KEY COVID NOS. WORLDWIDE

Pos   /   Country   /   New Daily cases   /   Total Deaths   /        Daily Deaths /           Active Cases   /           Deaths/1M Pop

               World    6,04,239              /             33,17,057            /             10,259   /             1,80,70,156        /             425.5

1             USA        28,575   /             5,96,171              /             362        /             64,13,874            /             1,792

2             India      3,29,517              /             2,50,025              /             3,879     /             37,20,695            /             180

3             Brazil     29,240   /             4,23,436              /             1,018     /             10,31,469            /             1,980

4             France   3,292     /             1,06,684              /             292        /             7,56,302              /             1,631

5             Iran        18,408   /             75,261   /             351        /             4,70,766              /             886

6             Italy       5,080     /             1,23,031              /             198        /             3,73,670              /             2,037

7             Ukraine 2,817     /             46,512   /             119        /             3,07,062              /             1,069

8             Germany              7,814     /             85,481   /             110        /             2,74,273              /             1,017

9             Russia    8,465     /             1,13,647              /             321        /             2,72,174              /             778

10           Mexico  1,175     /             2,18,985              /             57           /             2,60,574              /             1,683

11           Argentina            17,381   /             67,821   /             496        /             2,60,242              /             1,489

12           Turkey   13,604   /             43,311   /             282        /             2,57,754              /             509

13           Spain     4,579     /             78,895   /             35           /             2,27,689              /             1,687

14           Netherlands        5,858     /             17,340   /             17           /             2,23,416              /             1,010

15           Poland   2,032     /             70,034   /             22           /             1,89,015              /             1,852

16           Hungary               677        /             28,693   /             91           /             1,88,083              /             2,977

17           Sweden                /             14,173   /                            /             1,42,808              /             1,396

18           Honduras             897        /             5,665     /             48           /             1,33,138              /             564

19           Belgium               2,258     /             24,551   /             40           /             1,03,512              /             2,110

20           Colombia             12,543   /             78,342   /             488        /             1,01,405              /             1,526

24           Pakistan               3,447     /             18,993   /             78           /             80,375   /             85

28           Philippines           6,846     /             18,562   /             90           /             59,897   /             167

32           Bangladesh         1,514     /             11,972   /             38           /             50,778   /             72

SHUT DOWN AND VACCINATE, SAYS DR ANTHONY FAUCI TO INDIA

Antony Fauci, the top US expert on Covid-19, has called on countries to provide India with resources to make its own vaccines or donate vaccines.

"India is the largest vaccine-producing country in the world. They've got to get their resources -- not only from within but also from without and that's the reason why other countries need to chip in to be able to get either supplies for the Indians to make their own vaccines or to get vaccines donated," he told a TV interviewer on Sunday.

"One of the ways to do that is to have the big companies that have the capability of making vaccines to really scale up in a great way to get literally hundreds of millions of doses to be able to get to them," he said.

He said that the "endgame" in fighting the pandemic is vaccinating everyone.

At the same time, he said that all of India should "shut down", as some states have done.

Vaccines are one of the ways of "breaking the transmission", but others "like shutting down the government" should be undertaken, Fauci said.

"I have advised them in the past that you really need to do that. You've got to shut down. I believe several of the Indian states have already done that but you need to break the chain of transmission," he said.

Fauci made the observations in an interview on ABC TV with George Stephanopoulos, who was former President Bill Clinton's spokesperson.

Fauci said that a priority for India should be to set up field hospitals like China had done.

"They have really got to get hospital beds and do really what the Chinese did way back a year or so ago, where you essentially build up with -- the equivalent of field hospitals. You've got to get that. You can't have people out in the street not having a hospital bed," he said.

Fauci dismissed suggestions that dropping the patent rights to allow others to make the vaccines would hamper the manufacture by companies now making them.

"I don't think that's the case," he said. "They can scale up. You know, they've done an extraordinary amount. You've got to give them credit. They've really just really done something that is really quite impressive in the way they've gotten their vaccine supply up and out for the rest of the world."

Waiving patents won't interfere with that now, he said.

JERUSALEM VIOLENCE: DEADLY AIR STRIKES HIT GAZA AFTER ROCKET ATTACKS

Israel has launched air strikes against militant targets in the Gaza Strip, after rockets were fired from the territory towards Jerusalem.

The Hamas-run Palestinian health ministry in Gaza said 20 people, including nine children, had died in the strikes.

In Jerusalem, the rocket fire caused Israel's parliament to be evacuated as sirens sounded.

Tensions between Israel and the Palestinians spiralled in recent days.

Gaza's Hamas rulers had threatened to strike after hundreds of Palestinians were injured in clashes with Israeli police in Jerusalem on Monday.

Israel said it had killed at least three Hamas militants. "We have started, and I repeat started, to attack military targets in Gaza," Israeli military spokesman Lt Col Jonathan Conricus told reporters.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas had "crossed a red line" and that Israel would respond "with great force".

The past few days have seen the worst violence in Jerusalem for years, with more than 300 Palestinians wounded in confrontations with Israeli police outside the al-Aqsa mosque on Monday.

Countries worldwide have appealed for calm after days of unrest spiralled into retaliatory attacks by Israel and Palestinians.

The US, the European Union and the UK have urged Israel and the Palestinians to lower tensions as soon as possible.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Hamas needed to end the rocket attacks "immediately", adding: "All sides need to de-escalate."

AUSTRALIAN COURT UPHOLDS INDIA TRAVEL BAN

An emergency legal challenge to Australia’s contentious ban on citizens returning from Covid-hit India failed on Monday, dashing stranded travellers’ hopes of an immediate return. Federal justice Thomas Thawley ruled the government had not overstepped its biosecurity powers in banning Australians from returning home temporarily.

The move stranded an estimated 9,000 Australian citizens and threatened them with large fines and jail time if they tried to dodge the ban and return on non-direct flights.

Thawley ruled that Morrison acted within the law, dashing the hopes of an Australian man who brought the case as he tries to return from Bengaluru.

VACCINE MAKER BioNTech SAYS NO NEED TO WAIVE PATENTS

The head of German pharmaceutical company BioNTech said Monday that there is no need to waive patents on coronavirus vaccines because manufacturers will be able to produce enough shots to supply the world over the coming year.

Ugur Sahin, the chief executive of BioNTech, rejected the US-backed proposal to temporarily lift some intellectual property rights for vaccines in order to boost global supply during the ongoing pandemic.

In a call with investors announcing the company’s first-quarter net profit of 1.13 billion euros (USD 1.37 billion), Sahin said BioNTech and its US partner Pfizer had already delivered vaccines to more than 90 countries and more than doubled its forecast production capacity for the year.

“We have now scaled the manufacturing capacity up to 3 billion doses in 2021, and more than 40 per cent of these doses are expected to go to middle- and low-income countries,” Sahin said.

Waiving patents would not ease supply shortages in the coming months, he said, citing the complexity of producing the mRNA-based shot his company developed last year.

Sahin said his company is working to further expand its manufacturing network with its own sites, such as one now planned in Singapore, and through cooperation with other manufacturers to ensure greater supply while maintaining the quality of the vaccine.'

But he also noted that rival manufacturers have their own shots either on the market already or in the pipeline.

“We believe, together with the other vaccine developers, in the next 9 to 12 months, that there will be more than enough vaccine produced and there is absolutely no need for waiving patents,” he said.

SAUDI ARABIA TO RELEASE 1,100 PAKISTANI PRISONERS

Pakistan on Monday said that 1,100 of its nationals imprisoned in Saudi Arabia will return to the country soon after agreements were reached with Riyadh on the release of inmates during Prime Minister Imran Khan’s visit to the Kingdom over the weekend.

Pakistan’s interior minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed told reporters in Islamabad that Saudi Arabia was even ready for the return of Pakistanis imprisoned for serious crimes as many of the prisoners have already served a large part of their sentence.

The minister said that with an aid of Rs 1 billion, hundreds of more prisoners who have to pay small fines can be released from Saudi jails. “The cases of the ones convicted for serious crimes, will be dealt with separately,” he said, adding that the whole process of return of prisoners has been completed.

At least 30 Pakistanis imprisoned for murder and drug offences will not be released as they have been sentenced to death, the minister said.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia had signed an agreement on the transfer of convicted prisoners during PM Khan’s three-day visit to Saudi Arabia. The two countries had also inked a memorandum of understanding on the establishment of the Saudi-Pakistan Supreme Coordination Council (SPSCC), that would address the treatment of criminals and crime.

The two countries have also agreed on combating drug trafficking; as well as financing energy, infrastructure, transportation, water, and communications projects.

EU TO LAUNCH COVID-19 HEALTH PASS IN JUNE

The EU is “fully on track” to ensure all its citizens and residents are able to have a free Covid health pass next month to ease travel, a spokesman said on Monday. The EU is keen for anybody living in its 27 countries to be able to get a digital health pass - referred to as a “green certificate” - to display their vaccination status, results of Covid-19 tests and whether they recovered from a coronavirus infection.

PAKISTAN GOVERNMENT TO SET NEW RULES TO MEET FATF REQUIREMENTS

Pakistan, keen to exit from the grey list of the FATF, is set to introduce new rules relating to anti-money laundering cases and change the prosecution process to meet its remaining tough conditions, a media report said on Monday.

Pakistan was put on the grey list by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global watchdog for money laundering and terror financing in June 2018 and the country has been struggling to come out of it.

The Dawn newspaper reported that the changes being made also include the transfer of investigations and prosecution of anti-money laundering (AML) cases from police, provincial anti-corruption establishments (ACEs) and other similar agencies to specialised agencies.

This is part of two sets of rules, including the AML (Forfeited Properties Management) Rules 2021 and the AML (Referral) Rules 2021 under the “National Policy Statement on Follow the Money” approved by the federal Cabinet meeting a few days ago, the report said.

Now, the government has decided to appoint dozens of administrators with the powers to confiscate, receive, manage, rent out, auction, transfer or dispose of or take all other measures to preserve the value of the properties and perishable or non-perishable assets to be confiscated under the AML 2010 rules or court orders.

NEPAL PRIME MINISTER OLI LOSES VOTE OF CONFIDENCE IN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Nepal Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli lost a trust vote in the House of Representatives on Monday, in a fresh setback to the embattled premier seeking to tighten his grip on power after the CPN (Maoist Centre) led by Pushpakamal Dahal “Prachanda” withdrew support to his government.

Prime Minister Oli secured 93 votes in the lower house of parliament during a special session convened on the directives of President Bidya Devi Bhandari.

Oli, 69, required at least 136 votes in the 275-member House of Representatives to win the confidence motion as four members are currently under suspension. A total of 124 members voted against him.

After its alliance Nepal Communist Party Maoist Centre led by Prachanda withdrew its support to the government, Oli’s government was reduced to a minority one.

U.S. AUTHORISES PFIZER/BIONTECH VACCINE FOR CHILDREN AGED 12 TO 15

U.S. regulators on Monday authorised Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine for use in children as young as 12, widening the country's inoculation program as vaccination rates have slowed significantly.

The vaccine has been available under an emergency use authorisation (EUA) to people as young as 16 in the United States. The vaccine makers said they had started the process for full approval for those ages last week.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it was amending the EUA to include the millions of children aged 12 to 15.

Pfizer has said it expects to have safety and efficacy data for children ages 2-to-11 in September, when it plans to ask for further expansion of the EUA for that age group.

U.S. MILITARY SHIP FIRES 30 WARNING SHOTS AFTER ENCOUNTER WITH IRANIAN VESSELS

A U.S. Coast Guard ship fired about 30 warning shots after 13 vessels from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) came close to it and other American Navy vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, the Pentagon said on Monday.

This is the second time within the last month that U.S. military vessels have had to fire warning shots because of what they said was unsafe behavior by Iranian vessels in the region, after a relative lull in such interactions over the past year.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the warning shots were fired after the Iranian fast boats came as close as 150 yards (450 feet) of six U.S. military vessels, including the USS Monterey, that were escorting the guided-missile submarine Georgia.

The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Maui fired the warning shots from a .50-caliber machine gun before the Iranian vessels left, Mr. Kirby said.

"It's significant... and they were acting veryaggressively," he said, adding that the number of Iranian vessels was more than in the recent past.

In April, a U.S. military ship fired warning shots after three vessels from IRGCN came close to it and another American patrol boat in the Gulf.

The latest incident comes as world powers and Iran seek to speed up efforts to bring Washington and Tehran back into compliance with the 2015 nuclear accord.

CHINA'S POPULATION GREW ONLY 5% OVER PAST DECADE TO PASS 1.4 BILLION, SHOWS CENSUS DATA

China's population has grown more than five percent over the past decade to pass 1.4 billion people, Beijing said Tuesday, as it unveiled its census results.

China's birthrate has been in steady decline since 2017, despite Beijing's relaxation of the decades-old "one-child policy" in order to try and avert a looming demographic crisis.

Ning Jizhe, an official from the National Bureau of Statistics, said "the data showed that the population of China maintained a mild growth momentum in the past decade."

The increase of 5.4 percent over the last 10 years comes amid fears that an aging population and a slowing birth rate pose a looming demographic crisis for the country.