The magazine, quoting virologist Shahid Jameel, director of Ashoka University’s Trivedi School of Biosciences, says “In many ways, [Kerala] got it right. They possibly got it right the most of any Indian State.”

Much of the credit goes to Kerala’s calm and cheerful Health Minister, often called “Shailaja Teacher” because of her old job as a high school teacher. Although Kerala benefited from historical advantages including the country’s highest literacy rates and arguably its best primary health care system, experts say Shailaja’s leadership has been critical. “She listens to people, she visits hospitals privately, she talks to doctors,” says K. Srinath Reddy, director of the Public Health Foundation of India. “She comes across as a person who is blessed both in ability and humility.”

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The Malabar exercise this year is especially significant with the participation of Australia, thus covering all member of the Quad, an informal group of the four largest democracies in the Indo-Pacific region.

This is also the first military-level engagement among all the four member countries , primarily focusing on checking China’s increasing military muscle-flexing.

US Navy ship USS John S McCain (Guided-missile destroyer), Australian Navy Ship HMAS Ballarat (long- range frigate) and Japan Maritime Self Defence Ship ( JMSDF) Ship JS Onami (destroyer) are participating along with Navy units.

Malabar exercise is a multilateral naval exercise that includes simulated war games and combat manoeuvres. It started in 1992 between the Indian and US navies. Japan joined in 2015.
This year, the exercise will be held in two phases, the first from November 3 to 6 off the coast near Vishakapatnam and the second from November 17 to 20 in the Arabian Sea.

According to the Defence Ministry, the exercise this year has been planned on a ‘non-contact- at sea’ format in view of the covid-19 pandemic. This means there will be no contact among military personnel of the four countries.

China is rattled by participation of four leading global powers in the annual exercise. It said that the drill should be conducive to regional peace. They worry that the annual war game is an attempt to contain its influence in the Indo-Pacific region.

The exercise comes at a time when the ties of all the four participating countries with China are under strain. Especially India is locked in the worst border deadlock with China in decades.

US and Australia’s relations with China have deteriorated recently over a range of issues including the Covid-19 pandemic and economic sanctions.

Japan meanwhile has a dispute with China over ownership of islands in the East China Sea.

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Mike Pompeo has already arrived in New Delhi and he was accompanied by his wife Susan.

The visiting dignitaries will be hosted by Rajnath Singh and Jaishankar for dinner. It is expected that the two sides may finalise the long-pending Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) agreement to further boost bilateral defence ties. They will also call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the stay in the national capital.

The signing of the agreement would allow the United States to share precision satellite and topographical data from its constellation of military satellites on a real-time basis.

China defense cooperation, foundational agreements and other regional issues will be the prime focus of the meeting.

“We have made significant progress towards concluding the last foundational defence enabling agreement – the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement or BECA,” senior officials of the Trump administration said last week in an online news briefing.

“This agreement will allow for expanded geospatial information sharing between our Armed Forces. We are also seeking to expand secure communication capabilities between our respective militaries as well as between our foreign defence ministries and that figures prominently in what we are trying to accomplish in the information-sharing space,” they added.

Pompeo will also travel to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. These countries were struggling with a mountain of Chinese debt incurred to finance big infrastructure projects. The visit also assumes importance on the backdrop of China’s expansionist designs in the region.

Pompeo will conclude his trip in Indonesia, a week before the US presidential election, which is also locked in territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea.

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“Look at China, how filthy it is. Look at Russia. Look at India. The air is filthy. I walked out of the Paris Accord as we had to take out trillions of dollars and we were treated very unfairly,” said Trump during his final presidential debate in Tennessee.

This is not the first time that Trump has blamed countries like China and India for not doing anything to control the adverse effects of climate change. Earlier, the US president had claimed that India and China are regions in the world where it is impossible to breathe.

““We have the best environmental numbers, ozone numbers, and so many other numbers. In the meantime, China, Russia, India all these countries they’re spewing stuff into the air,” added Trump during the rally.

In the final presidential debate, Trump’s opponent Joe Biden lashed out at the US president for befriending with North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un. Biden started attacking Trump when the president claimed that he has avoided war through his summits with Kim Jong-un.

Calling Kim Jong-un a thug, Biden revealed that Trump’s move was very similar to becoming a friend of Adolf Hitler before the second world war.

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The step could be significant as the area of tension is very well known for its bone- chilling temperature and war at such place can be dangerous. The Indian Army used an agreement which allows the two militaries to take logical assistance from each other such as buying fuel and spare parts for warships and aircraft, for the transaction.

The Logistics Exchange Memorandum Agreement signed in August 2016 aims to promote interoperability between the two militaries.

Till now, India sourced high-altitude kits for its defense force mainly from Europe and China. S K Saini, the second-highest ranking general in the Indian Army, is on a scheduled visit to the U.S. Army Pacific Command to discuss other emergency purchases and building capabilities.

The tension at Ladakh which surfaced after the firing at the LAC after 45 years on June 15 has prompted both the sides to move thousands of troops, tanks and missiles to the Himalayan border, while fighter jets are on stand-by.

With the winter season coming close, the troops face off at 15,000 feet, with temperatures dropping to -30 Celsius (-22 Fahrenheit).

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Now, there is news that notes that some WhatsApp data will be shared with Jio which help WhatsApp users to carryout transactions on JioMart. The officials said that nothing more will be shared between Jio and WhatsApp, apart from data essential for transactions.

The data sharing relationship between Jio and WhatsApp could be similar to how it is between WhatsApp and Facebook. When WhatsApp integrated with Facebook, that according to Facebook, helps the company offer richer and more integrated services to both Facebook and Whats App users.

The primary focus of Jio and Facebook is to turn WhatsApp into a super app, similar to WeChat in China, through which users will not be able to chat but will also be able to buy goods or pay for services, even from local shops.

While collaborating with Reliance Jio , Facebook made it clear that this investment was aimed at building a viable e-retail platform centred around WhatsApp. Both Jio and Facebook wanted to create new ways for people and businesses to operate more effectively in a growing digital economy.

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A mysterious video uploaded to YouTube by self-styled extraterrestrial hunter Scott C Waring is now the hottest debating point among alien enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists. In the video, originally shot by TikTok user goldninjatw, a UFO-like object can be seen transported in a trailer truck.

This mysterious video only lasts for five seconds, and within this time, viewers get a glimpse of a giant disc-like object being loaded in a trailer truck. Interestingly, the shape of this disc-like object seems very similar to the alien flying vessels people have seen in Hollywood movies like Independence Day.

The alleged UFO spotted in the video had window-like structures all around its body, and the man who shot the clip can be heard exclaiming ‘UFO’. Waring who analyzed the footage claimed that clips like these are indicating alien activities in China. He also added that China is using alien technology to emerge as a global power.

“In the trailer is a huge disk with windows all around it. The disk is very thick on its edge, but its center and thicker around its center. You can really hear the excitement and astonishment in the man’s voice as he exclaims “UFO!” Also, it looks like the driver was so distracted by the UFO that he may have driven right into a light pole in the center of the road. Sure hope he’s ok. Absolutely alien technology in Chinese hands,” Waring wrote on his blog UFO Sightings Daily.

A few days back, a similar incident happened in the United States, where a truck was seen carrying a disc-like object. The video had also gone viral, and it made many people believe that alien existence on earth is real.

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With the occupation of these six peaks in the eastern region of Ladakh, the Indian Army is now in a good position to monitor the movement Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

It is learnt that Indian Air Force is also flying Rafale fighter jets near the LAC to monitor the activities of the fighter planes of China. Five Rafale fighter aircraft, which were formally deployed at Ambala Air Base on September 10, were recently spotted conducting ‘familiarisation sorties’ in Ladakh.

Keeping in mind the aggressive nature of PLA, the IAF is looking to enhance its combat skills. The IAF has been on high alert following the recent incidents of firing by Chinese troops near the LAC.

Meanwhile senior army commanders of India and China held talks on implementing a five-point agreement reached between the two countries on disengagement of troops and de-escalation of the tense situation in eastern Ladakh.

The sixth round of Corps commander-level talks began on Monday in Moldo on the Chinese side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) across India’s Chushul sector in eastern Ladakh. The Indian delegation is headed by Lt Gen Harinder Singh, the commander of the Leh-based 14 Corps of the Indian Army.

The team also included a joint secretary-level officer from the Ministry of External Affairs(MEA) and Lt. Gen PGK Menon, who is expected to succeed Singh as the commander of the 14 Corps next month.

It is for the first time that a senior official from the MEA was part of the high-level military talks aimed at ending the four-month-long border standoff between in India and China.
Maj Gen Liu Lin, the commander of the South Xinjiang military region, is slated to lead the Chinese delegation.

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Mr Trump told reporters he had given his “blessing” to a partnership between TikTok and US firms Oracle and Walmart.

The president had ordered the app to be banned in the US, citing national security concerns. US security officials fear data collected by TikTok’s owner may be handed to the Chinese government.

TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, has denied accusations that it is controlled by or shares data with China’s ruling Communist Party.

#WeAreTikTok and we are here to stay! pic.twitter.com/AaA8OhpvGx

— TikTok US (@tiktok_us) September 19, 2020

On September 19, Mr Trump said the deal would ensure the data of the estimated 100 million Americans who use the app was safe, telling reporters: “The security will be 100%.”

“I have given the deal my blessing,” Mr Trump said as he left the White House ahead of an election rally in North Carolina. “I approve the deal in concept.”

President Trump’support for the deal comes days after his administration said it would bar people in the US from downloading Tik Tok through any app store from Sunday.

Hence the US Department of Commerce decided that it is postponing TikTok ban until September 27. The decision was taken as the US President gave green-signal for the Oracle-Tik Tok deal.

Oracle will be TikTok’s “trusted technology provider,” meaning Oracle will house the entity’s data in its U.S. servers — a boon to a cloud computing business that has lagged behind those of Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc. and Microsoft.

It will also get access to monitor TikTok’s source code and algorithms.

Walmart Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon will sit on Tiktok Global’s board and is discussing a commercial partnership with TikTok.

TikTok Global will likely be headquartered in Texas and will hire at least 25,000 people, Trump said, without mentioning a timeline for those hires.

ByteDance would retain a majority stake in TikTok’s assets and control the closely guarded algorithm that determines what clips users see.

The new company will hold an initial public offering in about a year.

Oracle Corp. is the winning bidder for a deal with Tik Tok’s US operations, after main rival Microsoft Corp. announced its offer of the video app was rejected.

However, the deal still needs to get the approval of China, where ByteDance. is based.
Oracle plans to take a 12.5% stake in a round of financing that would precede an IPO

TikTok also said that together, Oracle and Walmart Inc. could end up with as much as 20%.

The new company, called TikTok Global, will seek a U.S. IPO and raise a pre-IPO round of financing.

Existing Bytedance investors that could participate in the pre-IPO round include Sequoia Capital, General Altantic and Coatue Capital.

A host of other companies made proposals or considered bidding. Microsoft Corp. was rebuffed because it wanted to control all of TikTok in the U.S., a condition that didn’t sit well with Beijing.

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Mr.Singh also said that India’s timely actions had foiled the attempts to change the status quo in Pangong Tso.

“I would like to assure Parliament that India will not step back from taking any harsh decision and that our forces are in a better position to retaliate,” Rajnath Singh said adding that China has built up war machines and troops near LAC.

During his address, Singh also said that China continues to illegally occupy a large area of Ladakh. “China continues to be in illegal occupation of approx 38,000 sq. kms in the Union Territory of Ladakh. In addition, under the so-called Sino-Pakistan ‘Boundary Agreement’ of 1963, Pakistan illegally ceded 5,180 sq. km. of Indian territory in PoK to China. China also claims approximately 90,000 sq. kms. of Indian territory in the Eastern Sector of the India-China boundary in Arunachal Pradesh. Chinese actions reflect a disregard of our various bilateral agreements,” Singh said.

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The army warned that China will face a better trained and better prepared Indian army if they try to lock horns. The statement issued by the army also revealed that Indian soldiers are physically and psychologically strong when compared to Chinese men who hail mostly from urban areas.

The comments from the Northern Command come at a time when China’s communist party-backed Global Times published a report regarding the incapability of the Indian army. Global Times had reported that India’s operational logistics is not adequately geared up, especially if a war breaks out in the winter.

“This can be best attributed to ignorance. Indian Army is fully prepared and more than capable of fighting full-fledged war even in winters in Eastern Ladakh. India is a peace-loving country, and wishes to have a good relationship with neighbors. While talks are in progress to resolve the border issues with China in eastern Ladakh, at the military level, the country is highly prepared for a standoff,” said a Northern Command spokesperson.

The spokesperson also added that Indian soldiers are well experienced in winter warfare, and made it clear that they are all psychologically tuned to start operation at a short notice. Moreover, India also has a large number of airbases which can be used effectively to assist the army during the time of war.

According to the Northern Command spokesperson, the strength of the Indian Army has started worrying Chinese soldiers, and this is now getting visible in reports published in Chinese media.

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The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is a principal body focussed on gender equality and women empowerment. This is a functional commission of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

The 54-member ECOSOC, holding the first plenary meeting of its 2021 session in the General Assembly Hall on September 14, held elections for two seats in the Asia-Pacific States category with Afghanistan, India and China as candidates.

Afghanistan, which is led by Ambassador Adela Raz at the UN, garnered 39 votes and India got 38 votes of the 54 ballots cast.

India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador T S Tirumurti shared his happiness about the victory. “India wins seat in prestigious #ECOSOC body! India elected Member of Commission on Status of Women #CSW. It’s a ringing endorsement of our commitment to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in all our endeavours. We thank member states for their support,” he wrote.

India wins seat in prestigious #ECOSOC body!

India elected Member of Commission on Status of Women #CSW. It’s a ringing endorsement of our commitment to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in all our endeavours.

We thank member states for their support. @MEAIndia pic.twitter.com/C7cKrMxzOV

— Amb T S Tirumurti (@ambtstirumurti) September 14, 2020

China, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, got only 27 votes and could not even cross the half-way mark and also failed to get the required majority of 28 votes.

The rare win for India happened at a time when the 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women, that was held in Beijing in 1995, is being commemorated around the world.

It is highly notable and telling that China lost this election when the silver jubilee anniversary of the landmark Beijing conference on women is being commemorated and of which China takes a lot of ownership on.

The election result is being seen as sending a strong signal about China’s own record of women’s equality and empowerment.

India and Afghanistan will join Argentina, Austria, Dominican Republic, Israel, Latvia, Nigeria, Turkey and Zambia, which were elected by acclamation, to the Commission on the Status of Women for a four-year term beginning from 2021-2025.

India’s election win at the CSW is highly significant as it comes on the eve of India gearing up to sit at the UN Security Council high table as non-permanent member for a two-year term beginning January 1, 2021.

The Commission on the Status of Women is instrumental in promoting women’s rights, documenting the reality of women’s lives throughout the world, and shaping global standards on gender equality and the empowerment of women.

In 1996, ECOSOC expanded the Commission’s mandate and decided that it should take a leading role in monitoring and reviewing progress and problems in the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, and in mainstreaming a gender perspective in UN activities.

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Citing national security concerns, the Trump administration on August issued an executive order requiring that the short video app at the center of US-China tensions, be sold to a US buyer or face being shut down by Sept 15.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Oracle has secured a deal to manage Tik Tok’s US operations. Both the companies haven’t issued a statement, but the tech giant Microsoft, who was a frontrunner to acquire the app at one time has issued statement, with some pointed remarks.

Through their statement Microsoft, cryptically implied that other bids wouldn’t deal with the issue of protecting user data as seriously as it intended to:

“Byte Dance let us know today they would not be selling TikTok’s US operations to Microsoft. We are confident our proposal would have been good for Tik Tok’s users, while protecting national security interests. To do this, we would have made significant changes to ensure the service met the highest standards for security, privacy, online safety and combating disinformation and we made these principles clear in our August statement. We look forward to seeing how the service evolves in these important areas.”

It is not clear whether TikTok’s partnership with Oracle would allow the short-form video app to avert the ban.

However, Chinese state media refute the rumours that Oracle secured the deal. Chinese government revised its export rules that could block the transfer or sale of Byte Dance’s artificial intelligence technologies. It is highly unlikely that China will allow this move.

The clock is ticking on TikTok’s fate.

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