London — A team of Italian scientists has claimed to have developed a couple of vaccines that they claim neutralises the novel coronavirus in human cells.

London — American Nepali guy Arthur Gunn is now a member of the “American Idol” Top 11.

On Sunday night’s show, which again featured singers performing from their homes across the country amid the coronavirus pandemic, “Idol” cut its list of Top 20 performers to 11. The Top 10 finalists were determined by audience votes collected after the Top 20 each performed from home last week. The judges chose to save one additional singer, kansas.com writes.

https://youtu.be/9Gz83cHPqgE

The list will be cut from 11 to 7 next week, and people can vote for their favorites to advance until 8 a.m. Central Time on Monday. To vote for Gunn, people can text 16 to 21523, vote online at americanidol.com or vote via the “American Idol” app.

On Sunday night, after he was announced as a member of the Top 11, Gunn performed a rendition of John Denver’s “Country Roads, Take Me Home” but added a reggae twist.

Wearing a red beanie and strumming his guitar, Gunn performed from the back deck of his Wichita home, but this time, viewers saw a different angle. There’s a large highway visible behind his home. Possibly K-96?

Gunn, whose birth name is Dibesh Pokharel, is a Nepal native who moved with his parents to Wichita so his sisters could attend school. He performed in coffee shops in Wichita before taking his shot on “American Idol.”

The package before Gunn’s performance included footage of him making traditional food from Nepal with his parents and sisters in their home, where he says they are all in quarantine together.

He explained in the clip why he chose the song he did.

“The words of that song remind me of the place I grew up,” he said.

Celebrity judges Katy Perry, Luke Bryan and Lionel Richie seemed pleased with his performance, and Perry praised him for keeping his eyes open throughout the song.

“I felt so much more connected to that performance with you connecting with me, looking at the camera and working it,” she said.

The next episode will air at 7 p.m. next Sunday, May 10, and feature the finalists singing Disney songs. The winner will be named on May 17.

London— The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has said increased controls during the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the existing inequalities and poor working conditions that exist for journalists in South Asia.

In its 18^th edition of the South Asia Press Freedom Report, the IFJ said that during 2019-20, in India and Bangladesh, journalists came under fire while covering civil disturbances and protests. In Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, the fight for safe access to information continued amid tumultuous elections. In Nepal and Pakistan, the battle against a heavy legislative hand was waged. While in Bhutan and the Maldives, the challenge for survival of a small but critical media was never so great.

Plummeting media revenues saw the mass shedding of more than 3,000 journalist jobs in Pakistan too, while harsh online controls saw Kashmir take the mantle for the world’s longest communication shutdown in a democracy, the report said.

In the period under review, the IFJ and its affiliates documented 219 violations against the media. This includes 52 jailings or detentions, 90 threats to the lives of journalists, 65 non-fatal attacks, 35 threats against media institutions, 8 gender-based attacks and 82 threats or attacks on rural, regional or minority journalists.

However, as the report shows, amid Covid-19, cuts and controls, South Asia’s media and the unions and networks that defend it continue persevering, standing together in solidarity to disrupt authoritarian narratives.

“The media had the task of reporting the growing humanitarian crisis, working in difficult circumstances and amidst unprecedented physical curbs due to lockdowns and restrictions, particularly in containment zones. The Covid-19 crisis has exacerbated existing fault lines in the precarious freedoms that the South Asian media has fought for and the most vulnerable are now taking the first beating,”the IFJ said.

The full report can be accessed here:

https://ifj.org/fileadmin/user_upload/States_of_Control_IFJ_SAPFR_2019-20.pdf

London — Geneva (Kanaga Raja/Third World Network) – Nearly 400 civil society organizations (CSOs) and individuals have called for the operationalization of fair and equitable benefit sharing arising from the sharing of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) digital sequence information and samples as recognized by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and its Nagoya Protocol.

In a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the groups said they recognize that sharing SARS-CoV-2 samples as well as sequence information continues to be pivotal for the development of diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines.

But a collective global public health response requires fair and equitable benefit sharing on an equal footing, they emphasized.

The letter to both the UN Secretary-General and the WHO Director-General was endorsed by 40 global and regional civil society organizations and networks, 228 national organizations and networks as well as 124 individuals from 77 countries.

Among the global and regional civil society organizations that signed on to the letter are ActionAid International; FIAN International; Global Policy Forum; Health Global Access Project (Health GAP); Indigenous Peoples Global Forum for Sustainable Development; Least Developed Countries (LDC) Watch; Peoples Health Movement; Society for International Development; Social Watch; Third World Network; Friends of the Earth Europe; Focus on the Global South; Institute for Social and Economic Analysis-INESC (Brazil); IT for Change (India); Fairwatch (Italy); Consumers Association of Penang (Malaysia); and Public Eye (Switzerland).

In their letter, the groups underlined that the CBD and its Nagoya Protocol are binding international instruments based on the principles of fairness and equity, linking access to biological resources with fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of such resources.

These principles are endorsed by WHO Member States as they form the basis of WHO’s Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework (PIP Framework), a multilateral instrument which recognizes the importance of sharing influenza viruses of pandemic potential on an “equal footing” with benefit sharing, considering both “as equally important parts of the collective action for global public health”, they said.

“We are heartened by the sharing of COVID-19 samples with reference laboratories for rapid confirmation and analysis as well as the sharing of digital sequence information.”

The first genetic sequence data for 2019-nCoV from China was freely and rapidly shared with the Global Initiative of Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID).

Since then, samples and digital sequence information continue to be shared by developing countries.

Mounting evidence that, like influenza, the CoV-2 virus is mutating as it spreads around the world implies an ongoing need for epidemiological surveillance to collect and sequence CoV-2 strains from around the world to ensure that any new treatments will remain effective, said the CSOs.

They noted that the WHO’s R&D Blueprint titled “A Coordinated Global Research Roadmap: 2019 Novel Coronavirus” agrees that “virus materials, clinical samples and associated data should be rapidly shared for immediate public health purposes and that fair and equitable access to any medical products or innovations that are developed using the materials must be part of such sharing”.

The Blueprint also recognizes that “Access to the benefits of research is critical” and that the “scale up manufacturing of products (speed, access, cost)” is an important component of a successful implementation of the Roadmap.

It further calls on research funding grants to “include clauses that promote timely sharing of research data relevant to the outbreak response”.

Despite these good intentions, it remains unclear whether and how these elements are being operationalized, with fair and equitable benefit sharing realized, said the letter to the UN Secretary-General and the WHO Director-General.

“We are very distressed over the scramble for medical supplies to curb the COVID-19 outbreak, with developed countries, especially the United States and European countries leveraging their influence and spending, at the expense of the needs of developing and least developed countries around the world,” said the CSOs.

“We are extremely concerned by the lack of guarantee from bio-pharmaceutical, and diagnostic companies to ensure rapid availability and affordability of medical products (especially diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines as they are developed and rolled out) to all in need in developing and least developed countries, and to ensure dissemination of manufacturing technologies to rapidly scale-up diagnosis and treatment,” they added.

The UN General Assembly Resolution A/74/L.52 calls on the UN system “under the leadership of the Secretary- General, to work with all relevant actors in order to mobilize a coordinated global response to the pandemic and its adverse social, economic and financial impact on all societies”, they noted.

The UN Resolution A/74 L.56 on “International cooperation to ensure global access to medicines, vaccines and medical equipment to face COVID-19” requests “the Secretary-General, in close collaboration with the World Health Organization, to take the necessary steps to effectively coordinate and follow up on the efforts of the United Nations system to promote and ensure global access to medicines, vaccines and medical equipment needed to face COVID-19.”

The spread of COVID-19 has already disproportionately impacted high risk populations including the elderly, the poor, the malnourished, those with pre-existing medical conditions and migrant workers.

Women across the world are facing increased domestic violence and bearing a range of disproportionate socio-economic impacts.

Timely access to diagnostics, medical treatments and potential vaccines for these populations require special attention, especially in developing and least developed countries, said the CSOs.

“We urgently need the UN and WHO to take urgent steps to secure timely availability and affordability of medical products for developing and least developed countries.”

WHO’s PIP Framework sets a precedent for securing binding commitments from manufacturers in the context of a pandemic.

However, the extensive outbreak of COVID-19 will require far more ambitious guarantees from manufacturers, said the CSOs.

In this regard, the CSOs urgently called on the UN and the WHO to:

1. Secure binding commitments from bio-pharmaceutical companies and other manufacturers for the rapid supply of existing and future medical products, especially diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines to developing and least developed countries at an affordable price.

2. Organize open platforms for the widespread and unconditional sharing of technology and knowledge including technical specifications, designs, blueprints and any other know-how to scale-up local/regional manufacturing of medical products required for COVID-19 response including diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines; and towards that end to secure binding commitments from bio-pharmaceutical companies and other medical product manufacturers.

3. Proactively coordinate and direct COVID-19 R&D by setting up an open innovation platform for the rapid public sharing of all research outcomes, knowledge gaps and problem solving, and towards that end secure binding commitments from entities and individuals engaged in the R&D.

4. Ensure that intellectual property rights do not affect or hinder efforts to curb the COVID outbreak..

A copy of the letter was also sent to the President of the United Nations General Assembly, the President of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Acting Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

UN Women — As the COVID-19 crisis unfolds, the lives of women and girls everywhere are changing. While some spheres of work and personal life are on pause, others face increased strains and new challenges. Millions of women worldwide are part of the essential workforce on the front lines of COVID-19.

Globally, women make up the majority of workers in the health and social sector.

Nearly one in three women work in agriculture, and women do three times as much unpaid care work at home as men, Medium.com writes.

From farming to first-response services and everything in between, women are playing an outsized role in keeping their communities safe and resilient in the face of COVID-19.

On World Day for Safety and Health at Work, here are the stories of just five women on the front lines. Join UN Women in thanking them for their service.

Amal Al Mahayrah and Hadeel Dabaibeh are familiar with crisis response. As UN Women Field Assistants in Jordan, they provide urgent and life-saving services for vulnerable Jordanian women and Syrian refugees every day. However, the coronavirus pandemic has brought the front lines much closer to home: from the caravans and community centers to the mobile phones in their palms.

Seated at her desk, Amal calls Siham Alqatameen, a 54-year-old woman living in Ein Albaida, south of Jordan. Over the phone, Amals informs Siham of available counseling and psychosocial support and gives her reliable information on COVID-19 prevention and services.

Siham is one of more than 800 beneficiaries that UN Women field staff have proactively reached out to daily since the outbreak began, providing services and resources via mobile phones.

Digital technologies have been an essential tool for seamlessly maintaining services for vulnerable women and refugees in Jordan during the outbreak; A 24-hour hotline is also available for women experiencing gender-based violence, and UN Women is using its innovative blockchain cash-disbursement system to continue delivering funds to Syrian refugees. Each refugee’s account is linked to the blockchain, which is connected to an iris-scanning system in supermarkets run by the World Food Programme, so refugees can access the money without interruption and safely purchase food and essential supplies while in lockdown.

Stepping up for public service in rural China

Yan Shenglian stands proudly behind the checkpoint in her rural village of Xiaruoyao, in China’s northwestern Qinghai Province. As people come and go from the village, Yan checks their body temperature and records their vehicle information. Her duties are essential to reducing the spread of the new coronavirus, but the tasks are new to her; she’s one of many women without a medical background who have joined the fight against COVID-19 in China.

Yan is a pig farmer by trade, and it wasn’t long ago that she, like many women in her village, thought taking part in public affairs was a man’s job. After participating in a series of skills training sessions in 2019, her perspective changed.

As part of the UN Women-supported programme, Yan learned how to raise pigs organically, discovered how to sell her livestock on online platforms, and received leadership training.

“Although some men do not want to admit it, they are silently imitating and learning my methods,” she says. Her abilities are no longer questioned, she says, and her village has become more accepting of women’s leadership in community initiatives.

In both her roles as a farmer and as a community volunteer, Yan is contributing critical services and is stepping up to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Click here to learn more about rural women farmers joining the fight against COVID-19 in China.

Leading coronavirus testing efforts in Nepal

Dr. Runa Jha is Chief Pathologist and Director of the only laboratory authorized to conduct COVID-19 testing in Nepal. She and her team are testing roughly 70 samples a day, which arrive at irregular intervals and make for around-the-clock work.

“Staying late at the lab has become the norm. In addition to the technical work, I also have to manage logistics, such as arranging transportation and food for my team,” she says.

Taking care of her team is high priority for Jha; it all begin in mid-February when her group was the first to enter a quarantine facility housing 175 Nepali students brought home from Wuhan, China.

“My team did not hesitate to volunteer to take samples… all of them were ready. We worked the whole night and produced 175 reports the following day,” she shares.

Months into the pandemic, the intense work continues. Jha does her best to support the workers and boost morale. “It is a very difficult time for us, and I have to keep them motivated. I talk to them whenever I sense they are feeling down. I tell them their safety is our priority,” she says.

The demands of the job have been challenging for Jha too. She’s living alone, separated from her daughter and husband, because she fears risking their lives with infection. She can’t visit her parents either, who she used to see three times a week.

“I want to hug my daughter and take care of my parents, but this sacrifice needs to be made to keep them and others safe,” Jha says.

Click here to read more about Jha’s leadership on the frontlines of the COVID-19 response in Nepal.

Supporting survivors in Kazakhstan

Before quarantine, the helpline operated by the NeMolchi (Don’t Keep Silent) movement in Kazakhstan received calls mainly from survivors of sexual violence. Now, the phone rings 10 to 15 times a day, and almost all the calls are from women who were suffering from domestic violence.

Due to the containment measures in place to reduce the spread of the virus, women with violent partners increasingly find themselves isolated from the people and resources that can help.

“Women are not willing to report to the police because they are living in isolation, and sometimes in large families, with their husband’s parents and other relatives in one house,” says Dina Smailova, leader of the NeMolchi movement and well-known Kazakhstani activist.

In the past two year, NeMolchi has provided free legal support to 120 women, with 47 cases resulting in rape convictions, but the COVID-19 crisis poses new challenges that worry Dina. “During quarantine, the courts do not work, claims are not accepted, abusers are not isolated, and women have to continue living with their abusers,” she explains.

Despite the dire circumstances, Dina continues to push for justice and policies that better protect women; “The fact that domestic violence is not a criminal offence in Kazakhstan is hurting women during COVID-19 crisis. If, for example, violation of a protection order by the aggressor immediately becomes a criminal offence with a longer sentence, I think that would make a difference,” she says.

For more on how Dina is standing with survivors during the coronavirus pandemic, read her full interview.

Maintaining hope for her Caribbean community

Ryancia Henry. Photo courtesy of Ryancia Henry.

When the California hotel where Ryancia Henry worked as Director of Housekeeping closed because of the COVID-19 outbreak, she called her mom in Antigua and Barbuda. “Get here (home) now,” her mom said, almost in tears. “I want you to be safe.”

But returning to Ryancia’s home country proved to be impossible as international flights to the island were suspended, so she remained alone in the United States.

Ryancia is among millions of workers currently out of work and contemplating how the long-term impacts of the crisis will affect her, her staff, her family and her friends. Like many migrant workers, she carries the extra responsibility of financially supporting her family back home.

“The financial impact on hospitality alone has just been so staggering… I worry for myself depending on how long this goes on, what kind of decisions do I have to make, to be financially okay, and I have the same concerns for my team. I send some funds home, to help my mom. I worry about maintaining some payments,” Ryancia shares.

And her concerns don’t stop there. She’s also worried about her island. “I am fearful for smaller countries that have limited resources during COVID-19. Antigua depends on tourism as the main industry and by closing hotels and airports, basically our main industry has come to a halt,” she says.

However, as she practices physical distancing and stays home to stop the spread of the virus, Ryancia remains hopeful. She checks in with family, shares helpful messages on social media, and exchanges best practices with her friends and contacts in the hospitality industry in Antigua and Barbuda.

“I know how resilient island people are. Being born on an island, hospitality and resilience are in my foundation.”

For more on how the pandemic is affecting women in the tourism and hospitality industry and migrant workers, read Ryancia’s full interview.

HRW, New York —  The decision by Nepal’sSupreme Court to reject a petition by the government asking that it reviews its 2015 ruling against amnesties for grave conflict-era crimes is an important step in securing truth, justice, and reparations for the thousands of victims of the country’s decade-long conflict, Amnesty International, TRIAL International, the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), and Human Rights Watch said today.

The armed conflict between Maoist and government forces ended in 2006, but victims of serious abuses by both sides are still awaiting justice, accountability, and reparations. The four organizations called upon the government to revise the 2014 Transitional Justice Act and ensure its implementation in accordance with the Supreme Court’s judgments, so as to assure access to justice for the victims of conflict-era abuses.

Nepal’s transitional justice law, which was passed by parliament in April 2014, established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and a Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons. However, it contained provisions that could allow for amnesties even for crimes such as torture, including rape and other sexual violence and ill-treatment and enforced disappearance. On February 26, 2015, the Supreme Court struck down the amnesty provisions and ordered the act to be amended accordingly. However, the government immediately petitioned to overturn the ruling. That petition was rejected by the court on April 27, 2020.

“With the Supreme Court’s decision, there can be no further excuse for government backsliding on ensuring truth, justice, reparations, and guarantees of non-recurrence. The government should immediately amend the Enforced Disappearances Enquiry, Truth and Reconciliation Commission Act, 2014 in line with the Supreme Court’s orders and its own international obligations,” said Biraj Patnaik, South Asia Director at Amnesty International.

With its latest ruling the Supreme Court has upheld the principle that there can be no amnesties for those suspected of criminal responsibility for crimes under international law and human rights violations. More than 13 years since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of November 2006 promised justice to the victims, no one has been held accountable for any conflict-era crimes.

“The request filed by the Nepal government to review the decision of the Supreme Court was another attempt to evade the real issue: accountability for mass human rights violations. We are delighted that the Supreme Court held its ground and reaffirmed the importance of fair and efficient transitional justice mechanisms,” said Cristina Cariello, the Head of Nepal Program at TRIAL International.

Amnesty International, the International Commission of Jurists, Human Rights Watch, and TRIAL International have repeatedly expressed concerns about the faltering transitional justice process. Besides the failure to amend the law to uphold basic principles of justice, there have been long delays and repeated political interference in appointments to the two transitional justice commissions.

“Over the past decade, the Supreme Court of Nepal has produced some of the most human rights compliant jurisprudence in South Asia. This petition cynically sought to have the Court undermine its own judgement, so that the government could sidestep its responsibility to provide accountability for conflict-related human rights violations,” said Frederick Rawski, ICJ Asia Pacific Director. “The government has no excuse for not immediately amending the transitional justice legal framework so that it is consistent with the Court’s jurisprudence and Nepal’s international legal obligations.”

An effective transitional justice system requires strong legal foundations consistent with international law and standards, and the political will to address the demands of victims of the conflict, the organizations said.

“When Nepal stood for election to the United Nations Human Rights Council the government promised to uphold its human rights obligations, but three years later, as it seeks re-election, there has been nothing but impunity and evasion on transitional justice,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “These are crimes under international law, subject to universal jurisdiction, and if justice is denied at home victims may take their cases abroad.”

London — Veteran Indian actor Rishi Kapoor passed away on Thursday at the age of 67, reported Indian media.

The news of his death was confirmed by fellow actor Amitabh Bachchan.

The actor was hospitalised on Wednesday after he complained of having difficulty in breathing, Zeo news writes.

His brother, Randhir Kapoor had said the actor who had been suffering from cancer, complained of breathing problems after which he was rushed to the hospital.

“He is in the hospital. He is suffering from cancer and he has some breathing problem, so he has been admitted to the hospital. He is stable now,” Randhir had told Press Trust of India.

The actor had been diagnosed with cancer back in 2018 after which he spent over a year in New York City getting treated with his wife Neetu Singh being by his side.

He had earlier been hospitalised twice this year in February, first in Delhi over an infection and then Mumbai with viral fever.

Kapoor made his debut as an actor back in 1970, working for his father raj Kapoor’s film Mera Naam Joker and went to reign over the industry with his several romantic lead roles.

Kapoor’s death comes only a day after actor Irrfan Khan breathed his last in Mumbai on Wednesday.