US overtakes China with 82,000 Covid-19 cases; toll crosses 2,000 in Iran

It is, however, important to note that the US has been testing people at a much larger scale, when compared with other countries that have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic

United States has now surpassed China in the number of Covid-19 cases around the world, with at least 82,404 people are known to have been infected with the deadly coronavirus, the Johns Hopkins University real-time Covid-19 tracker said on Thursday. It is, however, important to note that the US has been testing people at a much larger scale, when compared with other countries that have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

“We now have 370,000 tests that have been done. The majority of those — over 220,000 in the last eight days, which, those of you who have been tracking the South Korea numbers, put us equivalent to what they did in eight weeks that we did in eight days,” Dr Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, told reporters on Thursday. Although the US has surpassed China’s 81,782 mark, the Covid-19-related death toll in the country is still lower than China, with 1,178 Americans having died as opposed to the 3,291 Chinese fatalities. At least 160 million Americans have been ordered to stay home as schools are closed, restaurants and bars have been closed in hope of the curtail spread of the lethal virus, The New York Times reported.

New York City is among the worst-hit cities as the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the city has reached 38,000 and 281 have died. On Wednesday, US Senate leaders and Trump Administration had reached an agreement regarding a $2 trillion package to rescue the economy from the coronavirus wrath, paving the way for swift passage of the legislation from both the chambers of Congress. Meanwhile, the number of coronavirus-related deaths worldwide exceeded 20,000, according to the World Health Organization (WHO)

US overtakes China with 82,000 Covid-19 cases; toll crosses 2,000 in Iran

It is, however, important to note that the US has been testing people at a much larger scale, when compared with other countries that have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic

United States has now surpassed China in the number of Covid-19 cases around the world, with at least 82,404 people are known to have been infected with the deadly coronavirus, the Johns Hopkins University real-time Covid-19 tracker said on Thursday. It is, however, important to note that the US has been testing people at a much larger scale, when compared with other countries that have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

“We now have 370,000 tests that have been done. The majority of those — over 220,000 in the last eight days, which, those of you who have been tracking the South Korea numbers, put us equivalent to what they did in eight weeks that we did in eight days,” Dr Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, told reporters on Thursday. Although the US has surpassed China’s 81,782 mark, the Covid-19-related death toll in the country is still lower than China, with 1,178 Americans having died as opposed to the 3,291 Chinese fatalities. At least 160 million Americans have been ordered to stay home as schools are closed, restaurants and bars have been closed in hope of the curtail spread of the lethal virus, The New York Times reported.

New York City is among the worst-hit cities as the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the city has reached 38,000 and 281 have died. On Wednesday, US Senate leaders and Trump Administration had reached an agreement regarding a $2 trillion package to rescue the economy from the coronavirus wrath, paving the way for swift passage of the legislation from both the chambers of Congress. Meanwhile, the number of coronavirus-related deaths worldwide exceeded 20,000, according to the World Health Organization (WHO)

Amir Mohammed Salbi confirmed as new Islamic State leader: Report

But some analysts suggested the group were caught off guard by Baghdadi’s killing and that the true identity of its new leader remained uncertain.

Intelligence services have identified the new leader of the Islamic State (IS) group as Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawli al-Salbi, British newspaper The Guardian reported on Monday. The paper, citing officials from two unnamed spy services, described him as one of the terrorist group’s founding members and said he had led the enslavement of the Yazidi minority in Iraq.

It said he also oversaw operations around the world. The organisation had named Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi as its new head just days after its previous leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was killed in a raid by US special forces in October. But some analysts suggested the group were caught off guard by Baghdadi’s killing and that the true identity of its new leader remained uncertain.

The Guardian said Salbi was selected within hours of the death and that Quraishi was a nom de guerre not recognised by other senior leaders or intelligence agencies. The newspaper described him as “a hardened veteran in the same vein as Baghdadi, unflinching in his loyalty to the extremist group”. It said he was born into an Iraqi Turkmen family in the town of Tal Afar, and is one of the few non-Arabs among the group’s leadership…Read More

Iranian investigators say Ukrainian flight was on fire even before crash

The crash occurred hours after Iran launched missile attacks on U.S.-led forces in Iraq, leading some to speculate that the plane may have been hit

A Ukrainian airliner was on fire immediately before it crashed southwest of Tehran, killing all 176 on board, according to an initial report by Iranian investigators. The Ukrainian International Airlines Boeing 737-800, flying to Kiev and carrying mostly Iranians and Iranian-Canadians, crashed shortly after taking off on Wednesday from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport. The report, by Iran’s civil aviation organisation, cited witnesses on the ground and in a passing aircraft flying at high altitude as saying the jet was on fire while still aloft.

The three-year-old Boeing jet, which had its last scheduled maintenance on Jan. 6, encountered a technical problem shortly after take-off and started to head towards a nearby airport before it crashed, the report said. The technical problem was not specified in the report. However, a Canadian security source told Reuters there was evidence one of the jet’s engines overheated.

The crash occurred hours after Iran launched missile attacks on U.S.-led forces in Iraq, leading some to speculate that the plane may have been hit. Five security sources – three Americans, one European and the Canadian – who asked not to be named, told Reuters the initial assessment of Western intelligence agencies was that the plane had suffered a technical malfunction and had not been brought down by a missile.

Qassem Soleimani killing: Will oil become a weapon of choice for Iran?

Oil prices have been on an upward trajectory since early October and the killing of Soleimani boosted them to their highest level since April

Events in 2019 served as a reminder for just how vulnerable the world’s oil supply is, and Iran was usually blamed as the culprit for attacks on ships, pipelines and processing plants in the Middle East. But the knock-on effects blew over quickly in a world that appeared oblivious to the geopolitics of oil. Now in the wake of the US killing of Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian general who led the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds force, the big question hanging over the market is whether Iran will target oil in its response.

There is no particular reason to expect that Iran’s retaliation will target oil, except that even the best guarded of the industry’s installations have been shown to be vulnerable and the steady stream of oil tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz presents multiple opportunities to disrupt flows. About 34 million barrels of crude from Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait was passing through the channel on their way out of the Persian Gulf and toward US ports last month, according to Bloomberg tanker tracking.

Attacks in September on Saudi Arabia’s oil processing facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais briefly took 5.7 million barrels a day of the country’s oil production capacity offline, the single biggest disruption in supply on record. It served as a wake-up call that the world’s oil security blanket — the spare production capacity that is almost uniquely held by the kingdom — was not nearly as secure as once was thought…

Iraq asks foreign troops to leave; Trump threatens Iran with retaliation

Iran and the United States have been competing for clout in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003 that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein

Iraq’s parliament called on Sunday for US and other foreign troops to leave as a backlash grows against the US killing of a topIranian general, and President Donald Trump doubled down on threats to target Iranian cultural sites if Tehran retaliates.

Deepening a crisis that has heightened fears of a major Middle East conflagration, Iran said it was taking another step back from commitments under a 2015 nuclear deal with six major powers. Iran‘s most prominent general, Qassem Soleimani, was killed on Friday in a U.S. drone strike on his convoy at Baghdad airport, an attack that carried U.S.-Iranian hostilities into uncharted waters. An Iranian government minister denounced Trump as a “terrorist in a suit” after the U.S. president sent a series of Twitter posts on Saturday threatening to hit 52 Iranian sites, including targets important to Iranian culture, if Tehran attacks Americans or US assets to avenge Soleimani’s death.

Talking to reporters aboard Air Force One on the way to Washington from Florida on Sunday evening, Trump stood by those comments. “They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn’t work that way,” he said. Democratic critics of the Republican president have said Trump was reckless in authorizing the strike, and some said his comments about targeting cultural sites amounted to threats to commit war crimes. Many asked why Soleimani, long seen as a threat by U.S. authorities, had to be killed now….

Trump ordered killing of top Iranian military commander: Pentagon

The death of Qasem Soleimani, who led the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds force, heightened fears of an armed conflict between the U.S. and Iran that could easily pull in other countries.

US President Donald Trump ordered the killing of Iran Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani, who died in Baghdad “in a decisive defensive action to protect US personnel abroad,” the Pentagon said.

“General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region. General Qasem Soleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more,” the Department of Defence said.

Following Soleimani’s death, Trump tweeted an image of the US flag without any further explanation. The strike, which occurred at Baghdad’s international airport on Friday in Iraq, also killed the deputy chief of Iraq’s powerful Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary force. A pro-Iran mob this week laid siege to the US embassy following deadly American air strikes on a hardline Hashed faction.\

The US had called the strikes in response to a rocket attack days earlier that had killed an American contractor working in Iraq. The Baghdad airport was hit in a volley of missiles just after midnight Friday, Iraq’s military had announced

Iran’s celebrity, West’s terrorist: Who was General Qasem Soleimani

Soleimani was the key planner of Iran’s local impact, driving the battle against jihadist powers and broadening Iran’s conciliatory heave in Iraq, Syria and past

Progressive Guards administrator Qasem Soleimani, who was killed Friday in a US strike, was one of the most well known figures in Iran and seen as a lethal enemy by America and its partners. General Soleimani, who headed the outer tasks Quds Force for the Guards, had employed his local clout openly since 2018 when it was uncovered that he had direct association in top-level talks over the arrangement of Iraq’s administration.

It was nothing unexpected at the ideal opportunity for a man who has been at the focal point of intensity broking in the district for two decades. Qasem Soleimani has been in and out of Baghdad from that point forward, most as of late a month ago as gatherings looked to shape another administration. Where once he kept to the shadows, Soleimani has lately become an improbable big name in Iran – packed with an immense after on Instagram.

His profile rose abruptly when he was pushed forward as the general population face of Iran’s mediation in the Syrian clash from 2013, showing up in combat zone photographs, narratives – and in any event, being highlighted in a music video and vivified film. In an uncommon meeting disclosed on Iranian state TV in October, he said he was in Lebanon during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war to regulate the contention…

This girl became the Instagram queen of Iraq. And then was shot to death

Ms. Fares’s likeness remains repeated in this internet hall of mirrors: swathed in a hotel robe, getting her hair done on Eid al-Fitr, playing video games, flaunting her intricate tattoos

BS|On Oct. 9, the Iraqi author Sinan Antoon tweeted, “Killing those who are other/different has become a ritual/hobby, practiced by individuals for fun, after having been institutionalized by the state, political parties and militias for years.” His tweet referred to reports that an Iraqi teenager had been butchered on a Baghdad street by an assailant who thought he looked gay. But Mr. Antoon could have been referring to any of the young Iraqis who have tried to break free of the rigid social codes governing both genders only to suffer vicious reprisals.

The most famous of these victims has been Tara Fares. When she was killed in September, Ms. Fares, who had 2.8 million followers on Instagram, was the sixth most popular person on Iraqi social media. At 22, she was a self-created celebrity who mixed sexy fashion shoots with video diaries in which she fired back at her conservative critics. Ms. Fares was shot dead in Baghdad’s Camp Sarah neighborhood while riding in her Porsche.

When I read about Ms. Fares’s murder, recognition hit me like a punch. Though I am 13 years her senior, when I was her age, I also worked as a scantily clad internet model. I also reinvented myself on social media, posting endless photos of myself, trying to build a following that would somehow translate into something more. Back then, qualified only for menial jobs, I also saw my looks as a fast-closing door to freedom and used them as best I could. But I am in the United States, and she was in Iraq. The stakes for Ms. Fares were far higher. Her 

US Prez Donald Trump to sign new travel ban order today: What to expect

Revised order expected to remove Iraq from the list of countries whose citizens face a travel ban

 

#COMPANIES | President Donald Trump is preparing to sign a revised executive order temporarily barring the entry of people from certain Muslim-majority countries and halting the nation's refugee programme.

A White House official says plans to roll out the order are on track for today. The official insisted on anonymity in order to discuss the order ahead of the official announcement.

The new order has been in the works since shortly after a federal court blocked Trump's initial effort, but the administration has repeatedly pushed back the signing as it has worked to better coordinate with the agencies that it will need to implement the ban.

Trump administration officials have said the new order aims to overcome the legal challenges to the first. Its goal will be the same: keep would-be terrorists out of the United States while the government reviews the vetting system for refugees and visa applicants from certain parts of the world.

Trump original orders temporarily blocked citizens of Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Syria and Libya from coming to the United States and put on hold the US refugee programme.

The revised order is expected to remove Iraq from the list of countries whose citizens face a temporary US travel ban for 90 days. That follows pressure from the Pentagon and State Department, which had urged the White House to reconsider, given Iraq's key role in fighting the Islamic State group.

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