Machh massacre: Talks between Quetta protestors, govt succeed

Negotiations between the government team and protestors staging a sit-in in Quetta against the killing of 11 coal miners have succeeded, reported quoting announcements from both sides from the sit-in venue.

Making an announcement on behalf of the sit-in committee, it was conveyed to the protestors that the relatives of the coal miners who were massacred brutally have agreed to bury their loved ones.
The committee thanked Prime Minister Imran Khan, members of the cabinet, Chief Minister Balochistan Jam Kamal for agreeing to their demands. “We have decided to bury our loved ones,” said a member of the committee.

Speaking on the occasion, Federal Minister for Ports and Shipping Ali Zaidi said that it was for the first time that a government has signed a written agreement with the Hazara community as their predecessors had only done mere lip servicing.

Announcing the agreement signed by both sides, he said that a special commission would be formed under the chair of the provincial home minister.

“Strict action will be taken against officials found responsible of negligence,” he said adding that the commission would include two members of the provincial assembly, a DIG rank official and two representatives from families of the Machh martyrs.

The Balochistan government would provide a compensation of Rs1.5 million to the families of each slain coal miners.

The TORs of the agreement is also revealed, which included the special commission would probe attacks on the Hazara community during the past 22 years besides also investigating the missing persons in the community.

A new security plan would be enforced after a review by the security forces and the Balochistan government.

The passport and other related issues would be resolved on a priority basis for the Hazara community by DG NADRA while the government would also create employment opportunities for the members of the community.

 

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Malaysia PM to announce new COVID-19 measures as deaths hit daily record

Malaysian Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin will announce new measures next week to curb a surge in coronavirus cases, a senior minister said on Friday, as the country reported its highest daily number of deaths linked to the epidemic.

The Southeast Asian nation has seen a spike in infections since September, with the number of daily reported cases climbing to record highs on two days this week.

Friday’s death toll of 16 took total COVID-19 fatalities to 537. The health ministry also reported 2,643 new infections, raising the total number of cases to 131,108.

The government has said it was considering imposing targeted lockdowns in some areas, though businesses warned that wider restrictions could further batter the economy.

Muhyiddin will announce new measures to tackle the virus surge on Monday, security minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob told reporters.

“We are refining and looking at the new measures in detail to ensure that they work for everyone,” he said during a televised news conference.

Separately, science minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the country’s pharmaceutical regulator has issued a conditional approval for the vaccine manufactured by U.S. and German drugmakers Pfizer and BioNTech to be used in Malaysia.

“We are still waiting for a few additional info from Pfizer but this means it can be used in Malaysia,” Khairy posted on his Twitter account.

Malaysia, which has purchased 12.8 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech shot, is expected to receive its first shipment of the vaccine next month.

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South Korea unveils inflatable isolation ward for COVID-19 patients

South Korean researchers say they have designed an inflatable “negative pressure” ward for isolating and treating patients with infectious diseases like COVID-19, after the pandemic exposed shortages of such beds around the world.

The rooms use a ventilation system that creates negative pressure to allow air to flow into the isolation room and be channelled out safely, helping prevent the spread of airborne pathogens.

They have become a vital tool for fighting the coronavirus pandemic, but many countries have struggled to create them quickly enough.

The mobile clinic modules designed by a research team at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) are large greenhouse-like inflatable tents, which the institute said cost a fifth of the price of building a conventional hospital ward.

Nam Tek-jin, an industrial design professor who led the KAIST team, says their tents, which are the size of a basketball court, can be installed and equipped in less than a day.

“At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, facilities for mild patients were not big a problem, but we noticed that space for seriously ill patients was urgently in need as their condition would suddenly deteriorate,” Nam told Reuters.

“We thought of developing a facility for not just isolation, but also treatment.”

The frames, panels, and lighting can be assembled on the spot to form a negative pressure room with a separate entry space and a shower pod in just 15 minutes, and it takes less than 24 hours to set up the entire air tent with four such rooms, he said.

The rooms are also equipped with panels that allow medical workers to provide aid or pass things like food without having to enter the room and avoiding burn out from wearing cumbersome gear, said Cho Min-su, a director at the Korea Institute of Radiological and Medical Sciences.

Nam said the units are ready for mass production, but no customers have been announced yet.

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Shibli Faraz responds to criticism over PM's use of word 'blackmail'

Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Shibli Faraz on Friday responded to criticism by the Opposition over the use of the word "blackmail" by Prime Minister Imran Khan as he spoke about the sit-in in Quetta by the Hazara community.

The community has been protesting since Sunday, after 10 miners were massacred by terrorists near a coal field in Balochistan's Machh town, and have refused to bury their loved ones until the prime minister goes to meet them.

The prime minister, during a ceremony today to launch Special Technology Zones Authority in Islamabad, had said: "One does not blackmail the prime minister of any country this way."

His remarks stirred up a storm, with the Opposition criticising the premier for likening just demands to "blackmail" and for lacking humanity.

Faraz, in his rebuttal to the Opposition said: "The people who see a tragedy like this one as an opportunity for political point scoring are the ones who do not have any humanity left in them."

He said the prime minister used the word "blackmail" for those very people who "politicise every matter".

He said that the prime minister shares in the sorrow of the affected families and considers it his top-most priority to provide them justice.

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Carmaker launches cheaper variant of popular SUV

Tesla launched a cheaper variant of the Model Y, bringing its sports utility vehicle’s price closer to that of its Model 3 sedan, the electric-car maker’s least expensive car.

The new standard range Model Y is priced at $41,990, only $4,000 more than the entry level Model 3, according to the company’s website.

Shares of the carmaker, which have surged more than 700% in 2020, were up nearly 5% at $853.89 in trading before the bell on Friday.

Tesla’s stratospheric rally has helped Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk surpass Amazon.com Inc’s top boss Jeff Bezos to become the world’s richest man, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.

Shares in the company jumped nearly 8% to end Thursday’s session at $816.04, putting its market capitalization at $774 billion and making it Wall Street’s fifth-most-valuable company, just behind Google-parent Alphabet Inc and ahead of social media giant Facebook.

Tesla’s new Model Y variants come days after the carmaker beat Wall Street targets for 2020 vehicle deliveries, driven by a steady rise in electric vehicle adoption, but narrowly missed its ambitious full-year target of half a million deliveries.

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Elon Musk overtakes Amazon’s Bezos to become world’s richest person

Tesla Inc chief and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk surpassed Amazon.com Inc’s top boss Jeff Bezos to become the world’s richest man, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.

Including Thursday’s gains in Tesla shares, Musk had a net worth of more than $188.5 billion, $1.5 billion more than Bezos, according to the report.

Musk’s personal wealth has been boosted by last year’s more than eight-fold surge in the shares of Tesla, which became the world’s most valuable carmaker.

He has a 20% stake in the carmaker and about $42 billion of unrealized paper gains on vested stock options, according to the Bloomberg report.

Tesla shares were up as much as 7.4% on Thursday at a record high of $811.61.

The Forbes Billionaires List, however, said Musk still trails Amazon’s Bezos by $7.8 billion.

Forbes has a more conservative estimate based on the Tesla stake that he has pledged as a collateral for personal loans. To take that into account, it applies a 25% discount to his shareholding, according to its report in November.

Musk, who co-founded and sold Internet payments company PayPal Holdings Inc, now leads some of the most futuristic companies in the world.

Besides Tesla, he heads rocket company SpaceX and Neuralink, a startup that is developing ultra-high bandwidth brain-machine interfaces to connect the human brain to computers.

He set up the Boring Company to make affordable tunnels below busy city streets for an all-electric public transportation system to avoid the nasty traffic jams in U.S. cities.

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Shibli Faraz responds to criticism over PM's use of word 'blackmail'

Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Shibli Faraz on Friday responded to criticism by the Opposition over the use of the word "blackmail" by Prime Minister Imran Khan as he spoke about the sit-in in Quetta by the Hazara community.

The community has been protesting since Sunday, after 10 miners were massacred by terrorists near a coal field in Balochistan's Machh town, and have refused to bury their loved ones until the prime minister goes to meet them.

The prime minister, during a ceremony today to launch Special Technology Zones Authority in Islamabad, had said: "One does not blackmail the prime minister of any country this way."

His remarks stirred up a storm, with the Opposition criticising the premier for likening just demands to "blackmail" and for lacking humanity.

Faraz, in his rebuttal to the Opposition said: "The people who see a tragedy like this one as an opportunity for political point scoring are the ones who do not have any humanity left in them."

He said the prime minister used the word "blackmail" for those very people who "politicise every matter".

He said that the prime minister shares in the sorrow of the affected families and considers it his top-most priority to provide them justice.

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