KEY COVID NOS. WORLDWIDE

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

               World    4,17,172              /             40,08,253            /             7,589     /             1,16,43,548               /             514.2

1             USA        8,368     /             6,21,562              /             130        /             48,55,376            /               1,867

2             Brazil     62,504   /             5,26,892              /             1,663     /             10,65,477            /               2,461

3             UK          28,773   /             1,28,268              /             37           /             4,89,246              /               1,879

4             India      43,344   /             4,04,219              /             909        /             4,66,886              /               290

5             Russia    23,378   /             1,39,316              /             737        /             4,17,504              /               954

6             Indonesia            31,189   /             61,868   /             728        /             3,24,597              /               224

7             Mexico  1,805     /             2,33,689              /             67           /             2,89,136              /               1,793

8             Argentina            21,590   /             96,983   /             462        /             2,84,811              /               2,126

9             Iran        16,080   /             85,095   /             146        /             2,48,242              /               1,000

10           South Africa       15,500   /             62,628   /             457        /             1,83,243              /               1,043

11           Colombia             26,721   /             1,10,019              /             553        /             1,78,646               /             2,139

12           Spain     14,137   /             80,952   /             18           /             1,78,237              /               1,731

13           Honduras             1,142     /             7,129     /             40           /             1,68,391              /               708

14           Poland   96           /             75,095   /             10           /             1,53,043              /               1,986

15           Bangladesh         11,525   /             15,392   /             163        /             1,06,499              /               93

16           Iraq        8,818     /             17,376   /             31           /             93,705   /             422

17           Turkey   5,299     /             49,996   /             37           /             80,656   /             586

18           Malaysia              7,654     /             5,677     /             103        /             72,201   /             173

19           Costa Rica           1,488     /             4,740     /             14           /             70,089   /             922

20           Tunisia  7,930     /             15,601   /             119        /             69,858   /             1,306

27           Philippines           4,114     /             25,296   /             104        /             49,613   /             228

37           Pakistan               830        /             22,452   /             25           /             33,390   /             100

U.S. LEFT AFGHAN AIRBASE WITHOUT NOTICE

The US left Afghanistan’s Bagram Airfield after nearly 20 years by shutting off the electricity and slipping away in the night without notifying the base’s new Afghan commander, who discovered the Americans’ departure more than two hours after they left, Afghan military officials said.

Afghanistan’s army showed off the sprawling air base Monday, providing a rare first glimpse of what had been the epicenter of America’s war to unseat the Taliban and hunt down the al-Qaeda perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks on America.

The US announced Friday it had completely vacated its biggest airfield in the country in advance of a final withdrawal the Pentagon says will be completed by the end of August.

“We (heard) some rumor that the Americans had left Bagram ... and finally by seven o’clock in the morning, we understood that it was confirmed that they had already left Bagram,” Gen. Mir Asadullah Kohistani, Bagram’s new commander said.

U.S. military spokesman Col. Sonny Leggett did not address the specific complaints of many Afghan soldiers who inherited the abandoned airfield, instead referring to a statement last week.

The statement said the handover of the many bases had been in the process soon after President Joe Biden’s mid-April announcement that America was withdrawing the last of its forces.

Leggett said in the statement that they had coordinated their departures with Afghanistan’s leaders.

GLOBALLY, 1,500 BUSINESSES AFFECTED BY RANSOMWARE ATTACKS USING KASEYA SOFTWARE

The ransomware attack focused on Kaseya, a US information technology corporation, has hit between 800 and 1,500 firms throughout the world, according to its CEO.

In an interview, Fred Voccola, the CEO of the Florida-based company, said it was difficult to determine the actual impact of Friday's attack because those affected were mostly Kaseya clients.

Kaseya is a software firm that provides solutions to IT outsourcing agencies, which often undertake back-office work for businesses that are too small or under-resourced to establish their own IT departments.

On Friday, the hacking group broke into Kaseya, an information technology firm based out of Miami. They used the firm’s access to breach some of its clients’ clients. Quickly, a chain reaction was set off which paralysed hundreds of firms worldwide.

A Kaseya executive told Reuters that they were aware of the ransom demand, but did not add more. According to cybersecurity firm ESET, at least 12 different countries were affected by the hack.

The White House on Sunday said that it was reaching out to the victims of the hack in hopes of "providing assistance based upon an assessment of national risk". The intrusion’s impact is still being assessed.

Most organisations that were hit include schools, small public-sector bodies, credit unions, accountants, travel organisations etc, as reported by Reuters.

RUSSIA OFFERS MILITARY SUPPORT TO SECURE TAJIK-AFGHAN BORDER

Russia's military base in Tajikistan is fully equipped to help secure its border with Afghanistan, and Moscow will take extra measures to protect it if needed, Interfax quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko as saying on Tuesday.

Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon on Monday ordered the mobilisation of 20,000 military reservists to bolster the border with Afghanistan after more than 1,000 Afghan security personnel fled across the frontier in response to Taliban militant advances.

Meanwhile, a surge of Taliban wins in northern Afghanistan has caused some countries to close their north Afghan consulates, while across the border in Tajikistan reservists are being called up to reinforce its southern border, according to officials and reports on Tuesday.

A statement on Monday from the Tajik government said President Emomali Rakhmon had ordered the mobilisation of 20,000 military reservists to strengthen its border with Afghanistan.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow would help the former Soviet republic contend with the fallout from NATO’s exit. Russia, which operates one of its largest military bases abroad in Tajikistan, would help stabilise the border with Afghanistan if need be.

'LAMBDA VARIANT OF CORONAVIRUS DEADLIER THAN DELTA': MALAYSIAN HEALTH MINISTRY

The lambda variant of the coronavirus is turning out to be deadlier than Delta, which was first discovered in India, according to health ministry of Malaysia. It added that cases of lambda variant have been detected in more than 30 countries in the past four weeks.

"The Lambda strain was reported to have originated from Peru, the country with the highest mortality rate in the world," the Malaysian health ministry tweeted on Monday.

It cited a report by the Australian news portal news.com.au saying that the lambda strain had been detected in the United Kingdom too. The researchers are worried that this variant may be "more infectious than the Delta variant", The Star reported.

Lambda accounts for nearly 82 per cent of the coronavirus case samples reported during May and June in Peru, Euro News reported citing the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO).

In Chile, another South American country, the strain accounts for more than 31 per cent of the samples from May and June, according to Euro News.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has already designated lambda as 'variant of interest' due to its elevated presence in South America. The global health body said that lambda shows increased transmission and resistance to antibodies.

IMRAN KHAN, KIM JONG-UN ON RSF'S 'PRESS FREEDOM PREDATORS' LIST

Press watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has released a list of 37 heads of states who massively cracked down on press freedom. Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban are among the “predators of press freedom”, said RSF.

Two women, Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina and Hong Kong’s administrative chief Carrie Lam, have also been added to the list. This is the first time that women leaders have found a place on the press freedom predators' list.

The list was released on Monday. The list has come out after a gap of five years; the RSF released the last list in 2016.

The global press body said that 17 of the 37 leaders have been added for the first time on the list. It has accused these leaders of "creating a censorship apparatus, jailing journalists arbitrarily or inciting violence against them".

At least 19 countries have been shown in the red colour by the RSF, which it says shows the bad situation for journalism. Sixteen countries have been coded black, which RSF says the situation is "very bad".

The average of the predators included in the list is 66 and one-third of them are from the Asia-Pacific region.

Some of the other inclusions in the list are Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, Myanmar's Min Aung Hlaing, Saudi Arabia's crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Philippines' Rodrigo Duterte.

NEW ZEALAND APPROVES USE OF JANSSEN VACCINE

New Zealand said on Wednesday, July 7, 2021, that its health regulator Medsafe has given provisional approval for a coronavirus vaccine developed by Janssen, the pharmaceutical unit of Johnson & Johnson.

The Janssen COVID-19 vaccine was approved for individuals 18 years of age and older, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said in an announcement.

"The medical evidence shows Janssen is a very safe and effective vaccine. It is a great addition to our vaccineoptions," Mr. Hipkins said, adding that the country had secured 2 million doses of the Janssen vaccine through an advance purchase agreement last year.