The milestone comes four years after the NDMA entered into an agreement with the U.S. Navy for the P-8A, and two years before the new aircraft are scheduled to begin taking over maritime patrol duties in Norways high north, the announcement said.
Boeing announced on Thursday that the Norwegian Defence Materiel Agency (NDMA) accepted the first of five Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft that will be operated by the Royal Norwegian Air Force (RNoAF).
Norway’s first P-8A aircraft, named Vingtor, was delivered to the NDMA during a ceremony at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, U.S. state of Washington.
The milestone comes four years after the NDMA entered into an agreement with the U.S. Navy for the P-8A, and two years before the new aircraft are scheduled to begin taking over maritime patrol duties in Norway’s high north, the announcement said.
Norway’s four remaining aircraft are all in advanced stages of production and will be delivered to the NDMA in 2022. The five P-8As will replace the RNoAF current fleet of six P-3 Orions and two DA-20 Jet Falcons, according to the announcement.
The delivery to Norway also marks the 142nd P-8 aircraft delivered to global customers.
The Canadian government is reportedly set to announce on Friday that Health Canada has approved the COVID-19 vaccine for children aged five to 11.
Canada reported 1,827 new COVID-19 cases as of Thursday, bringing the cumulative total to 1,758,706 cases, including 1,705,513 recoveries and 29,448 deaths, according to CTV.
Ontario, the most populous province in Canada, reported the highest daily number of new COVID-19 cases since Sept. 24 with 711 new cases of COVID-19 and five deaths on Thursday.
Today’s report brings the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Ontario to 609,429, including 9,955 deaths.
The rolling seven-day average in Ontario now stands at 597, which is up from 532 this time last week. There are at least 278 COVID-19 patients, including 129 in the intensive care units (ICU).
A visitor buys handmade magnetic bookmarks at the Circle Craft Christmas Market in Vancouver, Canada, on Nov. 10, 2021. (Photo by Liang Sen/Xinhua)
Of the 711 new cases on Thursday, 322 are in people who are unvaccinated and 314 are in people fully immunized. There are 47 people with an unknown vaccine status and 28 who are partially vaccinated.
Health experts have previously said the number of COVID-19 infections identified in fully vaccinated individuals will naturally increase as more people get both of their shots. Vaccination helps reduce the risk of severe symptoms related to COVID-19 as well as hospitalization.
Last week, Ontario announced to pause the next step of the reopening plan at least 28 days because of an increase in cases.
On Thursday, 129 COVID-19 new cases were found in schools across Ontario. Of the infections found in schools, 114 were recorded in students, 14 were in staff and one in an unidentified individual.
There are 589 schools with at least one confirmed case and five facilities are currently closed as a result.
Quebec, another populous province, confirmed 720 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday. A total of 205 sufferers are in hospitals with coronavirus symptoms, including 46 in the ICU.
Most of Thursday’s cases were recorded among people who had either received their first shot less than two weeks prior or never got a shot at all.
That group accounted for 432 of the 720 newly-reported cases, and 13 of 20 new hospitalizations.
Public health authorities said unvaccinated people are 4.2 times more likely to catch COVID-19, and 15.9 times more likely to be hospitalized than vaccinated people.
Since the COVID-19 in the province, 436,804 people have caught COVID-19. Of that number, there were 419,156 recoveries and 11,550 deaths.
Of the eligible population aged 12 and up, 91 percent of Quebecers have received at least one dose of a vaccine, and 87 percent are fully vaccinated.
The Canadian government is reportedly set to announce on Friday that Health Canada has approved the COVID-19 vaccine for children aged five to 11.
Canada is expecting an accelerated delivery of 2.9 million child-sized doses, enough for a first dose for every child in the five to 11 age group.
In a statement Thursday, Pfizer Canada said the company is prepared to deliver the pediatric doses to Canada shortly following the Health Canada authorization.
The number of Covid-19 cases crossed 13.7 million across Southeast Asia, with 29,302 new cases reported on Thursday (November 18), lower than Wednesday’s tally at 29,901. New deaths are at 608, increasing from Wednesday’s number of 511. Total Covid-19 deaths in Asean are now at 286,370.
Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia has expressed concern over the re-emergence of Covid-19 during the upcoming cold weather and called on the people to pay attention to health care and continue to implement health rules to ensure that there is no recurrence of Covid-19.
The PM added that in Cambodia, although cases of Covid have now been alleviated, the spread of the disease has not yet ended, which requires high attention, prevention and prevention.
Meanwhile, people who have got at least one shot of Covid-19 vaccine or recovered from the disease are permitted to engage in socio-economic activities in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City. Children who have not reached the age eligible for vaccination can take part in socio-economic activities, but they have to be accompanied by inoculated adults.
Two years after Elon Musk elicited audible gasps from an awards show audience with his surprise announcement that Tesla would build a factory outside Berlin, the project is nearing fruition and the hype has never been more palpable.
One analyst recently compared the series of innovations Musk is pursuing at the plant with Henry Ford’s revolutionary moving assembly line. Volkswagen’s chief executive officer this month expressed worry Tesla will be able to crank out an electric car in a third of the time it’s taking his company – a disparity that would jeopardize jobs.
Musk has billed the novelties Tesla is working on as transformative to the structural design of its vehicles. He wants to use massive machines – as long as a semitrailer and tall as a two-story home – to produce front and rear body parts using single pieces of metal. Pulling this off would save time and cost, reduce weight and improve driving range.
All this buzz will sound familiar to those who followed the launch of the Model 3 a few years back. The perennially promotional Musk touted an effort to build a highly automated “alien dreadnought” manufacturing system that went disastrously awry and nearly bankrupted Tesla. Today, the company has vastly more resources to support its CEO’s desire to push the envelope with regard to how cars are made.
“The big picture here is that Tesla has the opportunity to completely reinvent the car manufacturing process for vehicle production and factories,” Adam Jonas, Morgan Stanley’s top auto analyst, wrote in a report last month. “Tesla is building the car factory of the future.”
Musk summed up Tesla’s pursuit in a simple way early this year. “With our giant casting machines, we are literally trying to make full-size cars in the same way that toy cars are made,” he tweeted in January.
On billboards strewn about Tesla’s factory when it opened to the public for a day last month, Tesla said it would inject aluminum into the world’s largest die-casting machines, which will then clamp the metal using 6,100 tons of pressure – a force equivalent to 1,020 African elephants standing on the tool to form parts.
The plant will house eight of these machines, with Musk aiming to eventually stamp out the two biggest parts of its Model Y sport utility vehicles – the front and rear underbodies – each with just one piece of metal. The current Model 3, by contrast, comprises 70 metal pieces just for the rear underbody.
While Musk has used a term for these machines – “Giga press” – that suggests Tesla conjured them in-house, this isn’t the case. The company has been buying them from Idra Group, a closely held Italian company that’s sold them to three customers on three continents and is in talks with other carmakers and major suppliers.
The front and rear castings will interface with frames beneath Model Ys that will house batteries built into the structure of the vehicle. This, too, could be a step change – Tesla and other EV makers have to this point been housing their batteries in sheet metal, then sealing those coverings to separate floorpans.
Musk touted the ramifications of simpler and more integrated battery and body manufacturing during Tesla’s “Battery Day” event last year. He claimed the company could reduce investment per gigawatt hour of battery output by 55% and shrink the amount of plant-floor space needed by 35%.
For all the upside Musk has described, he’s also acknowledged Tesla will be gambling in Gruenheide, a town about an hour’s drive east of the German capital.
“Lot of new technology will happen in Berlin, which means significant production risk,” Musk tweeted in October of last year. Tesla’s plants in Shanghai and Fremont, California, will attempt the same transitions in about two years, when the new tech is proven, he wrote at the time.
Five months after that post, a “Giga press” in Fremont was involved in a minor fire. The machine melts aluminum alloy at up to 850 degrees Celsius (1,530 degrees Fahrenheit) before the metal is moved into an only somewhat less-hot holding oven. Morgan Stanley’s Jonas wrote in his Oct. 24 report that the manufacturing process is tricky in part because the alloy must enter at a speed that ensures even cooling across the structure.
Germany’s automakers are watching Tesla’s progress closely. VW may build a new EV factory near its sprawling Wolfsburg headquarters in direct response to Musk’s foray.
Earlier this month, VW’s CEO Herbert Diess sought to rally his workers for the challenge. He warned Tesla may manage to make an EV in just 10 hours, versus the more than 30 hours VW needs at its plant in Zwickau. VW’s new factory would make 250,000 EVs a year and aim to catch up to Tesla on production time.
Morgan Stanley’s Jonas last month increased his forecast for how many cars Tesla will crank out annually by the end of the decade by 2.35 million, citing his expectation that Tesla will produce an average of more than 800,000 vehicles per plant by 2030. That’s far greater than the capacity for 500,000 units the company claims for its Fremont factory now.
“We have yet to see the ‘moving assembly line moment’ in the EV industry,” Jonas wrote, referring to Henry Ford’s 1913 breakthrough. “We believe the time is approaching for that moment. And we believe Tesla is uniquely positioned to push the boundaries at the epicenter of a manufacturing change in auto making.”
BMW’s production chief Milan Nedeljkovic told reporters at an event last month that the carmaker hasn’t worked with big casting components like Tesla, in part because this would reduce the flexibility it needs to produce several different kinds of models on the same assembly lines. Tesla’s new approaches intrigue him, nonetheless.
“If it works, maybe it’s something we’d consider,” Nedeljkovic said.
The location of early coronavirus infections in late 2019 in Wuhan, China, suggests the virus probably spread to humans from a market where wild and domestically farmed animals were sold and butchered, according to a peer-reviewed article published Thursday in the journal Science that is the latest salvo in the debate over how the pandemic began.
The article, by University of Arizona evolutionary virologist Michael Worobey – a specialist in the origins of viral epidemics – does not purport to answer all questions about the pandemic’s origins, nor is it likely to quell speculation that the virus might have emerged somehow from risky laboratory research.
Worobey has been open to the theory of a lab leak. He was one of the 18 scientists who wrote a much-publicized letter to Science in May calling for an investigation of all possible sources of the virus, including a laboratory accident. But he now contends that the geographic pattern of early cases strongly supports the hypothesis that the virus came from an infected animal at the Huanan Seafood Market – an argument that will probably revive the broader debate about the virus’s origins.
Worobey notes that more than half of the earliest documented illnesses from the virus were among people with a direct connection to the market, and he argues this was not merely the result of the early focus on the market as a potential source of the outbreak. He concludes that the first patient known to fall ill with the virus was a female seafood vendor at the market who became symptomatic on Dec. 11, 2019.
That contradicts a report earlier this year from investigators for the World Health Organization and China, who concluded that the first patient was a 41-year-old accountant with no connection to the market who became sick on Dec. 8. But Worobey said the accountant’s medical records reveal he visited the dentist that day to deal with retained baby teeth that needed to be pulled, but did not show symptoms from the coronavirus until Dec. 16, and was hospitalized six days after that.
The stealthy nature of the virus, which can spread asymptomatically, makes it highly likely that the pathogen began to spread many weeks before any of the cases that were identified. But Worobey said the locations and occupations of the first known patients point to a market origin, with the virus radiating outward into the city of 11 million.
“It becomes almost impossible to explain that pattern if that epidemic didn’t start there,” Worobey said in an interview.
Geography has been central to theories about the origin of the virus. Wuhan is home to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where researchers study and conduct experiments upon coronaviruses that circulate abundantly in bats in central and southern China. The institute has been a focus of those who argue that an accidental leak from one of its research labs is the most likely explanation for the spillover of the virus into humans.
The Huanan Seafood Market is many miles, and across the Yangtze River, from the virology institute. Few of the early documented cases were anywhere near the laboratory. A second laboratory studying coronaviruses at the Wuhan CDC, which oversaw the city’s coronavirus response, relocated in late 2019 to a spot close to the market.
Worobey’s article immediately drew skeptical responses from two prominent scientists who, like Worobey, have been deeply engaged in the debate over the most likely scenario for the start of the pandemic.
“It is based on fragmentary information and to a large degree, hearsay,” David Relman, a professor of microbiology at Stanford University, said in an email after reading an embargoed copy. “In general, there is no way of verifying much of what he describes, and then concludes.”
Jesse Bloom, a computational biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, said the quality of the data from China on early coronavirus infections is too poor to support any conclusion.
“I don’t feel like anything can be concluded with high or even really modest confidence about the exact origin of SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan, simply because the underlying data are so limited,” Bloom said. He contends that genetic evidence from early virus samples points to the market as a superspreader event, but not as the location of the first set of infections.
Bloom has been among those sounding alarms about what he feels is overly risky research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. That research has generated tremendous controversy, with some Republican lawmakers and conservative media figures focusing on funding for some of the experiments, funneled via a nonprofit group, EcoHealth Alliance, from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is led by President Joe Biden’s chief pandemic medical adviser, Anthony Fauci.
Worobey’s paper drew strong praise from those favoring the natural zoonosis theory.
“Mike’s piece shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that in fact the Huanan market was the epicenter of the outbreak,” said Robert Garry, a virologist at Tulane University and one of the most vocal proponents of the zoonosis hypothesis.
Benjamin Neuman, a virologist at Texas A&M University who was one of the coronavirus experts to give SARS-CoV-2 its name in early 2020, called the report “detailed and compelling, in a way that the most detailed conspiracy timelines have not been. . . . When the evidence is laid out like this, the association with the market is strong long before anyone realized it – right from the start.”
Worobey and critics Relman and Bloom have one thing in common: They signed the letter to the journal Science in May that called for continued investigation into the virus’s origins, including the possibility of a lab leak.
Soon, public opinion polls showed more people favored the lab-leak theory than the market origin. And Biden ordered his intelligence agencies to look into the matter and report back within 90 days.
In the months since he signed the Science letter, Worobey has become more convinced that the pandemic began as a spillover in the market, where animals known to be capable of harboring the virus – such as raccoon dogs – were sold.
The Science letter was influential in taking conjecture that had once been derided as a conspiracy theory and propelling it into the mainstream of virus-origin debates, even making it, as Worobey puts it, “the leading contender” in the public mind for the origin of the pandemic.
“The pendulum has swung way too far to the other side,” he said.
It has been known since the start of the pandemic that the Huanan market was linked to many early cases, and the first news reports invariably cited it as the likely source of viral spillover. But the joint report from the WHO and China this year presented a murkier picture, noting that some cases in December 2019 had no link to the market: “No firm conclusion therefore about the role of the Huanan market in the origin of the outbreak, or how the infection was introduced into the market, can currently be drawn.”
The market was quickly closed, the animals culled before any were screened for SARS-CoV-2, and everything cleaned and sanitized soon after the outbreak began. Still, a subsequent investigation showed that traces of the virus were found on surfaces in the market, including drains, particularly in the area where vendors sold animals.
Worobey acknowledged that the clustering of infections could be misleading, saying the early focus on the market might have skewed data because epidemiologists might have looked for market-linked infections and missed infections occurring in areas getting less attention – a common tendency in research known as “ascertainment bias.” But he concluded that the timeline and geography of early cases rule out such an error.
Chinese officials have said the Huanan market was not the source of the pandemic. China’s government has pushed the idea that the coronavirus could have been brought to China from overseas, including from Fort Detrick in Maryland and through frozen food imports.
Worobey does not contend that he has proved definitively how the pandemic began. And his article is not a research study presenting fresh data, but rather is labeled a “Perspective” piece. Such articles typically aggregate and interpret information that for the most part has already been in the public domain.
Although the lab-leak idea was at first derided by many scientists and in the mainstream media as a conspiracy theory – one embraced by President Donald Trump and his allies as part of their rhetorical attacks on China and the “China virus” – the failure to find an animal host of the immediate precursor to SARS-CoV-2 has kept all hypotheses on the table.
The 90-day investigation conducted by U.S. intelligence agencies at the behest of Biden was inconclusive. Most agencies favored the natural zoonosis theory. One favored the lab leak. The only firm conclusion was that the virus was not a bioweapon.
Worobey said he was open to the possibility of a lab leak, simply because of the proximity of the Wuhan Institute of Virology to the first outbreak. But he examined the geography question more closely. If the virus came out of the lab, why did the first cases cluster in and around the market many miles away? And that market, he notes, had sold animals that were implicated in the first SARS epidemic of 2002-2003.
“It becomes almost absurd, in my mind, to imagine that this virus started at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and almost immediately that person went to one of the few places that sold raccoon dogs and other animals that were implicated in SARS-1,” he said.
His paper does not mention the Wuhan CDC laboratory. Chinese officials have insisted that SARS-CoV-2 was never in one of the country’s laboratories, nor has it been found through tests in wild or domesticated animals.
Proponents of the lab-leak theory point to the lack of transparency of Chinese officials and the removal of experimental data from a database at the Wuhan Institute of Virology several months before the pandemic. Worobey’s market-origin theory suggests an alternative scenario, one in which authorities were not eager to find proof that the spillover happened in a market with live animals that may have been illegally captured and sold.
Worobey also suggests that Chinese officials may have been embarrassed that the country’s system for identifying and rapidly responding to novel pneumonia-like illnesses – a system put in place after the original SARS epidemic – was slow to detect the outbreak of illnesses caused by the novel coronavirus.
European countries are making a U-turn in their fight against a brutal fourth wave of the pandemic, increasingly forcing reluctant companies to let employees work from home.
Just months after people began to return to the office, Germany is poised to agree on mandatory remote working as long as there are no “operational reasons” that stand in the way.
The Belgian government on Wednesday decreed that employees need to work from home four days a week until mid-December. In Ireland and the Netherlands, people have already been instructed to work from home where possible.
The moves are part of a wider effort to contain a surge in coronavirus infections across the region. Europe has again become the epicenter of the pandemic, despite vaccination rates of around 70% and higher in many countries.
New measures are also being introduced to restrict access to public places for people who aren’t inoculated as authorities try to increase pressure on those who’ve resisted getting a Covid shot.
Governments are eschewing widespread lockdowns to avoid economic disruption and social unrest. Working from home is one of the least disruptive ways to limit contact among the broader population. Still, it’s impact is limited as mainly office roles have the luxury of tele-commuting.
Volkswagen advised its German employees to start working from home wherever possible as of Monday. That isn’t the case for assembly lines.
Europe’s largest automaker is preparing to adopt new rules that only allow access to factories and offices for people who are vaccinated, tested or have recovered from a Covid infection. The industrial giant also plans to ramp up its own capacity for vaccinations at its sites toward the end of this month, including for booster shots.
The reimposition of working rules isn’t uncontroversial. Voka, a Flemish network of companies, called the four-day teleworking mandate “incomprehensible and inexplicable,” arguing that hardly any infections take place at the office.
“Leave work organization to companies,” Hans Maertens, Voka’s managing director, said on Twitter. “Regulation, control, sanctions are coming at us, while we need entrepreneurship, consultation, collegiality, creativity.”
Despite the disruption, the impact of the latest restrictions is expected to be limited.
“People have learned to adapt, and fear levels remain low,” said Paul Donovan, chief economist for UBS. “It is fear, not the virus, that does the economic damage.”
The return to home working in parts of Europe stands in contrast to the situation in the U.K., which has so far resisted similar measures despite recording some of the region’s highest Covid tallies throughout the autumn. In recent days, officials have grown more circumspect as they urge Britons to get inoculated or bolster protection with boosters.
Asked earlier this week about the possibility of another lockdown this Christmas, Prime Minister Boris Johnson replied that there is nothing in the current data that signaled the need for restrictions, but warned: “clearly we cannot rule anything out.”
Transport data indicates many Britons are still working from home. London Tube journeys stood at 58.2 million in the four weeks to Oct. 17, a little more than half the levels before the pandemic struck the country.
Austrian Health Minister Wolfgang Mueckenstein has already appealed for workers to do their jobs at home if they can. On Friday, the Alpine nation’s federal and provincial leaders will assess whether formal measures are needed.
Countries in eastern Europe are trying to avoid imposing mandatory remote work. As hospitals become overrun again, authorities are focusing mainly on boosting low vaccination rates. Some like the Czech Republic are considering banning the unvaccinated from public events and services.
In Germany, new legislation is on the way to fight the pandemic. The law, which is being pushed through by the three parties that aim to form a ruling coalition, includes the work-from-home rule, and in some cases limits access to the workplace to people who are vaccinated, recovered or provide a negative test, as well as a raft of other measures.
Merkel’s conservative alliance, which is heading into opposition for the first time since 2005, has criticized the law and has threatened to block it in the Bundesrat, the upper house where the 16 states are represented, on Friday.
The number of daily new cases in Germany rose by more than 60,000 for the first time on Thursday. As intensive-care beds become scarce, Chancellor Angela Merkel called the situation “dramatic” and warned on Wednesday that the fourth wave of the pandemic is hitting Europe’s biggest economy “with full force.”
Merkel and Olaf Scholz, the Social Democrat set to replace her as chancellor early next month, will hold talks with regional premiers to coordinate the next steps — including the work-from-home measure — later on Thursday.
The Sultanate of Oman marks today the 51st National Day of the Renaissance, the 18th of November Anniversary.
The Sultanate of Oman marks today the 51st National Day of the Renaissance, the 18th of November Anniversary. The event comes around at a time when Omanis ponder about the achievements made so far and brace for further accomplishments, with firm resolve, under the astute leadership of HM Sultan Haitham Bin Tarik who pledged to hold high the banner of Renewed Renaissance, since he assumed power in the country on 11 January 2020.
In the beginning of this year, a Royal Decree No. 6/2021 promulgated the updated Basic Law of the State to serve as a basic pillar of continuous efforts to shape a better future for Oman and its citizens. It comprises 98 articles “enhancing the institutions of the State, safeguarding its territorial unity and its social texture, protecting its cultural foundations and consolidating public rights, liberties and duties”.
Oman Celebrates 51st National Day of the Renaissance
The Basic Law of the State lays down a stable mechanism of transfer of rule, which reflects positively on political and economic aspects and affirms the principle of sovereignty and independence of the judiciary which serves as a basis of rule in the State. It makes education compulsory till the end of the Basic Education stage. It establishes a scholarly method for thought, development of talents and encouragement of innovation – which all conform with Oman Vision 2040. Articles (5) to (11) of the Basic Law of the State organize the mechanism of entitlement or succession to the throne in the Sultanate of Oman and makes it clearer and more straightforward.
Oman Celebrates 51st National Day of the Renaissance
The Sultanate of Oman formed a Supreme Committee tasked with tackling developments resulting from Covid-19 pandemic. The Committee has been taking ‘moderate’ decisions and precautionary measures that ensure the safety of citizens and residents. The decisions resulted in the improvement of Covid-19 indicators, which registered great decline in mortality, infection, and hospitalization rates, while recovery from the disease reached 98.5%.
Meanwhile, the government accorded special attention to the ensuing economic impacts of Covid-19. The decisions, which considered the fallouts of the pandemic on establishments and companies, included exemption from fines of some services. Special exemptions were sanctioned to small and medium enterprises, in addition to a package of incentives for borrowers, individuals, banking institutions, financing and leasing firms.
Oman Celebrates 51st National Day of the Renaissance
The designation of a Youth Day in Oman (26 October) reflects the attention accorded to the young generation and asserts the leadership’s deep conviction in the potential of youth in promoting the country’s development. HM the Sultan underscored the significance of devising a mechanism and for opening channels of communication with youth to explain all the requirements of the development process in all sectors. He gave directives to listen to youth and study their needs and aspirations to help them perform the role expected of them in contributing to the comprehensive nation-building march.
HM the Sultan also chaired a meeting of the Supervisory Committee of the National Employment Programme (NEP) on 5 July 2021. This placed employment in the realm of national priorities. HM the Sultan reiterated the importance of the NEP when he presided over a Council of Ministers on 15 June 2021, during which he gave directives for “devising suitable solutions to provide jobs in all departments of the public and private sector firms”.
Her Highness The Honourable Lady Assayida Ahd Abdullah Hamed Al Busaidi
Omani women’s affairs take centre stage in the Renewed Renaissance thought of HM Sultan Haitham Bin Tarik, who has been keen that women enjoy their rights guaranteed by law and operate alongside men in different fields of national service.
The decline and fluctuation in oil prices and precautionary measures to address the impacts of Covid-19 affected the economies of many countries. Since Oman is not isolated from the global community, it had to take measures to address the situation. These included the initiation of a medium-term Fiscal Balance Plan (2020-2023). The programme was designed to bring down the general debt and to secure financial sustainability.
HM the Sultan endorsed the initiatives submitted by the departments concerned in a bid to develop the schema of social protection, to ensure the sustenance of decent livelihood for them and to alleviate the fallouts of this challenging stage.
The 10th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), the first leg in the executive plan of Oman Vision 2040, which is based on four axes comprising 14 ‘national priorities’, 88 ‘strategic goals’ and 68 performance indicators
Oman Celebrates 51st National Day of the Renaissance
The political and regional changes that happened during the Renewed Renaissance period proved that Oman’s foreign policy stands on firm grounds. Oman advocates principles of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, positive contribution to safeguarding international security, promoting common public interest through dialogue and understanding among countries and nations.
These principles were affirmed by Oman before the 76th UN General Assembly in New York last September. “Under the wise leadership of HM Sultan Haitham Bin Tarik, the Sultanate of Oman pursues its commitment to the basic fundamentals of its foreign policy embodied in good neighbourliness, non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, respect for international law and international charters and support for cooperation among countries. Oman considers the settlement of disputes by peaceful means and through harmony and tolerance as a civilized conduct that leads to better and more lasting results than disputes can achieve”.
Oman Celebrates 51st National Day of the RenaissanceOman’s persistent strive to serve global peace stem from its support for many initiatives and issues, like its backing to the positive developments emanating from Al Ula Summit in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the success of the efforts of reconciliation led by the State of Kuwait. In international podiums, Oman continued to reiterate the legitimacy of the Palestinian people. It also supported the settlement of the Yemeni issue through comprehensive political settlement. This is besides Oman’s stand for peaceful handling of the Iranian nuclear file and Oman’s continuous condemnation of all types of terrorism.
Embassy of the Sultanate of Oman – Bangkok
82 Saeng Thong Thani Bldg., 32nd Floor, North Sathorn Rd.,
WASHINGTON – The Biden administration is planning to invest billions of dollars to expand U.S. manufacturing capabilities of coronavirus vaccines to increase the supply of doses for poorer nations, the White House said Wednesday.
The White House is aiming to spur the production of at least 1 billion doses a year. The funds will support companies that make mRNA vaccines, such as Pfizer and Moderna, by helping them expand their capacity by funding facilities, equipment, staff and training.
For months, the United States has been under pressure to play a larger role in sharing vaccines with the world, and Wednesday announcement is the latest partnership between the federal government and pharmaceutical companies to bolster vaccine production during the pandemic. The effort is also designed to prepare the U.S. for future pandemics to ensure the country’s manufacturing will be able to quickly produce vaccines, the White House said.
“The goal is to guarantee capacity to produce approximately 100 million mRNA vaccines a month against covid or other pandemic viruses upon demand for the United States or global use,” said David Kessler, the administration’s chief science officer who oversees vaccine distribution. “We are looking to enter into a historic partnership with one or more experienced pharmaceutical partners. This partnership will be used for covid and any future pandemic viruses with the goal of having enough vaccines available within six to nine months of the identification of the virus.”
Kessler said the funds for the effort have already been allocated as part of the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package that President Joe Biden signed into law in March.
The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, known as BARDA, has published a “request for information,” seeking proposals from companies that have experience using mRNA technology. BARDA is the office within the Department of Health and Human Services responsible for developing vaccines and other medical countermeasures.
For months, activists have criticized the Biden administration for failing to scale up domestic vaccine manufacturing capacity to boost the global supply of vaccines. Protesters have gathered outside the homes of top officials in Washington in recent weeks, including White House chief of staff Ron Klain and covid coordinator Jeff Zients, demanding the White House do more to share vaccines with the world.
In September, activists gathered outside Klain’s house and set up a 12-foot pile of fake bones they said symbolized American inaction in combating the global coronavirus crisis.
The number of Covid-19 cases crossed 13.67 million across Southeast Asia, with 29,901 new cases reported on Wednesday (November 17), higher than Tuesday’s tally at 27,014. New deaths are at 511, increasing from Tuesday’s number of 361. Total Covid-19 deaths in Asean are now at 285,762.
The Food and Drug Administration of the Philippines on Wednesday granted emergency use authorization for Covovax, the Covid-19 vaccine developed by U.S.-based biotechnology firm Novavax. The vaccine is administered in two doses with a three- to four-week interval. It was approved for use on adults 18 and above. Covovax has an efficacy rate of 89.7% and has reported very mild adverse events
Cambodia’s Phra Tabong and Udon Mechai provinces announced that returnees from Thailand are subject to 14 days quarantine. The authorities also established vaccination centres in these areas to give jabs to those who are willing to. Cambodia reported 51 new cases and 5 deaths on Wednesday, bringing cumulative cases in the country to 119,687 patients and total 2,881 deaths.
Its getting harder to be a vaccine holdout in Europe and continue with life as usual.
As governments battle another wave of the outbreak, new restrictions are being introduced, many aimed at the unvaccinated. That’s adding to the pressure on those who’ve resisted the shot so far.
Germany is proposing to limit access to the workplace to people who are inoculated, recovered or provide a negative test, and those who have refused shots are increasingly banned from cafes and hairdressers. The country, which has seen a surge in cases, has a vaccination rate below that of Italy, Spain and Portugal.
Ireland this week extended vaccine certs beyond restaurants and bars to include cinemas and theaters. And Austria set a new bar for tough measures with a lockdown on the unvaccinated, restricting their movements to work and shopping for essentials.
The moves mark a dramatic escalation in the campaign to increase vaccination rates, an effort that’s been given fresh impetus by the latest surge in Covid cases.
Alongside measures in Germany and elsewhere, some regional leaders in Italy want authorities to replicate the Austrian model. They’ve asked that if any new restrictions are introduced, they should apply only to the unvaccinated. Czech authorities are considering a similar clampdown.
Across the continent, governments have been slapping more and more restrictions on people who haven’t been inoculated in recent months, threatening fines and even suspending some health workers. The measures led to protests in a number of countries over the summer, some of which turned violent, as well as court battles.
In Austria, an anti-vax group won seats in a regional parliament in elections in September, a sign of how resistance is deeply embedded in some parts of society.
But for governments, toughening the rules is a necessary response amid repeated virus flare-ups.
Germany’s infection rate keeps setting record highs, with more than 50,000 new cases recorded on Thursday. In Croatia, where fewer than 50% of the population is fully vaccinated, deaths have soared recently.
“The fourth wave is hitting our country with full force,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday. “We urgently need to make progress on vaccinations.”
That’s creating a difficult situation for politicians, who are trying to get their countries through the pandemic without having to resort to another round of damaging widespread lockdowns.
And it’s not clear they’ll be able to avoid such drastic options. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson this week warned that another lockdown can’t be ruled out this winter.
“History shows we cannot afford to be complacent,” Johnson said during a televised press conference.
That history lesson includes a warning shot over the summer, when the delta variant caused a spike in numbers in the U.K. and a number of European Union countries.
That surge ultimately proved relatively short lived, but countries may not be so lucky now as colder weather, along with more people spending time indoors, help the virus spread and take hold.
Waning antibody levels in some vaccinated people could also dramatically set back the virus battle. A number of countries are expanding their booster rollouts to sustain elevated levels of protection against Covid. Austria cut the validity of vaccine certs to nine months from 12 to encourage people to get a top-up shot.
Efforts to boost vaccinations have sometimes stumbled. Slovenia’s government faced protests after it tried in September to force unvaccinated public workers to work from home. The measure was ultimately halted by the country’s constitutional court.
Authorities have also been forced to revisit their Covid testing strategies. Germany reversed a decision to scrap free rapid tests and is bringing them back in hopes of getting control of the explosion of cases.
But a negative test won’t buy freedom for the unvaccinated like it did in the summer and early fall. Instead, many places are adopting a model where you have to show proof of vaccination or a recent bout of Covid along with a negative test. Where that’s not possible, big events are starting to get canceled.
That’s the case in Munich, where city officials on Tuesday said there will be no Christmas markets in the city center for the second year in a row. Smaller markets are still possible, for now, for the vaccinated, provided they bring a negative test result. But patrolling such a policy in the heart of Munich would be impossible.
“This is bitter news,” Mayor Dieter Reiter said. “But the dramatic situation in our hospitals and exponential rise in cases leave me no other choice.”
A visitor buys handmade magnetic bookmarks at the Circle Craft Christmas Market in Vancouver, Canada, on Nov. 10, 2021. (Photo by Liang Sen/Xinhua)
Oman Celebrates 51st National Day of the Renaissance
Oman Celebrates 51st National Day of the Renaissance
Oman Celebrates 51st National Day of the Renaissance
Her Highness The Honourable Lady Assayida Ahd Abdullah Hamed Al Busaidi
Oman Celebrates 51st National Day of the Renaissance
Oman Celebrates 51st National Day of the RenaissanceOman’s persistent strive to serve global peace stem from its support for many initiatives and issues, like its backing to the positive developments emanating from Al Ula Summit in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the success of the efforts of reconciliation led by the State of Kuwait. In international podiums, Oman continued to reiterate the legitimacy of the Palestinian people. It also supported the settlement of the Yemeni issue through comprehensive political settlement. This is besides Oman’s stand for peaceful handling of the Iranian nuclear file and Oman’s continuous condemnation of all types of terrorism.
SootinClaimon.Com 