The Asian Star June 5 2021

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Vol 20 - Issue 18

Saturday, June 5, 2021

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BC experts urge caution during reopening, warn of Indian (Delta) variant ‘wild card’ A group of independent B.C. scientists and data researchers is urging the province to take a slow and cautionary approach before reopening further due to a variant that was growing even during the “circuit breaker” restrictions. In its latest bi-monthly report, the B.C. COVID-19 Modelling Group hopes its latest analysis encourages decision-makers

to slow down and scrutinize the behaviour of the B.1.617 variant, now known as the “delta variant.” The scientists are also warning public health officials to fully vaccinate as many people as quickly possible to avoid the rise of the Delta variant, which has seen a concerning resurgence in cases in the United Kingdom and

is threatening that country’s reopening. “The good news is B.C. continues to see the case numbers decline, which his fantastic, but the wild card is B.1.617.2,” said co-author and UBC biomathematics professor Sally Otto.

“That variant is spreading in India and really wreaking havoc there.”

Continued on page 6

For Indian American Hindus, loving India doesn’t mean holding back our criticism As India suffers through a devastating surge of COVID-19 infections and deaths, the Indian diaspora is experiencing a swirl of conflicting emotions. Our relief in North America, where widespread vaccinations have likely put the worst of the pandemic behind us, is shadowed

New Covid-19 cases in BC fall below 200 for 3rd consecutive day For the first time since mid-October, British Columbia has reported fewer than 200 new COVID-19 cases for three consecutive days.

At a live briefing Thursday, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said there were 199 new cases in the province, along with two new deaths. It brought the seven-day average for new cases down to 229, the lowest since Oct. 24.

Active cases declined again to 2,563.

Of the new cases, 68 were in the Vancouver Coastal Health region, 89 were in the Fraser Health region, two were in the Vancouver Island health region, 34 were in the Interior Continued on page 14

by the fear we hear from our loved ones on video calls and WhatsApp. We also hear the rage many feel toward India’s political leaders for their deadly decisions. Faced with a pandemic that coincided with state elections, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and

Sister of bride who died of heart attack marries the groom while the dead body lay in next room In a series of unfortunate events, a groom married the sister of his bride after she collapsed and died earlier in the wedding ceremony.

The incident happened in Uttar Pradesh, India when a woman named Surabhi and man named Mangesh Kumar were tying the knot in a Hindu ceremony on May 27, according to media reports.

During the Jaimala ceremony, the exchanging of garlands by the bride and the groom in an Indian wedding, Surabhi collapsed and a doctor was called to treat her after she suffered a heart attack.

China ‘exporting their authoritarianism overseas’ through Canadian institutions, warns Hong Kong advocate Chinese authorities have been “exporting their authoritarianism overseas” by infiltrating democratic institutions in Canada and elsewhere as a way to stifle criticism of the Communist state, one expert told parliamentarians on Monday.

In testimony before the House of Commons special committee on CanadaChina relations, Cherie Wong, executive director of Alliance Canada Hong Kong, warned about extensive efforts by the Communist Party of China in recent years to sway public opinion and deflect

others allowed political rallies to continue despite the impossibility of social distancing.

They encouraged dangerous behavior by speaking and interacting with others while not masked.

criticism, even in foreign countries. Chinese leadership has sought to exert control over foreign politicians, academics, media, and other institutions, including in Canada, as part of broader ambitions to grow its geopolitical position, she said.

Those efforts have at the same time gone largely unnoticed by the broader public, she said, which has in turn deepened Canada’s dependency on China even as it continues to skirt international rules around human rights or intellectual property.

After the doctor pronounced the bride dead, the families of the bride and groom agreed the bride’s younger sister, Nisha, would wed the groom.

In India, the majority of marriages are arranged, an estimated 90%.

Radha Patel, founder of South Asian matchmaking site Single to Shaadi, said it’s likely the families arranged for the sister to marry the groom because “they wanted to keep it in the family.”

Continued on page 7

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Saturday, June 5, 2021 BC to narrow hard hat rules to support Sikh workers B.C. companies that require workers to wear hard hats on the job will soon be required to consider other ways of protecting them from head injuries. Starting Sept. 1, companies must conduct a risk assessment to determine whether wearing a hard hat is really necessary in all areas of a work site, or whether alternative safety measures are possible. Under the current regulation, safety headgear must be worn by a worker in any work area where there is a danger of head injury from falling, flying or thrown objects or other harmful contacts. Labour Minister Harry Bains said the change to the Occupational Health and Safety regulations is mostly aimed at worksites, like the Port of Vancouver, where truck drivers are forced

to wear hard hats, even though they are not at risk of head injury. “Many employers have imposed blanket rules to wear a hard hat on the job, even in areas where the level of risk is low or non-existent,” Bains said. Bains said the new regulation will benefit all workers in the province because “employers must now work to eliminate the risk of injury with engineering and administrative controls and not simply try to minimize injury through the use of PPE.” The new regulation is being welcomed by the World Sikh Federation of Canada. Balpreet Singh, the federation’s legal counsel, said “many Sikh workers who wear turbans have been excluded from workplaces.

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OPINION

Saturday, June 5, 2021

Canada’s economic picture brighter as COVID-19 vaccinations speed up, OECD says Laurence Boone has no doubt where we’ll find the next leg up for the encouraging but uneven global economic recovery. It’s in a syringe. Or, more accurately, a few billion of them. “The best economic policy is to vaccinate,” the chief economist for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said in an interview from her Paris office last Friday. Ms. Boone was spending a rare day at the OECD’s headquarters, preparing for the Monday morning release of the

international economic body’s newest global economic outlook. Like many of us, the organization’s staff have been mostly working from home for the past 14 months or so. But the OECD’s new forecasts illustrate how the arrival of vaccines over the past five months has rapidly accelerated the global economy and brought the prospect of a return to normal tantalizingly close in many countries – though by no means all of them.

“We are in the start of the transition phase,” Ms. Boone said, as countries emerge from crisis mode and begin to look toward sustained health. “But it’s a very uneven recovery.”

The OECD forecasts that world real gross domestic product will grow 5.8 per cent in 2021 – up dramatically from 4.2 per cent in its last full outlook report in December, before vaccines began their global rollout.

The new projection is also up from an interim forecast of 5.6 per cent issued in March.

The new outlook includes a big upgrade of Canada, whose vaccination program was a serious laggard at the time of its interim forecast, but has shifted into high gear since then. The OECD now sees Canadian GDP growth of 6.1 per cent this year – far ahead of the 4.7 per cent it projected in March. This despite a third wave of the pandemic that set back the recovery over the spring.

Ms. Boone said that “buoyant external demand” from the United States, by far Canada’s biggest export market, which the OECD figures will grow even faster, spurred by massive government stimulus spending, has added critical fuel to the Canadian growth story.

“It’s a rather positive picture, or, at least, a brighter one,” she said of the Canadian outlook.

But she’s worried that many low-income and developing countries remain in a much more precarious position than advanced economies such as Canada.

And the critical factor in that disparity is the unequal access to vaccines and other desperately needed health supplies. The climate of me-first protectionism in the race to overcome COVID-19 poses a serious threat to a full and equitable recovery.

If not addressed, the danger is that the COVID-19 pandemic could leave some of the poorest countries in the world behind, reopening inequality gaps between the developed and the developing world that had been narrowing for decades leading up to this crisis.

Ms. Boone noted that the fast-growing capacity to produce vaccines should provide scope for wealthier countries to deliver much more supply to the developing world in the coming months – especially if regulatory processes can be sped up. According to data collected

by UNICEF, more than half of the global vaccine production capacity available for the second half of this year represents vaccines that haven’t yet been approved.

More generous international funding would also help. The World Health Organization estimates that its ACT-Accelerator program – designed to provide COVID-19 vaccines, protective equipment, diagnostic tests and treatments to less-developed countries that most need the help getting them – is nearly US$20billion short of the necessary funds for this year.

“As long as the vast majority of the global population is not vaccinated, all of us remain vulnerable to the emergence of new variants,” Ms. Boone said in the economic outlook report.

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Saturday, June 5, 2021

Modi thanks USA for vaccine and support Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday spoke to the US Vice President Kamala Harris and expressed his appreciation for assurance of vaccine supplies to India as part of the US Strategy for Global Vaccine Sharing, under which India is expected to get the first batch of doses by the month-end. In a series of tweets, Modi said he also thanked Harris for all the support and solidarity from the US government, businesses and the Indian diaspora. The call was initiated by the American side, top government sources said.

During the call, Harris stressed the Joe Biden administration’s efforts to ‘achieve broad global coverage, responding to surges and other urgent situations ad public health needs and helping as many countries as possible who requested vaccines’, according to Senior White House Advisor and Chief Spokesperson Symone Sanders. Earlier, the Biden administration had unveiled a plan to share Covid-19 vaccines with

the world, including its intent to direct 75 per cent of excess doses through the UN-backed COVAX global vaccine sharing program. Thanking Harris, PM Modi said, “I deeply appreciate the assurance of vaccine supplies to India as part of the US Strategy for Global Vaccine Sharing. I also thanked her for all the support and solidarity from the US government, businesses and Indian diaspora.” Modi and Harris also discussed ongoing efforts to further strengthen India-US vaccine cooperation, “and the potential of our partnership to contribute to post-Covid global health and economic recovery”, added the prime minister in his tweet.The prime minister also expressed the hope to welcome Harris in India ‘soon after the normalisation of the global health situation’.

Apart from Modi, Harris also dialled President Andres Manuel López Obrador of Mexico, President Alejandro Giammattei of Guatemala, and Prime Minister Keith Rowley, Chairman of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

South Asian man from Kelowna wins $1 Million lottery prize BC’s latest lottery millionaire is planning to use some of his winnings to whisk his wife and kids away on their first family vacation in a decade. Kelowna resident Amar Singh won the guaranteed $1 million prize in the May 20 Lotto 6/49 draw, and told the B.C. Lottery Corporation he intends to take his family somewhere tropical once it’s safe to travel again. “Our kids are growing up, and we want to go somewhere for a week or two weeks. We’ve always wanted to go to the Bahamas, or Costa Rica, somewhere warm where we can relax,” Singh said in a news release. The lucky lottery player is also planning to buy a

new home.

Singh told the BCLC the first thing he did after discovering his win was call his wife, who took more than a little convincing before she believed it was real.

“She had said, ‘No you didn’t win, you were probably playing a demo,’” Singh said. “She just kept saying, ‘No, no, it was a demo win.’ She didn’t believe me at all.” Lottery officials do not provide the odds of winning the guaranteed $1 million prize, as it’s dependant on how many people purchase a ticket for that draw.

The odds of winning the jackpot on a Lotto 6/49 ticket, which requires matching all six numbers in a draw without using the bonus, are said to be an infinitesimal one in 13.98

Green Party rift over Israeli-Palestinian conflict grows as MPs break from leader The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has exposed a fault line in the Green party, threatening political unity as lawmakers break from their leader and rank-and-file members clash with a party spokesman.

The dust-up kicked off after Green MP Jenica Atwin directly challenged Leader Annamie Paul’s position on the crisis. In a Twitter post last month, she said a statement from Paul calling for de-escalation and a return to dialogue was “totally inadequate.”

“I stand with Palestine and condemn the unthinkable airstrikes in Gaza. End Apartheid!”

Atwin wrote on May 11. The tweet followed one a day earlier by Green MP Paul Manly, who said that the removal of Palestinian families from the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah “is ethnic cleansing.”

Noah Zatzman, a senior adviser to Paul,

expressed solidarity with Israel in a May 14 social media post that accused many politicians, including unspecified Green MPs, of discrimination and antisemitism.

“We will work to defeat you and bring in progressive climate champions who are antifa and pro LGBT and pro indigenous sovereignty and Zionists!!!!!” he said in the post, which he told The Canadian Press was meant as a response to the Green MPs as well as the broader issue.

The internal rift has only widened in the week and a half since a tenuous ceasefire was reached in the 11-day war that killed more than 250 people, mostly Palestinians.

The fallout includes online accusations from prominent Green party members, such as 2020 leadership runner-up Dimitri Lascaris, who says Zatzman has defamed him, Atwin and Manly by accusing them of antisemitism.

Covid-19 variant first identified in India will be dominant strain in Canada’s Peel Region in a month: Medical officer Dr Loh Peel Region’s medical officer of health says a more virulent Covid-19 variant of concern will soon become the dominant strain in Peel ahead of any other region in Ontario. Dr. Lawrence Loh said the B.1.617 variant, which was recently dubbed Delta by the World Health Organization, could displace and overtake the current dominant B.1.1.7 variant, now known as Alpha, within one month. “Preliminary analysis from the science table suggests that in one month the Delta variant will be the dominant strain in our region with the rest of Ontario weeks behind,” Loh said Wednesday morning during Brampton’s weekly COVID-19 update.

“With initial signals suggesting that the Delta variant is also more transmissible and severe on top of the Alpha variant, this means we very much welcome the province’s continued cautious reopening as one component to preventing a

fourth wave,” he added. The highly-contagious Alpha variant, which was first discovered in the United Kingdom, started to spread throughout the province earlier this year contributing to a significant jump in new coronavirus infections and hospital admissions during the third wave of the pandemic, nearly overwhelming the provincial health-care system. Daily infections topped 4,000 throughout April prompting the provincial government to issue another stay-athome order and close down schools. The Delta variant, which rapidly spread throughout India causing widespread hospitalizations and deaths, was first identified in Ontario later in April.

Recent studies conducted in England suggest that Delta is more transmissible than Alpha, and can cause more severe symptoms in younger adults than earlier strains of coronavirus.

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Saturday, June 5, 2021 From page 1

BC experts urge caution during reopening

The B.1.617 variant, discovered in India and newly termed the “Delta variant” by the World Health Organization, is widely believed to be twice as likely to spread compared to the P.1 (Brazilian origin) and B.1.1.7 (U.K. origin) variants, which were already more contagious than the original strain of Covid-19.

“With currently dominant strains (P.1 and B.1.1.7), cases are projected to increase briefly and then turn around later in June, as vaccination levels rise,” write the B.C. report’s authors. “Vaccine effectiveness with B.1.617.2 with dosing schedule used in B.C. is unclear.

Current level of community spread in B.C. of B.1.617.2 is uncertain.” Otto says that their group isn’t getting enough information from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control to know for certain how much of the .2 subset is

circulating, versus the less-worrisome .1 and .3 subbranches of the variant. “What we were also seeing is before we even reopened, before Step 1, that 617 was increasing in numbers in British Columbia, so it’s looking to be ramping up and of course with reopening that would be even worse,” she explained. “I hope that this is yet another incentive for people that’ve been delaying or unsure about whether they should get vaccinated, because we will only be able to safely open up as these variants appear around the world, we’ll only have insurance against them if a very large fraction of our population is vaccinated -- it just makes a big buffer, it makes it harder for the disease to spread from person to person.”

On Wednesday, the BCCDC’s latest data showed a sharp increase in the delta variant up to its most recent analysis on May 9.

Saturday, June 5, 2021

Sister of bride who died of heart attack marries the groom From page 1 Patel said her mother was in a similar situation when her aunt died in childbirth and there was an idea for her mother to marry her brother-in-law.

“So much vetting goes into matching families in marriages and it is natural for the families to want to stay together,” Patel said.

Her mother was unmarried and young, but her parents accepted her denial of the idea. In a series of unfortunate events, a groom married the sister of his bride after she collapsed and died earlier in the wedding ceremony.

The incident happened in Uttar Pradesh, India when a woman named Surabhi and man named Mangesh Kumar were tying the knot in a Hindu ceremony on May 27,Times of India reported.

During the jaimala, the exchanging of garlands by the bride and the groom in an Indian wedding, Surabhi collapsed and a doctor was called to treat her after she suffered a heart attack, News 18 reported.

After the doctor pronounced the bride dead, the families of the bride and groom agreed the bride’s younger sister, Nisha, would wed the groom.

In India, the majority of marriages are arranged, an estimated 90%.

Radha Patel, founder of South Asian matchmaking site Single to Shaadi, said it’s likely the families arranged for the sister to marry the groom because “they wanted to keep it in the family.”

Patel said her mother was in a similar situation when her aunt died in childbirth and there was an idea for her mother to marry her brother-in-law.

“So much vetting goes into matching families in marriages and it is natural for the families to want to stay together,” Patel said.

Her mother was unmarried and young, but her parents accepted her denial of the idea.

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Saturday, June 5, 2021 Canada is priority in USA’s Covid-19 vaccine sharing plan The United States on Thursday unveiled plans to share 25 million of its Covid-19 vaccines across the borders, with nearly six million doses targeted towards “regional priorities and partner recipients,” including Canada and Mexico, among others. “We first made doses available to our closest neighbors – Canada and Mexico.

Our dose sharing approach prioritizes Latin American and the Caribbean on a per capita basis,” the White House said in a statement.

Other beneficiaries of the priority group include the Republic of Korea, the West Bank and Gaza, Ukraine, Kosovo, Haiti, Georgia, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Yemen and United Nations front-line workers. The White House has previously stated its intent to share 80 million vaccine doses with the world by the end of June.

The administration said 25 per cent of doses will be kept in reserve for emergencies and for the U.S. to share directly with allies and partners,

while 75 per cent of the excess doses will go to the U.N.-backed COVAX global vaccine sharing program. The much-awaited vaccine sharing plan comes as demand for COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S. dipped significantly with over 63 per cent of adults having received at least one shot. Nearly 19 million doses will now be shared through COVAX, with close to six million vaccines allocated for South and Central America, to countries including, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Peru, Ecuador, Paraguay, Bolivia, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Haiti, and other Caribbean Community countries, as well as the Dominican Republic.

Another seven million doses will go to Asia to countries like India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Maldives, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Laos, Papua New Guinea, Taiwan, and the Pacific Islands.

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Saturday, June 5, 2021 4 men helped foil bank robbery in Abbotsford 68-year-old Garry Amyot (pictured) shares story of how he and others prevented potential tragedy in a bank in Abbotsford.

Garry Amyot went to Scotiabank in Abbotsford on Wednesday (June 2) to check on the status of a new bank card, but instead he helped thwart an armed robbery. Amyot, 68, was one of four customers inside the bank on Gladwin Road and South Fraser Way who tackled the gunwielding culprit before the suspect could leave the premises. Amyot said he was in a line to inquire about his new card at about 11:30 a.m. when another customer walked past the line, and Amyot noticed the person was acting unusual. “All of a sudden, the guy walks in past us, pulls out a 12-gauge shotgun and yells out, ‘Everybody! This is a bank robbery, nobody move!’ ” Amyot said. “So I’m looking from a little distance and I see the shotgun, and I own and know firearms so I’m thinking this is pretty serious, but I’m also thinking, ‘I’m not going to die today.’ “ The suspect threw a bag to Amyot, who then passed it to a teller. As the tellers

began filling the bag with money, Amyot shared a glance with another customer behind the suspect and the wheels began turning in his head.

“When I looked at that guy I just knew he was going to do something no matter what,” Amyot said, noting he could tell the fellow customer looked irritated. “I wasn’t going to let him do this by himself. I winked at him and that was the green light – we were comrades in this situation.” Suddenly, the other man in line grabbed the suspect’s gun and pointed it straight up to avoid anyone getting hurt.

Amyot quickly followed and tackled the suspect. “It all happened so freaking fast,” Amyot said. “The other guy grabbed the barrel of the shotgun and then milliseconds later – bang! – we’re all on the ground. I’ve got my arms around his back and my elbow in his face and we have him pinned down. The gun was on the floor and I remember telling someone, ‘Kick that gun out of the way!’ “ Two other customers assisted in restraining the suspect until the police arrived a few minutes later.

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Saturday, June 5, 2021 Canada supports US probe to investigate Covid-19 origin: Garneau

Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau says Canada supports the move by U.S. President Joe Biden to order American intelligence agencies to further investigate the origins of COVID-19.

In an interview on CTV’s Question Period airing Sunday, Garneau said because the results of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) report released earlier this year on how the virus first spread to humans was largely inconclusive, a deeper probe is required. “It is important that we do the science to figure out where it originated from because it may happen again and so therefore we do support President Biden’s

announcement earlier this week to investigate more fully,” he said. On Thursday, the Biden administration announced they would join other countries in the global call for China to be more flexible to determine how the outbreak started, not ruling out the possibility it originated at a Chinese laboratory. Biden asked U.S. intelligence agencies to report back within 90 days, and he told reporters he aimed to release their results publicly. Biden directed U.S. national laboratories to assist with the investigation and the intelligence community to prepare a list of specific queries for the Chinese government.

Parliament votes to demand Liberals reveal reasons for firing of two federal scientists from infectious-disease lab Opposition MPs outvoted the Liberal minority government on Wednesday in an attempt to obtain details on why two federal scientists were fired from Canada’s highest security infectious-disease laboratory.

The two scientists were dismissed in January from the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg after their security clearances were revoked in July, 2019, and the RCMP were called in to investigate. Xiangguo Qiu, former head of a key program at the lab, and her biologist husband, Keding Cheng, have been the focus of parliamentary debate for weeks as opposition MPs have sought information on the reasons why the two were fired. In addition, the debate has centred on shipments of two powerful viruses to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology in March, 2019, that were overseen by

Dr. Qiu. Stymied by the government’s refusal to provide this information, New Democratic and Bloc Québécois MPs supported a Conservative motion that passed by a 179-149 vote to demand that the Public Health Agency of Canada turn over hundreds of pages of uncensored documents about the couples’ dismissal, as well as the virus shipments. The motion requires PHAC to release the records to Commons Speaker Anthony Rota within 48 hours, but the government can ignore the request and has shown no willingness to publicly reveal the information. A senior federal official told The Globe and Mail the documents contain sensitive national-security information and the government will not hand the documents over to the House of Commons Special Committee on Canada-China Relations.

Canadian firm ties up with Indian company for Covid-19 vaccine production A Canadian vaccine maker has tied up with a Hyderabad-based pharma company for production of the former’s Covid-19 vaccine.

Providence Therapeutics, headquartered in Calgary in the province of Alberta, has struck a deal with Biological E for transfer of technology from the Canadian company, while it will sell 30 million doses of its vaccine candidate, called PTXCovid19-B. “This sale represents the sale of all the remaining 2021 Providence production, plus a portion of the early 2022 Providence production, after accounting for the first sale of Providence

vaccines to the Province of Manitoba, Canada,” a joint statement from the two companies said.

Providence CEO Brad Sorenson said, “This initiative is an important commitment by a Canada-based company to help India and other nations vaccinate their citizens against Covid-19.

Providence was founded to serve patients, and this commitment by Biological E allows us to achieve that essential goal. However, the availability of the mRNA Covid-19 vaccine in India will be contingent upon it receiving the necessary emergency-use authorisation from

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Saturday, June 5, 2021

BC legislature apologizing after memorial for Kamloops residential school victims removed The B.C. Legislature has issued an apology after a display of shoes, candles and toys placed on its steps to honour Indigenous children was removed without warning this weekend, just hours after it was set up.

The memorial was set up on Friday, May 28, a day after the Tkemlups te Secwepemc announced it had found the remains of 215 children buried on the grounds of the former residential school.

A statement from the Legislature says security officers “extinguished the candles and collected the mementos” on Friday night after people had left the front steps of the legislature in downtown Victoria.

“Compassion and sensitivity should have been exercised with the memorial items remaining in place,” the statement reads.

“The Legislative Assembly offers its sincere apologies for the hurt this has caused.”

The memorial of candles and children’s shoes was replaced on Monday and it “will not be disturbed during this period of mourning.”

Speaking in the B.C. Legislature yesterday, Premier John Horgan and

several MLAs were emotional as they talked about the far-reaching impact of last week’s revelation from Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc.

“It is not just a moment in history as I often revert to to protect the emotions that we all have when we think about our children being torn from us by the state, sent to who knows where to be told to be good, white people,” Horgan said. “Its unimaginable to us today, yet a very active part of who we are as Canadians.”

The Premier went on to say that all Canadians have a responsibility to acknowledge the dark past of the Residential School System head on.

In a statement, Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc Kukpi7 Rosanne Casimir says Canada has to face ownership and accountability about the past after the unmarked graves of 215 children were found at the site of the Kamloops Indian Residential School.

“In the last couple of days, I’ve had elders, I’ve had community members reach out and express the depths of their sorrows and their sadness, and how its triggering them,” she said, noting band members are grateful for the outpouring of support they’ve gotten this past week.

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Saturday, June 5, 2021

BC NDP scoring poorly on management of forests: survey A strong majority of British Columbians are concerned about the future of the province’s old-growth forests, a new survey has found.

According to the survey by Sierra Club BC and Insights West, 78 per cent of respondents are concerned about logging of old-growth forests in B.C. and 74 per cent support doubling protection of provincial lands, while 66 per cent oppose using whole trees to make wood pellets.

During last year’s provincial election, the BC NDP committed to act on an independent panel’s recommendations for managing the province’s old-growth forests. According to the survey, 85 per cent feel it is important that the BC NDP keeps its promises.

Just 16 per cent of respondents said the BC NDP government has done a good job in keeping this election promise, while 40 per cent think it has done a bad job.

“Forestry issues in British Columbia have recently taken a backseat to COVID-19 — like everything else these days — but there’s still huge concern about the destruction of our old-growth forests,” Insights West president Steve Mossop said.

Click to play video: ‘Calls intensify for B.C. officials to manage ancient forests’ 1:37 Calls intensify for B.C.

officials to manage ancient forests Calls intensify for B.C. officials to manage ancient forests “Our polling shows that there is a high level of concern about the state of our forests in B.C. and the impact of industrial logging on our ecosystems and climate change, and the NDP is scoring poorly when it comes to the job they are doing on this file.”

B.C.’s approach to old-growth forest has come under scrutiny amid protests on Vancouver Island.

More than 150 people have been arrested since RCMP began enforcing a British Columbia court injunction ordering the removal of blockades aimed at preventing old-growth logging on southwestern Vancouver Island.

The Mounties said seven people were arrested Wednesday for breaching the injunction after officers found a large group blocking both directions of a forestry road in the Braden Creek area near Port Renfrew.

The injunction is to allow workers with the Teal-Jones Group to resume logging in that area and in the Fairy Creek watershed to the south.

Teal-Jones has said it plans to harvest about 20 hectares at the north ridge of the 1,200-hectare watershed out of 200 available for harvest.

Name change It may be known to all that I Inderjeet Singh Sodhi, I am changing my name to Inderjeet Singh Sohi.

Now I will be known as Inderjeet Singh Sohi.

BC paramedics blame provincial ‘mismanagement’ for ambulance wait times After a woman who broke her hip at a Burnaby SkyTrain station was left waiting for more than an hour for an ambulance, the head of the union representing paramedics in B.C. says mismanagement of resources is leaving too many people waiting too long for help. Troy Clifford, president of the Ambulance Paramedics of BC says he heard about this incident. He believes there’s “probably some truth to it,” saying long wait times for people in emergency situations are becoming more common. “We’re seeing that more and more, where people are waiting for ambulances for extended periods of time, and especially in public places like that that can be a real challenge,” he says. “I mean it’s tragic when you see something like that, anytime anybody has to wait when they’re in an emergency situation whether it’s critical or not, it’s a horrible experience.”

The physical and psychological impacts of being left waiting in distress can aggravate injuries and compound trauma, Clifford adds. “It really is becoming — sadly — a norm.” Clifford says

the union has been raising the issue of service delays and shortages of available paramedics for months. According to him, the issue is not a lack

of resources. We have the ambulances and the funding from the government. It’s really about the mismanagement of the ambulances, and the ambulance service and PHSA and BC Emergency Health Services (BC EHS) failing to really provide the mandate that they’re responsible to provide to the citizens of the province,” he says.

“They have an obligation to staff ambulances and put two paramedics in them, to make sure we have enough dispatchers to answer the call, and provide medical assistance while they wait for the ambulances. That’s not happening right now. It hasn’t been happening for a while.”

British Columbians who got AstraZeneca dose can choose another vaccine for their second shot British Columbians who received a first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine that is linked to fatal blood clots can get another vaccine for their second shot, the provincial health officer said Tuesday.

The National Advisory Committee on Immunization, or NACI, has “confirmed the safety and effectiveness of interchanging vaccines and reaffirmed the recommendation to prioritize second doses for those at highest risk of severe illness and death,” Dr. Bonnie Henry said.

“NACI advises people who received a first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine may safely receive either the same vaccine or an mRNA vaccine (Pfizer or Moderna) for their second dose.”

In April, B.C. began offering the AstraZeneca vaccine — which has been the backbone of the U.K. vaccine rollout — through pharmacies to

people not then eligible for the age-based roll out of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. It was also used for Covid-19 hot spots and high-risk workplaces until it was suspended over rare blood clot side-effects.

In total, over 314,000 doses of the vaccine were administered in B.C. Henry said 3,112,112 people in B.C. had now received at least one shot and 179,954 had been given the second dose need to ensure maximum protection.

That means 70.4 per cent of adults in B.C. and 67 per cent of those aged 12 and over had been given one dose.

On Monday, there were 53,218 doses administered, including 11,268 second doses.

Henry reported 184 new cases of COVID-19 and no new deaths.

LOCAL / NATIONAL

Saturday, June 5, 2021 Incorrect Covid-19 vaccines given to 12 teens in Vancouver Coastal Health Twelve teenagers received a Covid-19 vaccine that is not yet approved for use in people under the age of 18, Vancouver Coastal Health acknowledged Tuesday (May 31).

According to the heath authority, the teenagers were given the Moderna vaccine instead of Pfizer at clinics on Thursday and Friday. A Vancouver Coastal Health spokesperson said the error occurred because this was the first weekend that Moderna was offered in the health authority’s clinics after an “extended period” during which only Pfizer was available.

“With both a new age cohort and a different vaccine on site, errors were made on May 28-29, in which immunizers used the Moderna vaccine instead of the Pfizer product for adolescents.

Immunizers at the clinics recognized the error, disclosed it to the clients and their families, and apologized for the oversight,” the health authority said in a statement.

Moderna is currently authorized in Canada only for individuals ages 18 and up, although the manufacturer recently announced that clinical trials showed the vaccine was safe for teens ages 12-17.

Vancouver Coastal Health said a series of changes have been made to avoid another mixup: new questions have been added to the screening process, a new “visual cue” will be used by staff and separate stations have been set up for Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

U.S. SEC files securities fraud charges against South Asian man for ‘concealed promotion’ The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has charged New Jerseybased biotech company RenovaCare and its controlling shareholder, a Vancouver businessman, with securities fraud.

The SEC’s complaint, filed in Federal Court in the Southern District of New York, alleges that Harmel S. Rayat, 59, and RenovaCare intentionally concealed promotional activities designed to increase the company’s stock price and issued a news release that denied their participation in those activities.

In a statement posted on its website, RenovaCare says it intends to vigorously defend itself and its shareholders against the allegations. “The company strongly disagrees with statements in the complaint

and is disappointed with the action taken by the agency,” said RenovaCare in the unsigned statement. According to the SEC complaint, as of Jan. 1, 2021, Rayat, a Canadian living in Vancouver, owned 81.3 per cent of the shares of RenovaCare. Rayat is also the founder and president of Talia Jevan Properties Inc., which owns commercial properties in North America, including the Birks building in downtown Vancouver at 698 West Hastings.

Rayat, author of the 2015 book Winning With Commercial Real Estate, could not be reached for comment in Vancouver. There was no response Wednesday to messages by email and phone. In its complaint, the SEC alleges from at least July 2017 until January 2018, RenovaCare and Rayat defrauded

13

New Covid-19 cases in BC fall below 200 for 3rd consecutive day From page 1 Health region and six were in the Northern Health region. Hospitalization numbers also dropped to figures last seen in mid-February There were 224 people in hospital, down 22 from Wednesday, while the number of people critical or intensive care fell by eight to 62.

Sincethestartofthepandemic,B.C.hasreported 144,866 total cases, while 1,709 people have died.

British Columbia has now completed 97 per cent of surgeries that were cancelled

last year during the first wave of the pandemic, Health Minister Adrian Dix said.

Scheduled surgeries that were postponed this spring have also resumed at Royal Columbian, St. Paul’s and Burnaby General hospital, while the province remains on track to resume them at Abbotsford, Surrey Memorial, Lions Gate, UBC and Vancouver General hospitals by June 7.

An outbreak at Richmond Hospital means the province is now aiming to resume surgeries there by June 24, he said..

BC furniture retailers reeling from new tariff of almost 300% on sofa from China, Vietnam Jeet Jaswal was lucky to divert four incoming shipping containers full of sofas and recliners to the U.S. so he wouldn’t have to pay a new tariff of up to almost 300 per cent on these items from China and Vietnam.

Other furniture retailers who have been caught off guard by the steep and sudden new cost have had to abandon their orders because the payment due is too high to absorb, he said. “We haven’t seen this magnitude of tariffs ever,” said Jaswal, who has been running MJM Furniture in Coquitlam and Surrey for over three decades.

In December 2020, about a dozen Canadian furniture manufacturers reported that upholstery producers in China and Vietnam were selling into Canada at below-market prices and hurting sales for Canadian companies.

On May 5, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal agreed, and the Canadian Border

Services Agency imposed immediate tariffs.

It issued a list of specific exporters in China and Vietnam and the new tariff amount that will be charged when their goods land in Canada. They range from as low as 20 per cent to 226 per cent. For exporters not specifically named on the list, the tariff is 295.5 per cent for those in China and 101.5 per cent for those in Vietnam. The tariffs are subject to review by the trade tribunal in early September. In the meantime, retailers are outraged and perplexed by what it will mean for them, but also for the customers and designers who buy from them.

“When Trump imposed at 25-percent tariff (on a wide range of goods from China in 2019), there was a grace period of 30 days, so retailers could order less and cancel orders,” said Steen Skaaning, who owns INspiration Furniture in Vancouver.

14

LOCAL

Saturday, June 5, 2021

Bellingham businesses suffering as USA & Canada border remains closed Bellingham businesses say they can’t wait for the border to re-open with Canada to bring back those much-needed B.C. shoppers.

Don Goldberg, the Port of Bellingham and Whatcom County director of economic development, told Global News so many of the shops just across the border depend on that Canadian traffic.

“Businesses have suffered quite a bit,” he said.

“The county receives almost 12 per cent of its sales tax from Canadians coming down here to buy.”

Press release

Goldberg said the communities and businesses just across the border have been hit doubly hard, both by the border closure and COVID‘s effect on the economy.

“The cities that have been hurt the worst is Blaine and Sumas, with Blaine being number one,” he added.

B.C. Premier John Horgan says premiers have been working on a plan to restart travel between the United States and Canada.

Goldberg said they hear a lot of rumours as to when the border will reopen.

Action, not words, needed as overdose crisis worsens each month

As today’s updated illicit drug overdose report by the Coroners Service reveals, B.C. continues to shatter fatal overdose records month after month — yet the government appears slow to act to reverse this deadly trend.

“On May 14, 2021, the Official Opposition wrote to the Premier asking him to activate the Select Standing Committee on Health to work on immediate actions to prevent further tragedy. The Premier didn’t even respond to the letter, refusing to engage in this non-partisan effort,” said Trevor Halford, BC Liberal Critic for Mental Health and Addictions. “Instead, he continues to reuse the same talking points month after month while more families lose loved ones. We don’t need more words — we need more action.”

Halford notes it is also critical to ensure

culturally appropriate services are in place and properly funded, as First Nations people continue to be disproportionally represented in overdose numbers. While First Nations people account for 3.3. per cent of B.C.’s population, they represented 14.7 per cent of all toxic drug deaths in 2020, up from 11.8 per cent in 2019.

“It’s clear urgent action needs to be taken in our province to help save lives.

More than just supplementing programs, this NDP government needs to ensure B.C. has a comprehensive mental health and addictions system,” said Halford. “British Columbians struggling with addiction need access to affordable treatment options, which are sorely lacking.”

In April 2021, B.C. recorded 176 suspected illicit drug toxicity deaths, the largest number ever recorded in the month of April and an average of 5.9 deaths per day.

BC’s daily Covid-19 cases under 200 for first time in seven months BC hasn’t seen a daily case count this low since the fall. The province recorded 184 new Covid-19 infections on Tuesday, the lowest figure since October. The number of people hospitalized with Covid-19 has risen from 249 to 254. Eighty of those patients are in the ICU, up from 78 on Monday. There were no Covid-19 related deaths in the past 24 hours. Of the new cases, 61 per cent are in the Fraser Health region and 26 are in the Vancouver Coastal Health region.

When it comes to vaccines, 53,173 doses were administered in the past day, for a total of 3,303,334. Of the total, 191,222 are second doses.

On Tuesday, Canada’s vaccine panel updated its guidance on mixing different kinds of Covid-19 vaccines. The National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) gave the go-ahead for people to take different vaccines for their first

and second doses.

NACI’s updated guidance says a second shot of an mRNA vaccine, Moderna or Pfizer, can be the followup to a first dose of AstraZeneca.

However, it says that if you had an mRNA shot as your first dose, you should be given an mRNA as your second shot.

Last week, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said people who received their Covid-19 vaccine through the age-based program, which offers Moderna or Pfizer, may get a different brand of mRNA vaccine for their second dose. “It is safe and it does work if you had a Moderna vaccine first that you can receive a Pfizer vaccine for your second dose.

This is the approach that we will be taking as much as possible,” Henry said Thursday.

Provinces consider Covid-19 vaccine incentives to reach those not getting shots Canada’s two most populous provinces continued to see a steady decline of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations as some leaders mulled vaccine incentives to connect with hard-to-reach populations. “Some people are scared — with no reason — about the vaccine, so we have to explain to

them why they need to be vaccinated,” Quebec Premier François Legault said Thursday. About 70 per cent of Quebecers over the age of 12 have received at least one dose. But there are lagging vaccination rates in two of the cities most affected by the pandemic — Montreal and its northern suburb Laval.

LOCAL / NATIONAL

Saturday, June 5, 2021 Canadian economy hits rough patch on road to recovery from Covid-19 pandemic The Canadian economy hit a rough patch in the third wave of the pandemic despite a recent surge of residential investment, which is pacing the recovery. Real gross domestic product fell 0.8 per cent in April, the first decline since April of 2020, Statistics Canada said Tuesday in a preliminary estimate. Many provinces were forced to enact tighter restrictions that month to slow a variantdriven spread of the coronavirus.

The second wave was less disruptive, with real GDP climbing at a 5.6-per-cent annualized rate in the first quarter. Absent the April estimate, economic activity is now within 2 per cent of its prepandemic peak and on pace for a quicker recovery than is typical for a Canadian recession. Despite recent stumbles, the consensus on Bay Street is that the economic recovery will accelerate this summer as the virus

is brought under control and restrictions are eased, allowing consumers to spend some of the billions they’ve accumulated over the past 15 months.

“The bigger picture is that the Canadian economy has shown a clear ability to rebound rapidly when it even partially reopens, and we would expect a similar quick comeback in [the] coming months,” Bank of Montreal chief economist Doug Porter said in a note to clients.

Once again, real estate has taken an outsized role in the situation. Housing investment jumped 9.4 per cent in the first quarter – an annualized rate of 43 per cent. New construction and renovations were big contributors, and Canadians took on $30-billion in additional mortgage debt as they drove up resale activity in markets from coast to coast.

High security lab’s ties to Chinese military researchers should compel Liberals to provide documents: opposition Parliamentarians on Tuesday argued that collaborations between a Canadian infectious disease lab and Chinese military researchers raises critical questions of national security and said Ottawa should be compelled to provide more details about the facility’s operations.

Over hours of debate in the House of Commons, Conservative, NDP and Bloc Québécois members repeatedly called on the Liberal government to provide details as to why two scientists were fired from Winnipeg’s highsecurity National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) earlier this year, amid an RCMP investigation into the matter.The same facility has in recent years conducted experiments and co-authored studies on infectious diseases alongside Chinese military researchers, including one researcher from the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Academy of Military Medical Sciences. Foreign affairs experts and some

former national security officials have warned that China regularly uses foreign collaborations to further military research, including so-called “gain-of-function” research that involves making diseases more contagious or more deadly.

“How could scientists with deep connections to the Chinese military be able to gain access to a high-level Canadian security-cleared laboratory with the world’s most dangerous viruses?” Conservative MP John Williamson asked during debate.

Members were debating a motion tabled by Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong that requested hundreds of pages of unredacted documents from the federal public health agency, after an earlier round of documents provided to a Parliamentary committee were heavily blacked out. Members debated the motion Tuesday, and a vote is now expected on Wednesday.

15

Finance minister blasts Air Canada for paying $10M executive bonuses while receiving bailout from govt Air Canada is heading for political turbulence as Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland signalled her displeasure over millions in bonuses to the airline’s executives as the company negotiated a federal bailout.

The airline on Monday disclosed in its annual proxy circular to shareholders that it gave $10 million in bonuses to people the investor document called instrumental to the airline’s survival over the past year, as air travel plunged during the pandemic.

In a lengthy comment Wednesday, Freeland said she was disappointed in how some businesses seem not to be behaving as responsible corporate citizens while receiving taxpayerfunded federal aid to survive the pandemic.

As for the bonuses themselves, she called them inappropriate.

In April, the airline and government agreed to a $5.9 billion loan package that includes money to help refund passenger tickets, but

also capped executive compensation at $1 million until 12 months after the loan is fully repaid. The government also paid $500 million for a six per cent stake in the country’s biggest airline, which Freeland says was done to ensure taxpayers could benefit once Air Canada’s revenue rose as regular travel resumed.

It also makes the government one of the key shareholders in the airline.

“That gives us a voice in decisions taken by the company, and we will not shy away from using that voice to express our very reasonable view of what constitutes responsible corporate behaviour,” Freeland said.

“Canadian companies receiving money from the government have a duty to behave responsibly when it comes to regular Canadians who are now their shareholders as well as their customers.”

BC counsellors won’t get their own regulatory college, minister says BC has associations that require a master’s degree or more to register clinical counsellors, but there is no requirement to join them and anyone who wants to offer counselling services in the province can do so.

B.C. Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau is pushing for creation of a college of counsellors, similar to self-regulating organizations that uphold standards for doctors, dentists, nurses and other health professionals. Furstenau pressed Health Minister Adrian Dix for a second day Thursday to expedite the change, citing increased demand for counselling services in the Covid-19 pandemic. She said the regulation would “open the

door” for counsellors to qualify for their services to be paid for by B.C.’s Medical Services Plan.

Dix said the B.C. government is continuing the biggest-ever overhaul of self-regulating professional bodies begun in 2019, consolidating 20 colleges into six and making changes to ensure they focus on protecting patients rather than their own members.

Bringing counsellors under that kind of regulation is not a matter of “ministerial fiat,” Dix told the B.C. legislature June 3.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Dix said adding another college at a time of major consolidation is not the direction of the reform,

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Saturday, June 5, 2021

17

Saturday, June 5, 2021

Covid-19 is frightening, the bigger worry is Indians’ lost hope

T

he Narendra Modi government has just completed two years of its second term. It seems that the past seven years are on one side and the past seven weeks on the other. It is said that in politics, even a week is a long time. What’s unique about these seven weeks is that the approval rating of the central government, which had shattered all popularity records in the C-Voter tracker for the past seven years, has completely collapsed in a matter of days. This week, the number of people dissatisfied with the Modi government has gone way past the number of people satisfied with it.

It’s not that no good has happened in the past two years. The majority of people in our survey hold the abolition of Article 370 as the biggest achievement of Modi 2.0. The Supreme Court’s Ayodhya verdict “healed the historical wound” of a large number of these same people. On the issue of triple talaq, Indians, including from the Muslim community, have supported the government in large numbers. Although the discontent over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act or CAA did flare up among India’s minorities, by and large, the majority remained in its favour. But now, in the case of farmers’ protest, the Centre’s role is being perceived as “anti-farmer” by the same majority. Six years ago, on the Land Acquisition Act as well, 70 per cent of those surveyed had termed the Modi government’s action as “antifarmer”. Even today, the masses are of the view that the Centre should engage in a conversation with the farmers and find an amicable solution.

On the issue of Chinese aggression in Ladakh, the same majority appears sceptical but it

continues to stand with the Modi government.

And just look out for the immense patience of this country’s mandate, which doesn’t consider dispatching Covid-19 vaccines and medicines to other countries wrong, nor does it feel that the

construction work for the new Parliament building needs to be halted. But the issue where this rather forgiving set of majority loses its patience is the ‘mode of constant campaigning’. It also loses its cool over the ‘Congressionalisation’ of the

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s politics. This politics of contesting and winning elections at any cost and considering electoral victory as the primary objective is seen as a huge betrayal of people’s trust. Losing public trust, one damage at a time

Nearly 600 doctors died of Covid-19 in India Nearly 600 doctors across India have died of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) during the second wave of the pandemic, according to data compiled by the Indian Medical Association (IMA). Over a sixth of the total 594 deaths so far have happened in Delhi, which experienced one of the worst surges of the viral infection with as many as 28,000 cases being reported in a day at the peak of the second wave. The toll has increased by 174 in two weeks to a total of 594 till Tuesday. This, despite 89% of the healthcare workers receiving at least one shot of the vaccine against Covid-19 so far. In the last wave of the pandemic, 753 doctors had lost their lives, according to the registry maintained by IMA. The highest number of deaths among doctors has been reported in Delhi-NCR, where 107 doctors have succumbed to the infection. The toll includes the deaths of eminent cardiologist Dr KK Agarwal and the senior gastroenterologist who died due to lack of oxygen at Batra Hospital-- Dr RK Himthani.

Delhi is followed by Bihar where 96 doctors have died and Uttar Pradesh where 67 doctors have died. Only 17 doctors have died in Maharashtra, which has been consistently reporting a high number of cases, according to the IMA data.

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Saturday, June 5, 2021

Education minister admitted to AIIMS hospital due to post-Covid-19 complications

Supreme Court asks govt for Covid-19 vaccine roadmap Underlining that “our Constitution does not envisage courts to be silent spectators when constitutional rights of citizens are infringed

by Executive policies”, the Supreme Court said Tuesday that the Centre’s policy of arranging free Covid-19 vaccine jabs for the 45-plus age category, Health Care Workers (HCW) and Front Line Workers (FLW) while asking the 18-44 age group to pay for the vaccination by state and Union territory governments and private hospitals was “prima facie arbitrary and irrational”.

Directing the Centre to “undertake a fresh review of its vaccination policy addressing the concerns raised”, the bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud, L Nageswara Rao and S Ravindra Bhat — the order in the suo motu matter of Covid-19 management heard May 31 was uploaded Tuesday — sought detailed information in the form of an affidavit in two weeks.

This is what the bench told the Centre and asked it to clarify: * The concerns of the amici (friends of the court) regarding the vaccine procurement process, the unwillingness of foreign vaccine manufacturers to negotiate with states and UTs and their preference to deal with the federal

government, and whether the government can use its monopoly as a buyer to bargain for higher quantities of vaccines at reasonable prices. * Whether it will intervene in the vaccination distribution process, whether the pro rata allotment will take into account the question of inter-state migration, healthcare infrastructure and existing capacities of a state/UT, the literacy rate, age and overall health condition of its population, so that state/UT governments have a realistic assessment of the assistance they can expect from the Union of India.

Supreme Court on covid vaccination, Covid-19, Covid-19 India Second Wave, SC on vaccination, Supreme Court on Covid vaccines, 18-44 vaccination drive, Covid news, Indian Express In its affidavit earlier, the Centre had urged the court to trust the wisdom of the executive and leave policy decisions to it. (Express photo by Amit Mehra) * Provide data on the percentage of rural and urban population vaccinated with one or both doses, as against eligible persons in the first three phases of the vaccination drive; and data regarding the purchase history of Covaxin, Covishield and Sputnik V vaccines till date.

Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal has been admitted to AIIMS following postCovid-19 complications. According to AIIMS officials, Pokhriyal was brought to the hospital at 11:30 am on Tuesday morning. The union minister had tested positive for Covid-19 on April 21. “This is to inform you all that I

have tested Covid-19 positive. I am taking medication and treatment as per the advice of my doctors. Request all those who have come in my contact recently to be observant, and get themselves tested,” Pokhriyal had tweeted.

He had resumed work after recovery and held many meetings via video conferencing.

Action demanded against BJP MP, MLA for charging vaccine commission The Congress Saturday asked for a police case to be registered against Lok Sabha member Tejasvi Surya and his uncle, BJP MLA Ravi Subramanya, for allegedly “seeking commission” for “arranging Covid-19 vaccines” at a private hospital in Karnataka, after a couple of audio clips went viral. Congress also demanded a suomotu FIR against the BJP MLA for “taking commission” for vaccines. In one such audio, a social worker named Venkatesh is heard questioning why each dose of vaccine was priced at Rs 900 when a voice from the other side, purported to be of a staff member of a private hospital located in south Bengaluru,

says that the hospital had to pay Rs 700 to (Basavanagudi) MLA Ravi Subramanya who “arranged the vaccines” for them. Surya has been promoting the vaccination drive at a private hospital, situated in Kumaraswamy Layout. However, MLA Subramanya denied allegations that surfaced against him terming them “baseless” and as “part of a political conspiracy” against him. “Certain miscreants have used my name in an allegation about COVID Vaccine charges through an audio recording…It is a shame that these miscreants have indulged in such transgression, when the world is working towards a common good to help each other during the pandemic.

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INDIA

Saturday, June 5, 2021

Karnataka state BJP MLA accused of running vaccination camp by diverting Govt stock In yet another controversy involving the ruling BJP and Covid-19 management in Bengaluru, vaccination drive for May 31 at Bhuvaneshwari Nagar Public Health Centre (PHC) was cancelled allegedly at the behest of local (CV Raman Nagar) MLA S Raghu. This even though around 300 persons were given tokens early in the morning as has been the norm for weeks for walk-in registrations at the facility. Instead, local residents claim the vaccination drive was held at the Om Shakti Kalyana Mantapa run by the MLA with a banner claiming a free vaccination drive was being done by the MLA. However, only his party cadres and their friends and families got the jab, alleged local residents.

Despite repeated attempts, the MLA Raghu, Dr Purushotham or any relevant BBMP officials

could not be reached for a comment. It was only on Saturday that MLA Ravi Subramanya was embroiled in a similar controversy where he was alleged to have blocked vaccines.

Manju, a local resident, who went as early as 7am to gather tokens for his elderly (72 and 65) parents, said he was told to bring his parents no later than 9:45 am as per the token. “We reached there well ahead of the set time and even packed breakfast as my parents are diabetic. But when we went there we were told at 10:15 am that they will not vaccinate here but everyone should go to the Kalyana Mantapa. I don’t mind waiting in the queue for my parents but now they are telling me to go somewhere else. But still I obliged.”

Yoga guru Ramdev has irreparably damaged govt’’s efforts to contain Covid-19 pandemic: IMA Yoga guru Ramdev has “irreparably” damaged the government’’s efforts to contain the Covid-19 pandemic and people creating confusion during such a time are “anti-national”, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) said on Tuesday.

The doctors’ body in an open letter to citizens, also alleged that Ramdev thought it fit to launch his tirade against national Covid treatment protocols and the vaccination programme to look for an opportunity to “market” his products.

Ramdev has “irreparably damaged the Indian government’’s efforts to contain the pandemic”, the IMA said.

“People creating confusion during an epidemic regarding national treatment protocols and the national vaccination programme are traitors and anti-nationals. They are anti-people and anti-humanity. They deserve no mercy,” it said.

The IMA has extended support to the black ribbon protest called by the Federation of Resident Doctors Associations (FORDA), and other medical and resident doctors’ associations of the country against Ramdev.

The IMA said modern medicine is in the frontlineofthefightagainstthepandemicand1,300 doctors have sacrificed their lives for the nation.

Starting from medical students and resident doctors to critical care and emergency care physicians, every single doctor has been deployed in the defence of the people, it said in the letter.

“Creating confusion in the minds of the people against the national Covid-19 protocols and national vaccination programme is an anti-national act of heinous proportions. The IMA has demanded to deem it as sedition and prosecute him (Ramdev) under the Disaster

Why Bengal Chief Minister fought with Centre for Alapan Bandyopadhyay?

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee seems to have won the battle with the Narendra Modi government of the Centre over senior bureaucrat Alapan Bandyopadhyay. Mamata Banerjee did not release Alapan Bandyopadhyay, who requested retirement from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), and created a new position for his continuation in the West Bengal government. All of this happened against the direction of the Narendra Modi government.

However, the last sentence on the Mamata versus Modi over Alapan Bandyopadhyay is yet to be written. The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) — which governs central government officers including those belonging to the IAS — has issued a show-cause

notice to Alapan Bandyopadhyay. The DoPT functions under the Ministry of Personnel and Public Grievances, a portfolio under the charge of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

On May 24, the Mamata Banerjee government sought an extension of three months for Alapan Bandyopadhyay, then chief secretary of West Bengal, in view of the prevailing Covid-19 situation. The Centre agreed. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC), which includes Union Home Minister Amit Shah, granted the extension.

Four days later, PM Modi was in West Bengal to survey the damage caused by Cyclone Yaas.

PM Modi was to hold a review meeting over Cyclone Yaas. Mamata Banerjee was supposed to attend along with Alapan Bandyopadhyay.

Rahul lashes out at Modi’s unemployment & GDP record Congress leader Rahul Gandhi attacked PM Modi over the adverse GDP and unemployment figures and raised the issue of “shortage” of drugs for treating black fungus. “PM’s hall of shame - Minimum GDP, Maximum Unemployment,” he said on Twitter and shared a graph showing a rise in unemployment among the youth since 2014.

His remarks came a day after data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) showed that India’s economy contracted by 7.3 percent in the fiscal year ended March 2021 after the growth rate picked up in the fourth quarter, just before the world’s worst outbreak of coronavirus infections hit the country. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Asia’s third-largest economy grew by 1.6 percent in the January-March period, up from 0.5 percent in the previous quarter when

India began pulling out of a steep pandemicinduced recession in the earlier six months.

Gandhi also posed questions to the central government on mucormycosis or “black fungus epidemic”. “What is being done about the shortage of drug Amphotericin B? What is the procedure for helping the patient get this medicine,” he said on Twitter.

“Instead of providing treatment, why is the Modi government embroiling the public in formalities,” he also asked, but did not elaborate. After thousands of cases of black fungus were reported among Covid-19 patients in the country, the Centre on May 20 urged all states and union territories to declare it as a notifiable disease under the Epidemic Diseases Act to ensure mandatory surveillance to tackle the “new challenge”.

Modi slammed for Covid-19 handling amid spiralling crisis India’s hospitals packed with Coronavirus patients, relatives of the sick scrambled to find supplies of oxygen, and nearly full crematoriums worked feverishly to deal with the dead.

Yet, despite those clear signs of an overwhelming health crisis, Prime Minister Narendra Modi pressed ahead with a densely packed campaign rally. “I have never seen such a huge crowd before!” he roared to his supporters in West Bengal state on April 17, before key local elections. “Wherever I can see, I can only see people. I can see nothing else.”

As another deadly wave of Covid-19 infections was swamping India, Modi’s government refused to cancel a major Hindu festival attended by millions. Cricket matches, attended by tens of thousands, carried on, too.

‘Super-spreader’ Modi - The catastrophic surge has led to criticism at home.

The 70-year-old, whose image as a technocrat brought him deep approval from a middle class weary of corruption and bureaucratic

dysfunction, has been accused of stifling dissent and choosing politics over public health.

Al Jazeera’s Elizabeth Puranam, reporting from New Delhi, said the government is facing a lot of criticism from courts around the country.

“The Delhi High Court told the government that it is living in an ivory tower while people die from a lack of oxygen,” she said.

Modi was also called a “super-spreader” by the vice president of the Indian Medical Association, Dr Navjot Dahiya.

With deaths mounting and a touted vaccine rollout faltering badly, Modi has pushed much of the responsibility for fighting the virus onto poorly equipped and unprepared state governments and even onto patients themselves, critics say.

“It is a crime against humanity,” author and activist Arundhati Roy said of Modi’s handling of the virus.

“Foreign governments are rushing to help.

But as long as decision-making remains with Modi, who has shown himself to

BJP worried as opposition CMs rally, Modi’s image takes a hit From Pinarayi Vijayan’s unity call to 11 chief ministers of opposition-ruled states, Mamata Banerjee’s ‘Jo darte hain, wo marte hain’ defiance to Uddhav Thackeray and Hemant Soren’s constant run-ins with the Centre, opposition chief ministers have been rallying against the Modi government, with the BJP now admitting that the constant attacks have the party worried.

Senior BJP analysts told ThePrint that they are facing their biggest test in the seven years of the Modi government, more so because the Prime Minister finally

appears to be losing some of his popularity.

At least two recent surveys have concluded that the Prime Minister’s image has taken a substantial hit, with one by an American firm claiming that the government’s handling of the devastating second Covid-19 wave has resulted in Modi’s lowest-ever approval ratings of 64 per cent from a peak of 84 per cent.

BJP leaders admit that with the Centre struggling with vaccine supply, the failing economy and the devastating second Covid-19 wave, the opposition has enough

21

Saturday, June 5, 2021

FIJI

Punjab Cabinet approves creation of Malerkotla as 23rd district The Punjab Cabinet on Wednesday gave formal approval to the creation of Malerkotla as the state’s 23rd district.

Chief Minister Amarinder Singh had announced the creation of a new district of Malerkotla, carving the state’s Muslimmajority town from Sangrur district.

The cabinet meeting, chaired by Singh, was held here on Wednesday.

The cabinet also gave its go-ahead for upgrading Amargarh, which was part of the Malerkotla subdivision, as sub-division or tehsil.

Malerkotla district would now consist of three sub-divisions—Malerkotla, Ahmedgarh and Amargarh, according to an official statement.

A total of 192 villages will be included in Malerkotla district.

The cabinet authorised the chief minister to approve the creation of new posts for offices of 12 departments which include police, rural development, panchayats, social justice, minorities, agriculture , farmers welfare, social security, women and child development, health & education.

99 deaths and 2,281 new Covid-19 cases in Punjab Punjab on Wednesday reported 2,281 fresh cases of the novel coronavirus, raising the tally to 5,71,970, according to a medical bulletin.

With 99 more fatalities, the toll from Covid-19 climbed to 14,748 in the state, the bulletin said.

In the last 24 hours, nine new deaths were reported from Fazilka, eight each from Patiala and Mohali and seven each from Amritsar, Ferozepur, Sangrur and Moga.

The number of active cases dropped

to

31,133 from 33,444 on Tuesday.

Ludhiana reported 285 new cases, followed by 224 in Jalandhar, 180 in Bathinda and 153 in Mohali.

The state’s Covid positivity rate marginally dropped to 3.33 from 3.69 per cent the day before.

With 4,426 recoveries from the infection, the recovery count reached 5,26,089, according to the bulletin.

Punjab Congress former chiefs meet to discuss dissent in ranks The Congress panel on Punjab met former Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) presidents today. Many of them complained of a weak party organisation in the state, besides lack of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh’s accessibility. Among the ex-PPCC presidents who met the panel led by AICC veteran Mallikarjun Kharge were Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, Mohinder Singh Kaypee, Hanspal, Shamsher Singh

Dullo and Partap Singh Bajwa, the latter two also sitting Rajya Sabha members.

CM Amarinder Singh is likely to reach Delhi tomorrow with the meeting expected to be scheduled on his arrival, either tomorrow or on Friday. The MLAs who were engaged by the panel today included Balbir Sidhu, Raminder Awla, Indu Bala, BS Pahra, Surjeet Dhiman, Nathu Ram, Kuljit Nagra, Kushaldeep Singh Dhillon, Gurpreet GP,

Pakistan Record reduction in Covid-19 cases in Pakistan In the last 24 hours, 161 new virus-related deaths were reported, taking the Covid-19 death toll to 18,310. Pakistan has been trying to contain the virus by increasing vaccination efforts and enforcing safety

regulations. Special Assistant to the PM on Health, Dr Faisal Sultan said that more than 70 per cent of the population would be vaccinated by the end of this year.

Girl feared dead in Italy after refusing arranged marriage with cousin Police in Italy are searching for the body of an 18-year-old girl of Pakistan origin suspected to have been killed by her Pakistani family after refusing an arranged marriage.

The girl’s parents, an uncle and two cousins are under investigation for murder, lieutenant colonel Stefano Bove of the Carabinieri police said on Saturday.

All “are supposed to have taken part in the crime”, he told reporters, while officers were combing through farmland

to find the missing girl, Saman Abbas.

Bove said Carabinieri were inspecting “wells, irrigation canals and greenhouses”. Saman Abbas, who lived in the northern town of Novellara, last year rebelled against her family’s plan to have her wedded to a cousin in their home country.

While still a minor, she turned to social services and in November was moved into a shelter home. She also reported her parents to police, but on April 11 returned to them.

Intelligence services accused of torture, crackdown on dissent Walking to the barber’s one evening, Shafiq Ahmed began to suspect he was being followed.

The 37-year-old lawyer and social media activist in Pakistan worried he was about to be abducted.

A few seconds later, a group of men grabbed him and forced him into the backseat of a waiting car.

The kidnapping in December 2019, in the eastern city of Okara, was captured on CCTV. Mr Ahmed can be seen desperately trying to fight back, while his attackers appear to threaten bystanders against intervening.

After Mr Ahmed was bundled in the car, no-one would hear from him for weeks.

He believes that the men who abducted him worked for Pakistan’s intelligence services.

Mr Ahmed was a forthright critic of the government led by Prime Minister Imran

Khan, as well as of the country’s powerful military, which many allege plays a controlling role in politics from behind the scenes.

Mr Ahmed’s disappearance and torture appear to be part of a wider crackdown in the country on dissenting voices, designed to suppress allegations that Pakistan’s military is interfering in the political system and helped manipulate the 2018 elections in Mr Khan’s favour allegations the military and Mr Khan deny.

Speaking from the hospital room where he was recovering, Mr Ahmed told the BBC what happened after he disappeared from the frame on the CCTV footage.

“They put handcuffs on and blindfolded me,” he said. He was then taken to an unknown location.

‘No need’ for Covid-19 state of emergency - Prime Minister The country has now confirmed more than 300 active cases, including 35 new cases reported last night.

Of the 35 latest cases, 14 of them linked to the country’s main hospital in Suva.

The opposition and civil society groups have called for the government to consider declaring a state of emergency.

But Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama told Parliament today it wasn’t necessary: “There is no need to declare a state of emergency”.

He said it is within the scope of the Ministry of Health to decide whether it was necessary to take that option, and it had not expressed the need.

Bainimarama said health officials are working with district representatives in all the provinces, to ensure Covid-19 health restrictions are followed.

He said 44 isolation communities had been set up within the four divisions across the country.

Authorities blame kava-drinking for acceleration of Covid-19 outbreak in Fiji Health officials in Fiji are concerned that kava-drinking is contributing to a surge in COVID-19 cases in the Pacific country. Fiji recorded more than 100 cases this week in a rapidly growing second wave that began in April and is linked to the more infectious Delta strain, a variant first detected in India.

The main hospital in the tourism town of Nadi has been shut down and two wings in the country’s major hospital

in the capital, Suva, have also been closed after cases were detected there.

Officials believe sick people have been sharing kava bowls, with Health Secretary James Fong saying that, along with funeral gatherings, kava or “grog” has become a significant factor behind the surge. “Grog drinking involves close contact with others drinking out of a common cup, which creates perfect conditions for the virus to spread from one person to another.”

28 new Covid-19 cases Permanent Secretary for Health, Doctor James Fong has confirmed there are 28 new cases as of 6pm tonight and 5 of these cases are under investigation. 23 of the new cases are linked to the existing clusters. Doctor Fong says 2 new cases are from the Nawaka, Nadi cluster, 1 from the CWM Hospital cluster, 4 from the FICAC cluster and 16 from the Navy cluster. Doctor Fong says 3 are close contacts of a case under investigation from Caubati announced yesterday, 1 is under investigation with no known links to other cases at this stage, and 1 case from Navosai, Narere was

tested after presenting to Valelevu Health Centre with symptoms. The investigation is ongoing into any links between the Narere case and other cases. The Permanent Secretary for Health says current investigations into the situation at CWM Hospital indicate that so far the transmission was limited to specific areas of the hospital and this has allowed them to maintain services such as maternity and paediatrics, where the testing revealed no positive cases.

He says corridors to the affected areas have been closed.

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