Corps Commander session: Military leadership vows to thwart acts of Indian aggression

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Corps Commander session: Military leadership vows to thwart acts of Indian aggression

 

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Top military leadership on Wednesday resolved to continue thwarting Indian designs and expose targeting of innocent civilians in Kashmir, according to an official press statement issued after the Corps Commander’s Conference held at the General Headquarters.

“The forum was briefed on [the] national and regional security situation,” Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Maj Gen Babar Iftikhar said.

A day earlier all the services chiefs and Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee had attended a briefing at the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) headquarters and discussed security issues with special focus on the situation on the Line of Control and the Indian occupied Kashmir.

“Noting the Indian aggression, the forum resolved to continue thwarting Indian designs and expose Indian targeting of innocent civilians in Kashmir and open support to terrorist outfits,” the DG ISPR said.

He said that the platform discussed the positive effects of the ongoing Afghan Peace Process along the Western Border and expressed determination to keep supporting the normalisation process through national institutions.

The conference also discussed to continue support to the government against the coronavirus, locust attacks, and anti-polio drive within the available resources.

“It was underlined that COVID-19 can only be fought as a ‘whole of nation approach’ wherein every individual will have to play a role to ensure success through observation of basic procedures and discipline,” the statement added.

Pakistan Army leadership also expressed satisfaction over the ‘continued reduction’ of violent incidents in the country

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President Of Honduras Tests Positive For Coronavirus, Vows To ‘Beat This Pandemic’

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President Of Honduras Tests Positive For Coronavirus, Vows To ‘Beat This Pandemic’

Two children watch a national address by Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández on Tuesday, during which he confirmed he tested positive for the coronavirus.

Orlando Sierra/AFP via Getty Images


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Two children watch a national address by Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández on Tuesday, during which he confirmed he tested positive for the coronavirus.

Orlando Sierra/AFP via Getty Images

The president of Honduras has contracted the coronavirus.

Juan Orlando Hernández confirmed his positive diagnosis in a televised address to the country late Tuesday, adding that he has suffered only mild symptoms so far and is in treatment. His wife, Ana García de Hernández, and a couple of aides have also tested positive, though he said the first lady remains asymptomatic at this point.

“I feel strong and energetic enough to keep going and beat this pandemic,” Hernández said, adding: “We continue in the fight, and we trust in God that we are going to get ahead of this situation. I personally trust God, Honduran doctors and the medicine that we’re using to combat this disease.”

Hernández is one of more than 9,600 confirmed patients in the Central American nation of more than 9 million — but he’s just one of a handful of major world leaders to reveal that he has been infected with the virus. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson recovered and returned to work after spending time in intensive care with COVID-19 earlier this year, while in the past two months prime ministers in Russia and Armenia have announced positive diagnoses of their own.

Hernández, who says he began to “feel some discomfort” last weekend and received his results earlier Tuesday, told viewers to take a lesson from his experience — to take “all necessary care” in their own lives to avoid the same fate.

Guatemala’s new president and the man he recently replaced each tweeted words of consolation and solidarity for Hernández, whose second term in office has been mired in controversy.

His brother, former lawmaker Juan Antonio Hernández Alvarado, was convicted of a slew of federal drug trafficking charges in the U.S. last year. And earlier this year, federal prosecutors accused the Honduran president — identified as “CC-4” in a separate complaint — of accepting a bribe of at least $25,000 from an alleged drug trafficker near the start of his first term about seven years ago. According to prosecutors, the money was in exchange for shielding the alleged trafficker’s cocaine operation from law enforcement.

Despite these and other allegations against Juan Orlando Hernández — including the claim that he accepted a million-dollar bribe from convicted Mexican cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán — U.S. officials have not filed charges specifically against him or sought his arrest. The conservative president, who enjoys close ties with the Trump administration, has vehemently denied the accusations as “100% false.”

The Honduran leader also has repeatedly been the subject of widespread protests at home — including apparent irregularities in his disputed re-election in 2017 and a spate of unpopular reform proposals last year that were eventually tossed.

Hernández did not address those controversies in his brief speech Tuesday. Instead he focused on the coronavirus, acknowledging that up to this point, “because of my job, I have not been able to stay 100 percent at home.” But he said he has gone into isolation, while he anticipates continuing his work remotely.

“I’ve been told to rest, but I will continue to carry out my work electronically and through my officials and collaborators,” he pledged. “We’ll be in contact.”



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Ali Fazal’s mother passes away in Lucknow; actor remembers her with an emotional post  : Bollywood News – Bollywood Hungama

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Ali Fazal’s mother passes away in Lucknow; actor remembers her with an emotional post  : Bollywood News – Bollywood Hungama

Actor Ali Fazal lost his mother today morning. The actor’s mother had some health complications and passed away suddenly in Lucknow on Wednesday, June 17. 

Ali Fazal took to his social media handle to share a picture of his mother along with an emotional note. “I’ll live the rest of yours for you. Miss you Amma. Yahi tak thhaa humaara, pata nahi kyun. You were the source of my creativity. My everything. Aagey alfaaz nahi rahe. Love, Ali,” he wrote. 

Meanwhile, the actor’s spokesperson thanking all his fans for extending their love and support said in a statement, “Ali is grateful for the love and support of his fans in these testing times. A personal loss of this magnitude also needs silence. He requests his fans and the press for some privacy at this point.”

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China Is Collecting DNA From Tens of Millions of Men and Boys, Using U.S. Equipment

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China Is Collecting DNA From Tens of Millions of Men and Boys, Using U.S. Equipment

The impetus for the campaign can be traced back to a crime spree in the northern Chinese region of Inner Mongolia. For nearly three decades, the police there investigated the rapes and murders of 11 women and girls, one as young as 8. They collected 230,000 fingerprints and sifted through more than 100,000 DNA samples. They offered a $28,000 reward.

Then, in 2016, they arrested a man on unrelated bribery charges, according to the state news media. Analyzing his genes, they found he was related to a person who had left his DNA at the site of the 2005 killing of one of the women. That person, Gao Chengyong, confessed to the crimes and was later executed.

Mr. Gao’s capture spurred the state media to call for the creation of a national database of male DNA. The police in Henan Province showed it was possible, after amassing samples from 5.3 million men, or roughly 10 percent of the province’s male population, between 2014 and 2016. In November 2017, the Ministry of Public Security, which controls the police, unveiled plans for a national database.

China already holds the world’s largest trove of genetic material, totaling 80 million profiles, according to state media. But earlier DNA gathering efforts were often more focused. Officials targeted criminal suspects or groups they considered potentially destabilizing, like migrant workers in certain neighborhoods. The police have also gathered DNA from ethnic minority groups like the Uighurs as a way to tighten the Communist Party’s control over them.

The effort to compile a national male database broadens those efforts, said Emile Dirks, an author of the report from the Australian institute and a Ph.D. candidate in the department of political science at the University of Toronto. “We are seeing the expansion of those models to the rest of China in an aggressive way that I don’t think we’ve seen before,” Mr. Dirks said.

In the report released by the Australian institute, it estimated that the authorities aimed to collect DNA samples from 35 million to 70 million men and boys, or roughly 5 percent to 10 percent of China’s male population. They do not need to sample every male, because one person’s DNA sample can unlock the genetic identity of male relatives.

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Ancient Irish elite practiced incest, new genetic data shows

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Ancient Irish elite practiced incest, new genetic data shows

Researchers found evidence of inbreeding in the genome of a man buried at Newgrange passage tomb, which was built more than 5,000 years ago, a team from Trinity College Dublin said in a press release.

This suggests the man belonged to a ruling elite that practiced first-degree incest — for example, brother-sister unions — in the same way as the pharaohs in ancient Egypt or Inca god-kings, the researchers said.

“I’d never seen anything like it,” said lead author Lara Cassidy, a geneticist from Trinity College.

“We all inherit two copies of the genome, one from our mother and one from our father; well, this individual’s copies were extremely similar, a tell-tale sign of close inbreeding. In fact, our analyses allowed us to confirm that his parents were first-degree relatives,” she said.

The full paper was published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

The discovery was an “unexpected finding” and nobody had any idea about the practice in Neolithic Ireland, paper author Dan Bradley, professor of population genetics at Trinity, told CNN.

“We had no anticipation that it would be the case at Newgrange,” he said.

The man was part of a mysterious Neolithic society that built the Newgrange passage tomb in County Meath, eastern Ireland, which is known for the annual solar alignment that sees the sacred inner chamber illuminated by the winter solstice sunrise.

First-degree incest is a near-universal taboo, with the only confirmed social acceptances recorded among elites such as deified royal families, according to the researchers.

The practice is used to distinguish the elite from the rest of the population, reinforcing hierarchy and legitimizing their power.

It often combines with rituals and monumental architecture, such as the Newgrange passage tomb.

“The prestige of the burial makes this very likely a socially sanctioned union and speaks of a hierarchy so extreme that the only partners worthy of the elite were family members,” Bradley said in the press release.

The researchers also found genetic links between the man buried at Newgrange and other individuals buried in passage tombs such as Carrowmore and Carrowkeel in the west of the country.

“It seems what we have here is a powerful extended kin-group, who had access to elite burial sites in many regions of the island for at least half a millennium,” Cassidy added.

The findings also link to a local myth that tells of a builder-king who had sex with his sister in order to restart the daily solar cycle, Bradley said.

Another unusual discovery from the genome survey was the earliest diagnosed case of Down Syndrome, in a young boy buried 5,500 years ago at Poulnabrone portal tomb, the oldest known burial structure on the island of Ireland.

The team said this indicates that being visibly different did not bar people such as this infant from being given prestigious burials.

Spike Island: Unraveling the mysteries of 'Ireland's Alcatraz'
The researchers also found that the people who built these monumental tombs were early farmers who replaced hunter-gatherers when they migrated to Ireland.

However, Bradley said the small population of hunter-gatherers, who numbered just a few thousand, was swamped by the new arrivals, rather than exterminated.

Bradley said Trinity team were lucky to be able to sequence the genome of two hunter-gatherers, and found their genome marks them out from hunter-gatherers from Britain and continental Europe.

“They’re a bit more differentiated from Britain and the continent than Britain and the continent are from each other,” he said, which points to a prolonged period of isolation on the island at a time when Ireland was separated from Britain by a sea.

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Big decisions await on Thursday after 2019/20 Arabian Gulf League is cancelled – Sport360 News

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Big decisions await on Thursday after 2019/20 Arabian Gulf League is cancelled – Sport360 News

An extraordinary general assembly meeting is to be held on Thursday after a decision was made to cancel the 2019/20 Arabian Gulf League.

The top flight and U21 League were postponed on March 15, with seven rounds left of both, in a bid to curb coronavirus’ spread. Shabab Al Ahli Dubai Club led the two.

A provisional plan was announced on April 29 for “competitions to resume in August”, but specifics were left for an unspecified later date. All 14 clubs were asked to give their thoughts on next steps last week, with 12 of them, reportedly, voicing their desire to scrap this term.

Decisions to be made on Thursday, by organisers UAE Pro League and governing body the UAE Football Association, include; whether the entire campaign – including January’s Arabian Gulf Cup win for Al Nasr – should be rendered void, if Shabab Al Ahli will be crowned champions and whether to eliminate relegation in 2019/20 and boost the number of competitors from 14 to 16. This would see the top two of Emirates Club and Dibba Al Hisn from the curtailed First Division League, which is administered by the UAE FA, be promoted.

“The UAE Pro League board of directors held a meeting on Wednesday, June 17, 2020, chaired by Chairman Abdulla Naser Al Junaibi and attended by Vice Chairman Jamal Hamed Al Marri, board members Mohammed Obaid Al Yammahi, Hassan Taleb Al Marri, Tareq Ali Al Shabeebi, Saeed Obaid Al Kaabi and Jawaher Abdulaziz Al Suwaidi in addition to CEO Waleed Al Hosani and Business Development Advisor Dr. Khalid Mohammed Abdullah,” a statement read on Wednesday evening.

“During the meeting, it was decided that the 2019/2020 Arabian Gulf League and Arabian Gulf League U21 competition would not be resumed. An extraordinary general assembly meeting has been called to discuss the implications of the decision on the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons, with coordination with the UAE Football Association on the matter.”

COVID-19’s impact was first felt by the AGL when match-weeks 18 and 19 were played behind closed doors.

Shabab Al Ahli Dubai Club hold a six-point advantage over second-placed Al Ain. At the opposite end, Fujairah and Hatta are in the drop zone.

A total of 43,364 confirmed cases have been recorded in the UAE since January 29’s first instance. Total deaths have reached 295, with 29,537 recoveries.

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Keerthy Suresh’s Penguin and other exciting titles you can stream on Amazon Prime Video this week

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Keerthy Suresh’s Penguin and other exciting titles you can stream on Amazon Prime Video this week

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Penguin is the third among the seven titles announced by Amazon Prime Video to release directly on Amazon Prime Video. 

Amazon Prime Video announced the global premiere of the eagerly awaited Tamil film, Penguin exclusively on the streaming service. Directed by debutante Eashvar Karthic and produced by Karthik Subbaraj, Stone Bench productions and Passion Studios, the film stars Keerthy Suresh in the lead role. The film is a spine-chilling tale of a pregnant mother who sets out on a dangerous mission to unravel the mystery to save her loved ones. Penguin is the third among the seven titles announced by Amazon Prime Video to release directly on Amazon Prime Video. Prime members in India and in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide can watch the much-awaited movie starting 19th June, 2020 in Indian languages including Tamil and Telugu.

The wait is over as Amazon Prime Video brings to you the much-awaited Amazon Original 7500, a thriller featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. 7500 is the story of a pilot (played by Joseph) who fights to maintain control of his airliner as terrorists storm the cockpit. The film will digitally premiere on 19th June in 200 countries and territories.

Prime members can enjoy watching Will Smith’s latest movie Bad Boys For Life. The film carries forward the legacy of the Bad Boys franchise and the magic of its leading men to deliver yet another fun-filled movie. Stream Bad Boys For Life in English as well as in regional languages including Hindi, Tamil and Telugu from 20th June onwards on Amazon Prime Video.

Starting 20th June, Prime members can also stream recently released regional title Prawaas (Marathi) directed Shashank Udapurkar, produced under banner of Om Chhangani Films. The film stars Ashok Saraf, Padmini Kolhapure, Shashank Udapurkar, Vikram Gokhale and Rajit Kapu.

Stay entertained with a mysterious tale of revenge, The Good Liar starring Helen Mirren, Ian McKellen, Russell Tovey, and Jim Carter and Amazon Original drama 7500. Also, watch TV Reality show Lol: Last One Laughing S1 starting 19th June on Amazon Prime Video.

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DNA of ‘Irish Pharaoh’ Sheds Light on Ancient Tomb Builders

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DNA of ‘Irish Pharaoh’ Sheds Light on Ancient Tomb Builders

Dr. Cassidy said that they also found DNA in other remains that indicated relatives of the man who was a child of royal incest were placed in other significant tombs. “This man seemed to form a distinct genetic cluster with other individuals from passage tombs across the island,” she said.

She said “we also found a few direct kinship links,” ancient genomes of individuals who were distant cousins. That contributed to the idea that there was an elite who directed the building of the mounds. In that context, it made sense that the incest was intentional. That’s not something that can be proved, of course, but other societies have encouraged brother/sister incest, and not only the Egyptians. Brothers married sisters in ancient Hawaii, and in Peru among the Incas.

“The few examples where it is socially accepted,” she said, are “extremely stratified societies with an elite class who are able to break rules.”

Dr. Reich said that the research had implications beyond the specific findings. He said it marked a new direction in ancient DNA studies, moving beyond discoveries of broad patterns of prehistoric human migration. Now, genetic data may help delineate social structures of specific communities, like that in Ireland, so lost in deep time that they have been almost impossible to decipher.

Dr. Reich said he had reservations about one of the paper’s conclusions. The researchers reported that members of the elite, those found in the most elaborate tombs, were closer to one another genetically than they were to people found in other, simpler burials. But, Dr. Reich said, the simpler burials and the higher status burials were separated by hundreds of years, so the comparison wasn’t contemporaneous. Perhaps the genetic makeup of the society, which was small in number, changed over a few centuries. Dr. Bradley acknowledged that this was an alternative explanation.

The final piece of the puzzle that the researchers reported was neither archaeological nor genetic, but folkloric. An account of Irish place names written around 1100, the authors write, tells a tale of a King Bressal, who slept with his sister. The result was that Dowth, the burial mound next to Newgrange, was called Fertae Chuile, or the Mound of Sin.

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DNA from a 5,200-year-old Irish tomb hints at ancient royal incest

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DNA from a 5,200-year-old Irish tomb hints at ancient royal incest

A man buried in a huge, roughly 5,200-year-old Irish stone tomb was the product of incest, a new study finds.

DNA extracted from the ancient man’s remains displays an unusually large number of identical versions of the same genes. That pattern indicates that his parents were either a brother and sister or a parent and child, a team led by geneticists Lara Cassidy and Daniel Bradley of Trinity College Dublin reports June 17 in Nature.

That new DNA discovery combined with the monumental tomb suggests that ruling families who wielded enough power to direct big building projects emerged among some early European farming communities, the researchers contend.

The man’s bones had previously been found in the Newgrange passage tomb, an earthen mound covering more than 4,000 square meters near the River Boyne. A rooftop opening in a 19-meter-long stone passage allows sunlight to reach deep into a chamber inside the mound on the shortest days of the year, suggesting the structure held astrological and religious significance (SN: 6/29/74). It may have been built this way to mark a new year in dramatic fashion, perhaps while winter solstice ceremonies were conducted.

Cassidy and Bradley’s team studied DNA from 44 individuals buried in various Irish tombs and graves dating to between roughly 6,600 and 4,500 years ago. Only the Newgrange man, who was interred in the largest and most impressive structure, had inherited genetic markers of incest.

Socially sanctioned incest tends to be rare throughout history but is known from instances of royal inbreeding. Mating between brothers and sisters, for example, occurred in some ancient societies with ruling families headed by men regarded as gods not subject to human incest taboos. Ancient Egypt’s King Tutankhamun, whose rule began 3,352 years ago, was the son of a brother and sister. So finding the offspring of inbreeding in such an impressive stone structure is highly suggestive of a practice of inbreeding among elites, even if not conclusive, the researchers say.

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BHP-backed coal mine in Colombia rocked by human rights claim

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BHP-backed coal mine in Colombia rocked by human rights claim

Three global miners including Australia’s BHP have become embroiled in an alleged human rights crisis in Colombia, with indigenous communities claiming the jointly owned Cerrejón coal mine is depriving them of water and exacerbating illnesses amid the coronavirus emergency.

As the mining sector’s relationships with First Nations people face the spotlight following Rio Tinto’s destruction of ancient Aboriginal caves last month, the Wayuu indigenous people of Colombia are launching an urgent application for the UN Human Rights Council to intervene in what they say is a “health emergency” being exacerbated by the Cerrejón mine’s contamination of the area.

Cerrejón – owned equally by miners BHP, Anglo American and Glencore – is one of the largest open-pit coal mines in the world, covering 69,000 hectares in the middle of indigenous Wayuus’ ancestral land.

Represented by barrister Monica Feria-Tinta, the communities allege the mine’s operations use 24 million litres of water a day and have contaminated drinking water at a time when locals are facing difficulties accessing clean, bottled water due to lockdown restrictions.

She said the main source of drinking water in the area, the Rancheria River, is contaminated and no longer able to sustain the local population, while the Bruno stream is under threat of being diverted by a mine expansion.

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