Bill Gates is wrong about coronavirus having the same economic impact as one of the world wars

The Muslim Times

Bill Gates can see light at the end of the tunnel. In an interview this weekend in Wired, he reckons that thanks to the wave of innovation in treating Covid-19, and the resources going into developing a vaccine, “for the rich world, we should largely be able to end this thing by the end of 2021, and for the world at large by the end of 2022”.

However, even if that is right, he thinks that the blow to the global economy is such that it will take several years to get back to the position at the beginning of this year. In particular he is worried about progress in combating other diseases such as malaria and polio, and he is worried about global indebtedness: “It’s not World War I or World War II, but it is in that order of magnitude as a negative shock to the system.”

But…

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Bill Gates is wrong about coronavirus having the same economic impact as one of the world wars

The Muslim Times

Bill Gates can see light at the end of the tunnel. In an interview this weekend in Wired, he reckons that thanks to the wave of innovation in treating Covid-19, and the resources going into developing a vaccine, “for the rich world, we should largely be able to end this thing by the end of 2021, and for the world at large by the end of 2022”.

However, even if that is right, he thinks that the blow to the global economy is such that it will take several years to get back to the position at the beginning of this year. In particular he is worried about progress in combating other diseases such as malaria and polio, and he is worried about global indebtedness: “It’s not World War I or World War II, but it is in that order of magnitude as a negative shock to the system.”

But…

View original post 41 more words

The rise of nationalism has led to increased oppression of minorities around the world – but the Uighur and Kashmir are reported differently

The Muslim Times

The repression of 182 million Muslims in India by the Modi government is leading to a giant disaster

• • Patrick Cockburn @indyworld

We live in an era of resurgent nationalism. From Scotland to Sri Lanka, from China to Brazil, governments rely on nationalism as a source of communal identity and a vehicle for common action.

In countries where religious identity appears to dominate, as with Islam in Turkey and Hinduism in India, religion has bonded with nationalism. In nominally communist countries like China and Vietnam, it is likewise nationalism that adds to governments’ legitimacy and political muscle.

This nationalist upsurge the world over is bad news for ethnic and sectarian minorities. Everywhere they are facing greater oppression and less autonomy from national governments maximising their power. At best they face marginalisation and at worst elimination. This is true for the Uighur in Xinjiang province in China, the Muslim population…

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Saudi Arabia Plans Human Trial of China’s CanSino Virus Vaccine

The Muslim Times

Epigraph:

Every human life if precious and sacred and saving one is like the saving of the whole of humanity. (Al Quran 5:32/33)

Riyadh skyline. The Muslim Times has the best collection of articles for the war against Covid 19, especially the vaccines.

Source: Bloomberg

By Vivian Nereim

Sign up here for our daily coronavirus newsletter on what you need to know, and subscribe to our Covid-19 podcast for the latest news and analysis.

• Trial will include 5,000 people in Riyadh, Mecca and Dammam
• Infections in kingdom rising again after Islamic holiday

Saudi Arabia plans to conduct a clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine developed by China’s CanSino Biologics on at least 5,000 volunteers.

The vaccine has produced an immune response in earlier trials in China. The trial in Saudi Arabia will be conducted in Riyadh, Mecca and Dammam, with one group of participants receiving a low dose…

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Germany rated world’s most admired country

The Muslim Times

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Brandenburg Gate the most famous landmark of Germany

Source: The Local

Germany stood out from other surveyed countries with a government approval rating of 44 percent, 11 percentage points ahead of the US, according to the poll published on Monday.

The Bundesrepublik’s approval has consistently stayed over 40 percent since 2008, except for in 2018, when it dipped slightly to 39 percent.

The US-based Gallup Poll surveyed 1,000 adults in 134 countries in 2019 – before the coronavirus pandemic had hit the world – on what they think of leadership around the globe.

Germany has come in first place every year during the Donald Trump administration.

In the years when Barack Obama was president, the US came in first place as the world’s most admired country, with the exception of 2011…

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Lebanon’s ENTIRE government resigns over Beirut mega-blast amid corruption scandal

The Muslim Times

 

• Henry Holloway

• 10 Aug 2020

LEBANON’S entire government has collapsed as officials have fallen on their swords over the colossal explosion that killed 160 people.

Lebanon’s health minister Hamad Hassan confirmed the government would resign following an emergency cabinet meeting on Monday amid allegations of corruption and negligence.

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Prime Minister Hassan Diab will address the nation at 5.30pm UK timeCredit: EPA

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Angry protesters gather and hurl rocks in BeirutCredit: EPA

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Lebanese riot police during clashes with protestersCredit: EPA

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The explosion devastated Beirut killing 160 people

Hassan also added that Prime Minister Hassan Diab will head to the presidential palace to hand over the resignation in the name of all the ministers.

Speaking to reporters, Hassan said: “The whole government resigned”

The PM’s office said Diab is set to deliver an address to the nation at 7.30 pm local time – 5.30pm UK…

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This member of the banana tree family could help us cut COVID-19 plastic waste

The Most Revolutionary Act

(Volodymyr Hryshchenko, Unsplash)

This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum.

Author: Harry Kretchmer, Senior Writer, Formative Content

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• The abaca tree, a relative of the banana, produces fibre that’s being made into COVID-19 PPE products, including facemasks.
• Conservationists say single-use plastic PPE is adding to marine pollution.
• Abaca fibres – used in banknotes, teabags and Mercedes Benz cars – are as tough as polyester but break down organically.
• Philippines is leading producer of abaca fibre, delivering 85% of global supply.

In the Philippines, long golden fibres from the abaca tree hang drying in the sun. They could be part of your next face mask.

According to Bloomberg, the Philippine government expects demand for biodegradable abaca to grow exponentially in 2020, with 10% of all production being diverted to medical uses. Factories are doubling output.

It comes as…

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Who Profits from the Beirut Blast?

The New Dark Age

7 August 2020 — Asia Times

Making the case that the explosion resulted from an attack

Pepe Escobar

The narrative that the Beirut explosion was an exclusive consequence of negligence and corruption by the current Lebanese government is now set in stone, at least in the Atlanticist sphere.

And yet, digging deeper, we find that negligence and corruption may have been fully exploited, via sabotage, to engineer it.

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NEO-CONNED: Neoliberalism & the Beirut Explosion – By Daniel Lazare

RIELPOLITIK

Source – strategic-culture.org

– “…From Central America to the Middle East, the ground is littered with the broken bodies of résistants. But now the U.S. is reeling from an overdose of its own medicine. Its economy is faltering, its international standing is plummeting, and its political system has broken down to the point that the November elections may well end in fighting in the streets”

Neoliberalism & the Beirut Explosion  – By Daniel Lazare

Back when people were still allowed to say such things, the famous defense attorney Clarence Darrow used to confess that he liked filling his juries with Irishmen because, no matter how heinous the crime, they’d look at the accused, cross themselves, and mutter, “There but the grace of God go I.”

Darrow’s story is worth keeping in mind now that a massive ammonium-nitrate blast has leveled much of Beirut. Although terrorism can’t be entirely dismissed, it looks…

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‘Balance of terror’ drives Israel’s approach to Lebanon

The Muslim Times

RAMZY BAROUD

    

Short Url

https://arab.news/rh798

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, June 28, 2020. (Reuters)

Last Tuesday, hours before a massive explosion rocked Beirut, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued an ominous warning to Lebanon. “We hit a cell and now we hit the dispatchers… I suggest to all of them, including Hezbollah, to consider this,” Netanyahu said during an official tour of a military facility in central Israel.

Netanyahu’s warning did not bode well for Israel when, hours later, a Hiroshima-like blast devastated entire sectors of Beirut. Those who suspected Israeli involvement in the deadly explosion had one more reason to point fingers at Tel Aviv.

In politics and in war, truth is the first casualty. We may never know precisely what transpired in the moments preceding the Beirut blast. Somehow, it may not even matter, because the narrative regarding Lebanon’s many tragedies…

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If the two-state solution is dead, what is next ?

The Muslim Times

Aug 10,2020 – JORDAN TIMES – Marwan M. Obeidat

In what can only be called an extreme shift in US foreign policy, President Donald Trump seems to have moved from decades-old approach to the Palestinian cause, offering Israelis and Arab Palestinians another concept (one state) without defining what this new notion actually brings with it and whether it is actually realistic or not!

Is it going to be a state in which Israelis and the Arab Palestinians live side-by-side together as citizens of one state, or one where Israel keeps domination over the West Bank and its Arab people as second-class citizens? No, US president has ever suggested a solution for the decades-old conflict or such a choice without recognising what comes after. Annexation of the West Bank will be a lousier choice for this matter!

However, President Trump’s idea, in as far as we can see, emphasises the need…

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