TRUMP READY TO DEBATE WITH BIDEN, HOWEVER HIS CAMPAIGN OPPOSES MODERATOR

GETTING A MUTE BUTTON

U.S. President Donald Trump is ready to participate in the next presidential

debate with 2020 Democratic nominee Joe Biden in Miami, Florida later this

month, a campaign spokesman said on Monday.

"It is the president's intention to debate," Trump 2020 communications

director Tim Murtaugh told local media after Trump tweeted he was checking

out of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland,

where he stayed for three days to treat COVID-19 infection.

The president has returned to the White House, where he continues receiving

around-the-clock medical care and monitoring from his physician and a team

of doctors and nurses.

Murtaugh added, however, that the campaign would not agree to the moderator

being able to mute the candidates when their time has expired to prevent the

kind of interruptions and cross-talk -- mostly by Trump -- that marred the

first presidential forum last week.

"We would adamantly oppose a mute button, which would place too much

authority and power into the hands of a member of the media to decide what a

candidate for president is permitted to say to the American people," he

said. "No one elected the moderators to anything."

Biden said earlier Monday that he would meet Trump in a second debate "if

the scientists say that it's safe." Biden and Trump are scheduled to meet

Oct. 15 in Miami, which is just two weeks after Trump was diagnosed.

Meanwhile, the Commission of Presidential Debates on Monday evening

announced the Covid-related precautions for the debate between the

Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Senator Kamala Harris, and Vice

President Mike Pence in Salt Lake City on Wednesday.

Pence and Harris will be separated by plexiglass, and will be seated 12.3

feet (3.7 meters) apart, rather than 7 feet, as initially planned. There

will be no physical contact, including a handshake.

SURVEY FINDS NEGATIVE VIEWS OF CHINA SOAR AMONG ADVANCED ECONOMIES

Views of China have grown more negative in recent years across many advanced

economies, and unfavorable opinion has soared over the past year, a new

14-country Pew Research Center survey shows. Today, a majority in each of

the surveyed countries has an unfavorable opinion of China. And in

Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United

States, South Korea, Spain and Canada, negative views have reached their

highest points since the Center began polling on this topic more than a

decade ago.

Negative views of China increased most in Australia, where 81% now say see

the country unfavorably, up 24 percentage points since last year. In the UK,

around three-quarters now see the country in a negative light - up 19

points. And, in the U.S., negative views of China have increased nearly 20

percentage points since President Donald Trump took office, rising 13 points

since just last year.

Assessments of China's handling of the coronavirus outbreak are generally

much more negative than those given to other nations and institutions.

Publics give the highest ratings to their own country's coronavirus response

(median of 73% good job).

Negatives views of China went up by double digits in the last one year in

the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, the US, South Korea and Spain.

And China's handling of the Coronavirus epidemic appeared to be central to

its record unpopularity. A median of 61% of the respondents across all 14

countries polled said China had done a bad job dealing with the epidemic,

worse in every case than their own country and global bodies such as WHO.

Distrust in President Xi has reached unprecedented highs in all countries

for which past data is available except for Japan and Spain. The increase in

distrust has been especially sharp in the last year; nine of 12 countries

have seen a double-digit increase in the share who say they have no

confidence in Xi. In Australia, for example, 54% had little or no confidence

in Xi in 2019, and now 79% say the same, a 25 percentage point increase.

Confidence in Xi is low among men and women, those with higher and lower

levels of education, across age groups and among those with higher and lower

incomes.

2020 NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS AWARDED FOR BLACK HOLE DISCOVERIES

Three physicists have won this year's Nobel Prize for physics for

discoveries related to black holes.

Briton Roger Penrose, a professor at the University of Oxford, will receive

half of this year's prize "for the discovery that black hole formation is a

robust prediction of the general theory of relativity".

Goran K Hansson, the academy's secretary-general, said German Reinhard

Genzel - of the Max Planck Institute and the University of California,

Berkeley - and American Andrea Ghez of the University of California, Los

Angeles will receive the other half of the prize "for the discovery of a

supermassive compact object at the center of our galaxy".

It is common for several scientists who worked in related fields to share

the prize.

"The discoveries of this year's Laureates have broken new ground in the

study of compact and supermassive objects," said David Haviland, chair of

the Nobel Committee for Physics.

Ghez is only the fourth woman to win the physics prize, after Marie Curie

(1903), Maria Goeppert Mayer (1963) and Donna Strickland (2018).

The prestigious award comes with a gold medal and prize money of 10 million

Swedish kronor ($1.12m), courtesy of a bequest left 124 years ago by the

prize's creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. The amount was increased

recently to adjust for inflation.

On Monday, the Nobel Committee awarded the prize for physiology and medicine

to Americans Harvey J Alter and Charles M Rice and British-born scientist

Michael Houghton for discovering the liver-ravaging Hepatitis C virus.

The other prizes are for outstanding work in the fields of chemistry,

literature, peace and economics.

26 NATIONS CALL FOR LIFTING OF SANCTIONS BY U.S., WESTERN COUNTRIES TO

TACKLE CORONAVIRUS

China and 25 other nations countries on Monday called for the immediate

lifting of sanctions by the United States and Western countries to ensure an

effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Speaking on behalf of the 26 countries at a meeting of the U.N. General

Assembly's human rights committee, China's U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun said

"unilateral coercive measures" violate the U.N. Charter, multilateralism,

and impede human rights by hindering "the well-being of the population in

the affected countries" and undermining the right to health.

"Global solidarity and international cooperation are the most powerful

weapons in fighting and overcoming COVID-19," the joint statement said. "We

seize this opportunity to call for the complete and immediate lifting of

unilateral coercive measures, in order to ensure the full, effective and

efficient response of all members of the international community to

COVID-19."

Among the countries that backed the statement were half a dozen that face

sanctions by the United States, European Union or other Western nations

including Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Russia, Syria and Venezuela.

The statement notes that both U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and

U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet have called for the waiving of

sanctions that undermine a country's capacity to respond to the pandemic.

The 26 countries also took aim at "chronic and deep-rooted racial

discrimination, police brutality and social inequality."

"The COVID-19 mortality rate of minorities, in particular people of African

descent, is disproportionately high in some countries," their statement

said.

TRUMP ENDS COVID BUDGET STIMULUS RELIEF TALKS

US President Donald Trump has said he is ending negotiations over a Covid-19

relief bill, and will only resume talks after the election.

He predicted he would win next month's election and pass a bill afterwards.

US stocks fell after the announcement.

Budget talks between Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary

Steven Mnuchin began in July.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said Mr Trump had "turned his

back" on the American people.

"Make no mistake: if you are out of work, if your business is closed, if

your child's school is shut down, if you are seeing layoffs in your

community, Donald Trump decided today that none of that - none of it -

matters to him," Mr Biden said in a statement on Tuesday.

The Republican president - who is himself currently being treated for

Covid-19 - countered: "Crazy Nancy Pelosi and the Radical Left Democrats

were just playing 'games' with the desperately needed Workers Stimulus

Payments.

"They just wanted to take care of Democrat failed, high crime, Cities and

States. They were never in it to help the workers, and they never will be!"

Lawmakers from both parties had hoped for another round of Covid-19 relief

spending to pass ahead of the 3 November election, but Mr Trump's tweet

appears to have abruptly suspended that prospect.

IMRAN'S 'NAYA PAKISTAN' ROCKED BY PASHTUN, SINDH, BALOCH AGITATIONS

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's 'Naya Pakistan' is disintegrating both

as a concept and country. In just the last few days, three different regions

of Pakistan are up in arms against the army-supported Imran government. The

Pashtuns are angry over the filing of terrorism charges against the parents

of human rights activist Gulalai Ismail, who had fled to the United States;

people in Sindh are protesting the Khan government's presidential ordinance

to take over their islands; Balochistan activists converged in Canada to

mark their protest against human rights violations against the Baloch people

by the Pakistani government. When Khan had coined the term Naya Pakistan in

2017, it conjured among the people much hope, optimism and a vision for

Pakistan. After all, Khan was a celebrated, successful international

cricketer. The people of a beleaguered country expected Khan to play another

resounding knock in his political innings. However, two years later Khan is

a jaded politician and Naya Pakistan a poor carbon copy of purana Pakistan

with public dissatisfaction rife across the country.

MALDIVES EX-VICE PRESIDENT JAILED AGAIN FOR MONEY LAUNDERING

Maldives former Vice-President Ahmed Adeeb has been sentenced to 20 years in

prison after pleading guilty to graft, money laundering and abuse of power,

court officials said on Tuesday.

Adeeb was a close ally of ex-President Abdulla Yameen until Adeeb was jailed

for allegedly trying to assassinate the strongman former ruler with a bomb

on board his yacht in 2015.

The Criminal Court in an overnight decision also imposed a fine of two

million rufiyaa ($129,000) for Adeeb's role in siphoning money from the

state tourism promoter during the former administration.

He was accused of causing a loss of about $260 million to the state in

leasing islets for resort development and receiving kickbacks from tourism

companies.

Adeeb's then boss, Yameen, is already serving a five-year prison sentence

for money laundering during his tenure between 2013 and 2018.

"Adeeb cooperated with the state in the investigation and entered a plea

deal," a court official said adding that the 20-year sentence was a "light

punishment" for the crimes he admitted to.