What to expect as the US continues with debt ceiling negotiations

spending limits and avoid default. McCarthy has said that he will not do so without an agreement to cut spending on social programmes. The result has been a standoff in which little progress has been made, even as experts have warned that a default could have calamitous effects on the US economy.

“Every single day that Congress does not act, we are experiencing increased economic costs that could slow down the US economy,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Tuesday. “There is no time to waste.”

Women speak out online about reports of sexual violence in Sudan

Republican lawmakers continue to insist on cuts to social programmes as US debt default looms on the horizon. Tensions are mounting as the deadline for the US to raise its spending limits and avoid a potentially disastrous default looms on the horizon.

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is meeting US President Joe Biden on Tuesday to discuss potential pathways forward. The United States Department of the Treasury has warned that it could run out of funds to cover the country’s bills as early as June 1. In US politics, it falls to Congress to raise

President Biden is scheduled to depart on Wednesday for a trip overseas to attend the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Japan. But officials confirmed on Tuesday that he would return over the weekend, nixing previous plans to make stops in Australia and Papua New Guinea in order to resume debt ceiling negotiations in the US.

Here are some of the details about who is involved in the debt ceiling negotiations, what can be expected in the days ahead, and what would it mean for the US to default on its debt... Source: aljazeera.com/news

is india projecting ‘normalcy’ in Kashmir by holding G20 meeting?

Analysts say New Delhi is holding event in the disputed region to claim that its 2019 scrapping of partial autonomy brought peace and development. India is set to host a Group of 20 (G20) meeting in Indian-administered Kashmir, with residents and experts saying the controversial event is aimed at projecting “normalcy” in the disputed region. The third G20 working group meeting on tourism will be held in the region from May 22 to 24 – the first global event there since August 5, 2019 when India’s right-wing government scrapped the special status of the country’s only Muslim-majority region.

In the years since New Delhi brought Indian-administered Kashmir under its direct control, the government has pushed a series of laws and policies that Kashmiris in the valley say are aimed at undermining their struggle for the right to selfdetermination of their future. India is currently the president of the G20, an intergovernmental bloc comprised of 19 countries and the European Union. The group accounts for 80 percent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Putting a lid on our miseries’

India claims the G20 event will boost the region’s tourism industry as it plans to take the delegates for a tour of the picturesque Himalayan valley.

Acting

Srinagar, the region’s main city with 1.4 million residents, is getting a facelift for the event. Roads leading to the airport have been given a coat of tar and paint. Lampposts along the streets have been illuminated in orange, white, and green, the colours of India’s national flag.

The security bunkers dotting the city have been painted in blue while the concertina wires that were seen all over one of the world’s most militarised regions have been removed in many places. The tricolour national flags have also been installed across the city. Schools, colleges and other government buildings have been painted with a G20 logo, in which India has added a lotus, the election symbol of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Source: globalnews.ca/

He said police carried out their investigations independently and the DPP’s office only dealt with the prosecutions aspect of the case, unlike the Fiji Independent Commission Against Corruption (FICAC), which had its own investigative team inhouse. Mr Toganivalu added that the office also handled corruption related cases, but those usually went through the normal court process.

Women have taken to social media to call out, and warn others about reported rapes being perpetrated by soldiers. Multiple reports of rape perpetrated by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have emerged across Sudan as activists and medical professionals take to social media to warn others and provide a critical support network for survivors and women at risk of sexual violence. Graphic details have been shared online as organisations and individuals grapple with internet connectivity issues to paint a disturbing picture of increasingly indiscriminate attacks on women as the war enters its fifth week.

The reports have been difficult to independently verify, but they suggested a broad pat- tern of behaviour in which women are being routinely targeted, in some cases in front of family members, and subjected to brutal acts of sexual violence. According to Al Jazeera’s sources, who wish to remain anonymous, foreign women were initially targeted, but attacks on Sudanese women are now widespread. Source: aljazeera.com/news

israel and islamic Jihad agree Gaza truce after 5 days of fight: Palestinian officials

Israel and Islamic Jihad movement in Gaza have agreed on a truce that will go into effect at 10pm (1900 GMT), Palestinian officials said, signalling an end to the worst episode of crossborder fire since a 10-day war in 2021. Egypt, which brokered the ceasefire, called on all sides to adhere to the agreement, Egypt’s Al-Qahera News television channel reported. “In the light of the agreement of the Palestinian and the Israeli side, Egypt announces a ceasefire between the Palestinian and the Israeli side has been reached,” a text of the agreement seen by Reuters read, and added the truce would begin at 10pm. “The two sides will abide by the ceasefire which will include an end to targeting civilians, house demolition, an end to targeting individuals immediately when the ceasefire goes into effect,” it said. There was no immediate confirmation from Israeli officials. Even as the truce was being finalised, the two sides kept up firing, with warning sirens sounding in southern Israel and Israel’s military announcing it had hit six operational command posts of Islamic Jihad. Israel launched the latest round of airstrikes in the early hours of Tuesday, announcing that it was targeting Islamic Jihad commanders who had planned attacks in Israel. In response, the Iranian-backed group fired rockets, sending one and a half million Israelis into air raid shelters. During the five days of the campaign, Israel killed six senior Islamic Jihad commanders and destroyed a number of military installations but the airstrikes also killed at least 10 civilians, including women and children. Source: DAWN.com

Somalia: One year of Somali President hassan Sheikh’s failure

government officials to do the same.

“I have not been directed by anyone to speed up or take any cases.” Acting Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) David Toganivalu said this while responding to claims by former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and former attorney-general Aiyaz SayedKhaiyum that their current prosecution was a witch hunt. Mr Toganivalu said the Office of the DPP did not “pick and choose cases” that came to the office.

“We just receive matters that are referred to us from Fiji Police Force, especially from the Director of Criminal Investigation Department (CID),” he said.

He stressed that he had not been directed nor instructed by anyone to speed up any cases. “I have not been directed by anyone to speed or take any cases. I just walk in the door and take up the cases that are put on my table.” The Acting DPP said his appearance in court during the hearing for the former prime minister and attorney-general was out of respect.

“They are the former leaders of the previous government, they had high-level representation and we also need to show them some respect and appear for the office on their matter.” Source: fijitimes.com

One year ago the Somali corrupted legislature made history by re-electing shady President Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud for a second term, marking a significant milestone for the nation’s political landscape. Despite the challenges and polarization surrounding the recent election shady President secured another term in office, becoming the first person in the country’s history to achieve such a feat. Somalia President’s first anniversary as the Commander-in-Chief and the President of the Federal Republic of Somalia, focusing on employing his family, wife, daughter, sons, brothers, nephews, nieces, employing one’s own kids and close relatives and encouraged

Somalia President Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud before he become president for the first time was a teacher and one of his wives used to sell petrol Km4 on the road in Mogadishu. Now Hassan and his family own properties in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Turkey, UAE and the EU. Hassan and his family are now multimillionaires according to sources Somali officials told Somali Times Hassan Sheikh’s net worth is over 500 million US dollars. It’s noteworthy to mention that Hassan Sheikh’s campaign slogan was, ‘Somalia in harmony and living in harmony with the world.’ This highlights Hassan’s approach to governance and his ambition to establish a Somalia that is not isolated from the world but rather open to investment and security cooperation. Strong institutions will protect foreign investors, and Somalis can live in peace with their neighbors and the world. However, this does not mean the absence of conflict, conflicting priorities, or taking a stand against any domestic and international aggression... Source:somalitimes.co.uk

Growing investments in digital twin technologies are introducing a new generation of intelligence with opportunities to benefit clinicians, healthcare organizations, and patients.

COVID-19 underscored the healthcare sector’s need for holistic design planning capabilities to foresee the upstream and downstream impacts of a complex system that interacts with the entire community. From being able to predict a health system’s infrastructure, staffing, and equipment needs in an emergency, to more structured processes, and designing superior health facilities with the right resources, it is essential for healthcare organizations to use data to visualize the systemic impacts of emergency scenarios. As the industry grapples with volatility and uncertainty in the form of complex capacity, demand, and workforce challenges, digital twins are introducing new ways to manage and innovate operations, move away from manual processes, and embrace the powers of AI and machine learning to catapult healthcare into a new era.

The Era of Digital Twins in Healthcare

The future of healthcare will be focused on managing industry complexities—and it is here that digital twins can advance operations from good to great. Digital twins are highly complex models that use AI alongside large amounts of data to accurately mimic a real-world object. For example, they can gather data from wearable devices, patient records, pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers, and other healthcare departments. That data can then be manipulated to allow clinicians and healthcare pro- viders to easily test potential interventions in real-life situations. Growing investments in digital twin technologies are introducing intelligent opportunities to benefit clinicians, healthcare organizations, and patients. The future is not simply one digital twin per organization, but rather a massive network of digital twins connecting to create virtual models of facilities, supply chains, medical products, and even body parts and organs. Providers will be able to create digital twins at different levels of sophistication to match their use cases.

Soon digital twin technologies will be critical to every healthcare enterprise’s clinical and operational strategy. By transforming existing data into interactive digital twin models that test costly interventions or plans in digital environments, healthcare providers can deploy the most efficient and costeffective strategies at scale in the real world. Industry leaders are preparing for this by identifying use cases and building the infrastructure needed to successfully develop and deploy them—and gain a return on their investment.

Digital Twin Use Cases in Hospitals

Superior Management of Hospital Resources and Operations

What if you didn’t have to guess how a scenario would affect your hospital’s bed capacity? In a postpandemic era, hospitals across the nation are reeling with extremely challenging bed-capacity issues and lengths of stays that are exceeding payer expectations, compounded by staffing shortages and razor-thin financial margins. The topic of “patient throughput management” is almost nightmarish

how Providers Can

for administrators, executives, and caregivers alike. Virtually every hospital in the country has a priority initiative to manage throughput, including by implementing hospital-at-home strategies. However, a hospital is a complex and dynamic environment. A lot can change from day-to-day and hour-to-hour. The patient population can swing, staffing availability could change, there could be a sudden influx of patients in the emergency department (ED), or a breakdown in the internal infrastructure could hold up vital testing and critical procedures. Imagine then, having a “digital twin” of the hospital. Before any of these issues occur, imagine the possibilities if hospitals could simulate the “what-if” situations that enable good decisions if a scenario were to play out. This might include predicting the success of potential interventions to address challenges like increasing bed capacity, an influx of a certain type of patient population (mass casualty, local disease, etc.), managing emergencies during shutdowns, offering virtual and home care, or initiating “code purple” protocols. With the use of digital twins, healthcare organizations can also forecast what they will need in any scenario, including staffing, resources, and infrastructure. This will allow hospitals to place patients more effectively in the right settings, create new opportunities for optimizing patient flow, and eventually automate their operational processes. A future possibility could include adding machinelearning algorithms to analyze the data collected and make predictions for better business decisions.

Improving Utilization in Operating Rooms and Surgery Centers

The operating room (OR) department is at the intersection of several value streams. When synchronized, it functions like a “well-oiled machine,” with its peak utilization exceeding 80% of the available capacity. However, it is incredibly difficult to achieve this level of synchronization without advanced pro-