COVID-19 deaths surge amid record new cases as Britain enters lockdown
Another 830 COVID-19 deaths were announced Tuesday, just hours before today’s national lockdown in Britain comes into operation. Daily cases hit a record of 60,916 the eighth successive day with over 50,000. In the 11 days since December 26, there were 6,035 Covid deaths and over half a million new cases (551,328).
At a Downing Street press conference yesterday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was forced to acknowledge that more than 1.1 million people now had the virus in England. Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty revealed that on September 10, due to the previous lockdown, only one in 900 people in England had the virus. By this week, one in 50 have it and one in 30 in London.
2021-01-06 16:05:27 GMT2021-01-07 00:05:27(Beijing Time) Xinhua English
BEIJING, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson has refuted claims made by the U.S. State Department in a tweet about the so-called Clean Network, describing them as absurd and hypocritical.
Spokesperson Hua Chunying make the remarks on Wednesday in response to the tweet posted the day before which said the Clean Network now includes 180 telecommunications companies and dozens of leading high-tech companies, and the tide is turning against Huawei and other surveillance tools of the Chinese Communist Party. Although the United States continues to attack Huawei, no country or company has provided any evidence to prove that Huawei s products pose a threat to them, Hua told a daily news briefing.
Data breach
A recent review by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), part of GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) has revealed an increase in the number of incidents handled by the NCSC compared to the three preceding years, particularly in the healthcare sector. Perhaps more alarmingly, earlier in 2020 the NCSC reported that Russian hackers – believed to be part of Russian intelligence services – were targeting healthcare companies involved in the development of a coronavirus vaccine. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has seen a marked increase in cyber-attacks, as criminals exploit security vulnerabilities exacerbated by remote working. Hackers have also taken advantage of the pandemic as a ready cover story for phishing attacks, for instance, by sending emails purportedly concerning coronavirus, but which in fact contain malware.
Post-Brexit UK and post-Ladakh and lockdown India need each other
Post-Brexit Britain needs to ramp up its exports and India wants to reduce dependence on China in trade. Economy of both countries are in poor shape and hence the importance of Boris Johnsonâs visit
Engagement: 0
The sharp decline in New Delhiâs trust in Beijing following the Chinese intrusion in Ladakh has naturally impacted Sino-Indian trade, which accounted for around 20% of Indiaâs external commerce. Since relations with the United States, Germany, France, Russia and Japan have followed a relatively rising trajectory, Britain was among few untapped economic and strategic options remaining for India to counteract the downside arising from China situation.
Credit: Abhijnan Rej
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To use a line of Lenin’s, which has been often referred to over the past year, as the world convulsed from the COVID-19 pandemic alongside serious upticks in geopolitical competition, some of which at times threatened to erupt into armed hostilities: “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” Replace “weeks” by “years,” and you have an accurate sense of the storm we have collectively weathered over the past 12 months.
Amid all the chaos of the year that went by, many new books published during this year of the plague tried to make sense of the past and the present, in many cases as ways to understand what the future may hold, as books often tend to. The five mentioned in what follows not only reached the reading public this year; they also explain many of the trends and patterns the year has seen emerging, for better or worse.