22nd November 2020
Shorts:
News at a glance
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Typhoons Goni, Vamco strike philippines:
Cagayan and isabella provinces worst hit by floods
-Snigdha dhameja
The Philippines has reported torrential rains and flooding after two weeks of continuous rainfall, as well as two recent typhoons that have adversely affected the surrounding areas. In late October, typhoon Molave caused extreme rainfall to occur near the Northern Luzon region, but the typhoon did not directly cause damage. On November 1st, Super Typhoon Goni hit Southern Luzon, and the onslaught of the third typhoon (Vamco) and the monsoon season caused the Cagayan river to flood and unleash the excess water in surrounding towns.
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Cities in the Cagayan Province reported flash floods and landslides. This time of the year in the Philippines is typhoon season, but habitat degradation, development and deforestation have made the effects of natural disasters far worse.
An estimated three million people have been affected by the floods and landslides, and as many as 70 casualties have been recorded.
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Donate to nonprofits that are helping Philippines typhoon survivors here:
Sources: NYTimes, EarthObservatory
NASA Earth Observatory shows a snapshot of the Luzon region and shows Tuguegarao City, which was submerged after landslides and heavy flooding.
Covaxin's third phase initiated:
First dose goes to haryana health minister anil vij
-Devansh Mishra
Covaxin volunteer Anil Vij takes the first dose in the third phase of trials.
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In a self-volunteered undertaking, Haryana’s health minister Anil Vij was given the first dose of the Covaxin, which is an Indian vaccine for COVID-19 in the making. Post the first and second phase completion, Covaxin has begun the third phase of testing on Wednesday.
Covaxin was a collaborative effort between the Bharat Biotech and the Indian Council of Medical Research. Since the commencement of the third phase of testing, 26,000 people across the country have volunteered to be a subject in the trials of the Covaxin. The phase one and two tests had gone smoothly and successfully, as confirmed by the company.
A daring move by the health minister, this could prove to be vital in riding the novel coronavirus from the country. Will the test prove to be successful, or will the third time prove to be the anti-charm?
Sources: The Mint, Indian Express
US to label Israel boycott movement as anti-Semitic
-Grace treesa
U.S secretary Mike Pompeo became the first top American diplomat to visit an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank. His visit came with the major shift in policy by the State Department as they allowed products to be labeled as ‘Made in Israel’. These actions reflected the Trump administration’s acceptance of the Israeli settlements.
Pompeo announced that the U.S would label the Palestinian-led boycott movement that was primarily against Israel as anti-Semitic and would bar government funding for any groups that participated in it. He added that all nations should recognize the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement as ‘the cancer it is’. The organizers of the movement cast it as a non-violent way to protest against the Israeli policies towards the Palestinians.
The campaign models its plan off of the apartheid movement in South Africa. It panned out with minimal success in colleges and within artist-entertainer circles, but didn’t have any impact on the Israeli economy. This includes those institutions connected to illegal Jewish settlements, companies exploiting natural resources from Palestinian land and those that use Palestinians as cheap labour.
Israel views the movement as a threat to its very existence, and has caught on to statements to accuse it of anti-Semitism, all allegations denied by the organizers.
Sources: CBS, Al Jazeera News
US secretary of state calls the global pro-Palestinian movement ‘a cancer’ as he visited the occupied Golan Heights.
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IPL 13 is over, what's the future?:
Talks about new team and mega-auction underway
-Devansh Mishra
What's next for the cash-rich Indian Premier League?
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Not long after the recently concluded Dream11 IPL 13, talks have commenced for a ninth IPL team. Under the recent expansion policy for the league, BCCI has cited thoughts of adding another team into the eight team league.
For the contention of ownership for this new team, Adani Group owned by Gautam Adani and RPSG owned by Sanjeev Goenka are the top competitors. One of South India’s biggest actors, Mohanlal, has also expressed his interest in owning the franchise. The team is said to be named after the Ahmedabad city, as India’s largest cricket stadium was recently built there. Other cities like Kanpur and Pune will only come into the picture if a tenth team is added. BCCI has not portrayed any such interest, but neither have they taken it off the table yet.
As for IPL 14, BCCI president Sourav Ganguly announced to the press that they are planning to restore the original time frame of April-May to the league. Many fans and franchises are relieved about things going back to normal. However, the decision of the mega-auction, which was scheduled to happen this year, has been postponed to take place in December, as no statement has been released on the same.
For now, the future of the cash-rich league has come down to uncertainty, as speculation thrives once again. However, you can be assured that some order has returned since the chaos of 2020.
Sources: InsideSport, Wisden
A covid-19 update:
What's the world looking like?
-Akshaj balaji
It has been almost a year since the discovery of the new coronavirus. Can you believe 11 months have passed with the world plagued with this deadly virus? Well, it seems like forever, with most of us staying at home due to lockdowns and quarantine. However, at the same time, it somehow feels like the year has just passed at a snap of a finger. This period has been so different with everyone suffering through some new difficulty or another. Now, humanity is at a crossroads.
There are two main directions we can proceed from here on. We can work together and cope with the effects of the dreadful events this year. We can help each other get through this together. Or we can simply ignore it all. This is the path we are hurling towards, and we may cross the point of no return before we know it. It’s the worse of the two, and we mustn’t go ahead with our lives like absolutely nothing happened. We should take time to reassess. To help us move towards the first option, people should have real-time knowledge about this detrimental situation for them to react appropriately.
Contrary to popular belief nowadays, the pandemic isn’t over; in fact, it will take a long time for it to be erased from the face of this planet. Daily cases worldwide are still continuously increasing. By the end of this week, the worldwide situation is projected to reach a state where there will be new 700,000 cases every single day. This is huge. Not only this, but the global death toll is at 11,000 daily, which is a tremendous increase since September and was heavily downplayed by the media. As seen below, both the deaths and cases are still increasing, and yet countries continue to open up.
As seen here, cases and deaths continue to increase drastically with many countries including Italy, France, Spain, UK, and the USA facing what’s being called the second wave of the pandemic. They are all breaking records for most number cases in a day, and yet things continue to open up. To explain why this is, let us draw a comparison between the USA’s handlings and the UK’s handling of the virus.
The USA has done little to no action against this new, more substantial wave of COVID-19 and has caused the number of cases to grow exponentially. In comparison, the UK has initiated a second lockdown to battle the virus and is showing slow but sure signs of reducing the number of infected cases. The world needs to make a decision. After reviewing all the data, it is clear that the pandemic is showing no sign of slowing down, in terms of number of daily cases and deaths. It is of the utmost importance that we make a choice.
We sacrifice something or the other in both cases. Either we ignore this virus, treat it like a common flu and go about our life which can cause many more deaths, but will soon lead to gaining a natural immunity to the virus somewhere down the line while keeping the economy prospering. But on the other hand, we can also implement heavy lockdowns to prevent contamination. This will hurt the economy but will save millions of lives. It’s up to us to make a definitive decision, once and for all.
Sources: CNN, Guardian, WHO, Worldometers