KEY COVID NOS. WORLDWIDE

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

               World    3,12,762              /             49,69,070            /             4,827     /             1,79,67,161        /             637.5

1             USA        37,015   /             7,57,242              /             310        /             94,51,812            /             2,270

2             UK          36,567   /             1,39,571              /             38           /             14,98,112            /             2,042

3             Russia    37,930   /             2,31,669              /             1,069     /             8,61,293              /             1,587

4             Turkey   27,663   /             69,344   /             232        /             4,95,312              /             811

5             Mexico  1,666     /             2,86,346              /             87           /             3,51,446              /             2,191

6             Ukraine 14,634   /             64,202   /             330        /             3,39,463              /             1,480

7             Iran        7,516     /             1,25,363              /             140        /             3,13,015              /             1,468

8             Honduras                            /             10,192   /                            /             2,48,597              /             1,008

9             Poland   2,950     /             76,447   /                            /             2,10,534              /             2,023

10           Brazil     5,797     /             6,05,804              /             122        /             2,07,123              /             2,824

11           Romania              9,187     /             44,980   /             299        /             1,94,910              /             2,359

12           India      11,873   /             4,55,100              /             357        /             1,70,634              /             326

13           Germany              3,988     /             95,794   /                            /             1,69,072              /             1,139

14           Serbia    5,908     /             9,571     /             62           /             1,22,726              /             1,101

15           Norway 893        /             894        /                            /             1,11,564              /             163

16           Finland  1,732     /             1,150     /             11           /             1,07,738              /             207

17           Thailand               8,675     /             18,799   /             44           /             1,00,042              /             268

18           France   1,295     /             1,17,508              /             41           /             93,367   /             1,795

19           Netherlands        5,296     /             18,320   /             6             /             92,952   /             1,066

20           Belgium                              /             25,846   /                            /             85,667   /             2,217

62           Pakistan               698        /             28,386   /             9             /             23,940   /             125

96           Bangladesh         289        /             27,828   /             5             /             8,413     /             167

FACEBOOK, YOUTUBE TAKE DOWN BOLSONARO VIDEO OVER FALSE VACCINE CLAIM

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro found himself in social media time-out on Monday (Oct 25) after his video warning of a supposed link between Covid-19 vaccines and Aids triggered action by Facebook and YouTube.

Facebook removed the offending video, while YouTube went further, suspending the far-right leader for one week in addition to blocking the clip.

"We removed a video from Jair Bolsonaro's channel for violating our medical disinformation policies on Covid-19 by claiming that vaccines do not reduce the risk of contracting the disease and that they cause other infectious diseases," YouTube said in a statement sent to AFP.

Mr Bolsonaro's latest run-in with social media networks, including Facebook, on which he heavily relies to rally his base, came after he cited purported "official reports" from the British government - since debunked - in his weekly live address on Facebook last Thursday.

He claimed the reports "suggest that people who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 are developing Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome much faster than expected".

PAKISTAN GOVERNMENT RELEASES 350 ACTIVISTS OF BANNED ISLAMIST GROUP TO RESOLVE TENSE STANDOFF

Pakistan government has released 350 activists of the banned outfit Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid has announced, averting another showdown with the radical Islamist party that was threatening to hold a “long march” to Islamabad.

The TLP workers have been holding violent protests across the nation, especially in Lahore, against the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan for not releasing their party chief Saad Hussain Rizvi.

The Opposition parties and the proscribed outfit had staged separate protests in multiple cities of the country, resulting in Islamabad, Lahore and Rawalpindi being partially shut down.

Three policemen and seven TLP workers have died in the clashes so far that erupted on Wednesday.

“We have released 350 TLP workers up to now and we are still waiting to open both sides of the road of Muridke as per the decision with the TLP,” the interior minister tweeted after leading a government team in negotiations with representatives of the TLP, including Rizvi, its detained chief, in Islamabad.

Rasheed on Sunday said that talks between the government and the TLP after they threatened to march towards Islamabad have been successful.

“The TLP protesters will not move forward (to Islamabad) and will stay in Muridke till Tuesday,” he added.

The interior minister said that the government will withdraw cases registered against the activists of TLP by Wednesday, the report added.

CLIMATE CHANGE: AUSTRALIA PLEDGES TO REACH NET ZERO EMISSIONS BY 2050

One of the world's most criticised polluters, Australia, has promised it will achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

PM Scott Morrison made the long-delayed pledge after bargaining with resistant MPs within his government.

He said Australia had a plan to lower emissions, but it does not include ending its massive fossil fuel sectors.

The nation will also not set ambitious targets for 2030 - an objective of next month's COP26 global climate summit.

"We won't be lectured by others who do not understand Australia. The Australian Way is all about how you do it, and not if you do it. It's about getting it done," Mr Morrison wrote in a newspaper column on Tuesday.

To halt the worst effects of climate change, nations have pledged to limit rising temperatures to 1.5C by 2050.

U.S. ISSUES VACCINES-BASED ENTRY RULES FOR AIR TRAVEL

Most adults who are not U.S. citizens or permanent residents and want to fly to the country on or after November 8 will have to be fully vaccinated, as per a new Presidential Proclamation signed by U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday. The rules, which also include pre-travel testing specifications, have been expected for weeks and will harmonise disparate, country-specific rules. For some jurisdictions and countries, including India, Brazil, Ireland, the Schengen Area, South Africa and the U.K. , where entry into the U.S. has been the exception to the rule, it will mean a significant easing of restrictions.

“For purposes of entry into the United States, vaccines will be accepted that include the FDA approved or authorized and WHO Emergency Use Listed vaccines,” a senior administration official told reporters on a briefing call on Monday. Covishield – a version of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured in India – is on the WHO list, while the world health body is meeting on Tuesday to make a determination on whether to add another Indian vaccine, Covaxin by Bharat Biotech, to the list.

Children under 18 are exempt from the vaccine entry requirement as many countries have not permitted children to get vaccines on the CDC list.

FACEBOOK’S LANGUAGE GAPS WEAKEN SCREENING OF HATE AND TERRORISM

As the Gaza war raged and tensions surged across the West Asia last May, Instagram briefly banned the hashtag #AlAqsa, a reference to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City, a flash point in the conflict.

Facebook, which owns Instagram, later apologised, explaining its algorithms had mistaken the third-holiest site in Islam for the militant group Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an armed offshoot of the secular Fatah party.

For many Arabic-speaking users, it was just the latest potent example of how the social media giant muzzles political speech in the region. Arabic is among the most common languages on Facebook’s platforms, and the company issues frequent public apologies after similar botched content removals.

Now, internal company documents from the former Facebook product manager-turned-whistleblower Frances Haugen show the problems are far more systemic than just a few innocent mistakes, and that Facebook has understood the depth of these failings for years while doing little about it.

Such errors are not limited to Arabic. An examination of the files reveals that in some of the world’s most volatile regions, terrorist content and hate speech proliferate because the company remains short on moderators who speak local languages and understand cultural contexts. And its platforms have failed to develop artificial-intelligence solutions that can catch harmful content in different languages.

WORLD STRUGGLES TO CURB DAMAGE AS GREENHOUSE GAS LEVELS HIT RECORD

Greenhouse gas concentrations hit a record last year and the world is “way off track” on capping rising temperatures, the United Nations said on Monday, showing the task facing climate talks in Glasgow aimed at averting dangerous levels of warming.

A report by the U.N. World Meteorological Organization (WMO) showed carbon dioxide levels surged to 413.2 parts per million in 2020, rising more than the average rate over the last decade despite a temporary dip in emissions during COVID-19 lockdowns.

WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said the current rate of increase in heat-trapping gases would result in temperature rises “far in excess” of the 2015 Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average this century.

“We are way off track,” he said. “We need to revisit our industrial, energy and transport systems and whole way of life,” he added, calling for a “dramatic increase” in commitments conference beginning on Sunday.

The Scottish city of Glasgow was putting on the final touches before hosting the climate talks, which may be the world’s last best chance to cap global warming at the 1.5-2 degrees Celsius upper limit set out in the Paris Agreement.

“It is going to be very, very tough this summit,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said during a news conference with children.

“I am very worried because it might go wrong and we might not get the agreements that we need and it is touch and go, it is very, very difficult, but I think it can be done,” he said.

SUDAN MILITARY SEIZES POWER, DISSOLVES TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT

Sudan's military seized power in a coup on Monday, arresting members of a transitional government that was supposed to guide the country to democracy following the overthrow of long-ruling autocrat Omar al-Bashir in a popular uprising two years ago.

Gunfire was heard as opponents of the takeover took to the street and medics said several people had been hurt in clashes.

General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who headed the Sovereign Council that had shared power between the military and civilians, said the council had been dissolved.

He announced a state of emergency, saying the military needed to protect the country's safety and security.

"We guarantee the armed forces' commitment to completing the democratic transition until we hand over to a civilian elected government," he said, setting elections for July 2023.

AMAZON SIGNS DEAL WITH UK SPY AGENCIES TO BOOST USE OF AI FOR ESPIONAGE: REPORT

Britain's spy agencies have given a contract to Amazon Web Services (AWS) to host classified material in a deal aimed at boosting the use of data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) for espionage, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

Britain's GCHQ spy agency championed the procurement of a high-security cloud system and it will be used by sister services MI5 and MI6, as well as other government departments such as the Ministry of Defence during joint operations, the report added.

The agreement was signed this year with AWS, Amazon.com Inc's cloud service unit, and the data of all the agencies will be held in Britain, the newspaper reported, citing people familiar with the discussions.

GCHQ said it would not comment on reports about its relationships with tech suppliers. AWS declined to comment on the report.

Earlier on Monday, GCHQ Director Jeremy Fleming told a conference the number of ransomware attacks had doubled across the UK in 2021, compared with last year, according to the FT.

AFGHANS FACING ACUTE FOOD CRISIS: UNITED NATIONS

Afghanistan is on the brink of one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, U.N. agencies warned on Monday, with more than half the country facing “acute” food shortages.

More than 22 million Afghans will suffer food insecurity this winter, they said, as a drought driven by climate change adds to the disruption caused by the chaotic Taliban takeover of the country.

“This winter, millions of Afghans will be forced to choose between migration and starvation unless we can step up our life-saving assistance,” said David Beasley, ecutive director of the World Food Programme.

The crisis is already bigger in scale than the shortages facing war-torn Yemen or Syria, and worse than any food insecurity emergency apart from the Democratic Republic of Congo, officials said.

“Afghanistan is now among the world’s worst humanitarian crises — if not the worst — and food security has all but collapsed,” Mr. Beasley said in a statement.

“We are on a countdown to catastrophe and if we don’t act now, we will have a total disaster on our hands.”

EU DRUG REGULATOR OKAYS BOOSTER DOSES OF MODERNA’S COVID SHOT

The European Medicines Agency said on Monday that a booster dose of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine “can be considered” in people aged 18 and above.

In a statement, the EU drug regulator said its analysis had shown that a third dose given of Moderna’s vaccine — which is usually given in a two-dose schedule — at least six months after the second dose, led to an increase in antibody levels in adults whose levels were waning. The booster dose consists of half the dose normally given to adults.

The EMA said that currently available data suggest the incidence of side effects is similar to what is observed following the second dose of Moderna’s vaccine, which is known to cause temporary heart and chest inflammation in a small number of people.

“At national level, public health bodies may issue official recommendations on the use of booster doses, taking into account the local epidemiological situation,” the agency said in a statement.

SAUDI CROWN PRINCE SENT DEATH SQUAD TO KILL ME: EX-SPY

A former top Saudi Arabian spy has said the country’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman dispatched a feared team of mercenaries to kill him while in exile in Canada.

In an interview with U.S broadcaster CBS News’ “60 Minutes”, Saad Aljabri — formerly a top spy and interlocutor between the kingdom’s intelligence services and Western governments — alleged he was targeted after he fled the country following a 2017 power grab by the crown prince.

A friend at a West Asian intelligence service, he said, warned that he could face a fate similar to that of Saudi dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who, investigations have alleged, was murdered by a Riyadh-linked death squad after visiting the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

“The warning I received, don’t be in a proximity of any Saudi mission in Canada. Don’t go to the consulate. Don’t go to the Embassy... You are on the top of the list,” Mr. Aljabri told “60 minutes”.