After vowing to retaliate against Lithuania’s move to allow Taiwan open a “representative office” in Vilnius, Beijing has announced it is downgrading diplomatic relations with the Baltic state.
In a statement on Sunday, the Chinese foreign ministry said that China’s diplomatic relations with Lithuania will be formally lowered to the level of charge d’affaires, while blasting Vilnius for setting a “bad international precedent” by giving the island the green light to open its mission in the Lithuanian capital.
The ministry went on to accuse Vilnius of undermining the One China principle and the principle of neutrality in bilateral relations, explaining its decision to demote relations by citing the need to “safeguard its sovereignty and the basic norms of international relations.”
“The Lithuanian government must bear all the consequences arising from this,” the ministry said, while calling on Vilnius to “correct its mistakes immediately.”
“No matter how the ‘Taiwan independence’ forces distort facts and reverse black and white, they cannot change the historical fact that the mainland and Taiwan belong to the same China,” the ministry asserted.
The move comes just two days after Beijing went on a verbal offensive against the Baltic country, warning that pushback for its cozying up to Taiwan would be imminent. “As to what necessary measures China will take, you may wait and see,” it said at the time.
Lithuania and China have been embroiled in a diplomatic row and have not maintained relations at ambassadorial level since September. After the Baltic state revealed that it would be opening a de facto Taiwanese embassy, China withdrew its ambassador from the country in August. Vilnius followed suit the following month.
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Kids say the strangest and funniest things. We’ve always loved the frank, honest and unadulterated way that little humans choose to express themselves. They see things from a different perspective to us grownups whose thoughts have been shaped and molded by the world around us. NYC school teacher Alyssa Cowit was so fascinated by the questions and comments from her Kindergarteners that she decided to start an Instagram account, called Live From Snack Time, to chronicle them. Scroll down for some of the best ones!
A gunman injured two civilians, one of them fatally, and two police officers before being shot dead by security forces near Jerusalem’s Western Wall on Sunday morning, Israeli police said.
The civilian victims were taken to Shaare Zedek Medical Center. One, who was in his 30s, succumbed to his injuries at the hospital. The other, a 46-year-old, is said to have suffered moderate injuries. Two police officers were hurt by shrapnel.
Two civilians were critically and seriously wounded this morning, Sunday, and two policemen were lightly wounded in a shooting attack in the area of the Chain Gate near the Western Wall and the entrance to the Temple Mount. pic.twitter.com/MRN6MLckj3
In a video clip shared on social media and purportedly filmed at the scene, multiple gunshots could be heard amid agitated shouting. Security officers could then be seen standing around what appears to be a dead body. Witnesses speculated it was that of a “terrorist.”
Scenes and sounds of shooting in the Old City of Jerusalem captured on Live Cam. Initial reports are attack is near the Temple Mount area 2 Israelis wounded one apparently seriously the terrorist has been neutralised pic.twitter.com/UKWSOqCu8D
— ElBluemountain MossadDolphin 🇮🇱🐬🇮🇱🐬🇮🇱 (@EBluemountain1) November 21, 2021
The gunman, whose identity was not immediately disclosed, was killed during the incident. Police said he had used a homemade submachine gun.
People are weird. They cook and eat the strangest things. This time it’s an octopus stuffed inside a turkey, sitting on top of crab legs, and (optionally) garnished with bacon strips. This monstrous culinary invention was inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos, and honestly… it looks like a crime against food.
If this gallery wasn’t disgusting enough for you, you should also check out pre-cooked canned chicken that we’ve previously featured on this fun and useful site. We know you’ll love it!
Criminals convicted of multiple cases of rape could face chemical castration in Pakistan as the country’s parliament supported new legislation aimed at tackling the rise in sexual offenses there.
The amendments to existing legislation, which allow for speedy conviction and harsher punishments for rapists, have been voted in by the MPs on Wednesday.
They introduce the death penalty or a life sentence for gang rape as well as chemical castration for repeat sex offenders, with the consent of the convict.
Chemical castration was described in the bill as a process through which “a person is rendered incapable of performing sexual intercourse for any period of his life, as may be determined by the court through administration of drugs.”
It’s planned to establish special courts across the country to make sure that verdicts in sexual assault cases are delivered “expeditiously, preferably within four months.” If chemical castration is assigned as a punishment, it “shall be conducted through a notified medical board,” according to the new legislation.
Mushtaq Ahmed, a senator for the religious Jamaat-i-Islami party, had earlier denounced the bill as un-Islamic. Ahmed argued that there was no mention of chemical castration in Sharia law and that rapists are to be hanged in public.
By resorting to drugs to reduce the libido of repeat sex offenders, Pakistan joins South Korea, Poland, the Czech Republic and some US states, where chemical castration has been introduced.
The measure was put on the table a year ago by Pakistani President Arif Alvi in response to a vast public outcry over a spike across the country in cases of rape involving both women and children.
Back then, Amnesty International decried chemical castration as a “cruel, inhumane” treatment, advising Islamabad to instead focus on reforming its “flawed” justice system and to ensure justice for the victim.
Local NGO War Against Rape told Reuters last year that less than 3% of sexual assault or rape prosecutions in Pakistan result in a conviction.
Once you’ve reached optimal cat lady status, there comes a time in your life where you think it’s necessary to start massaging your cat’s head. Luckily, someone has already created a cat head massager, and it is most likely the most specific niche product you could think of. You can get it on Amazon or AliExpress.
If your cat didn’t love you before, rest assured he will love you now. Your cat will be so thankful for the head massage that he might even ignore you for less time throughout the day, and if you’re really lucky, your cat may even acknowledge your existence. …Or you can use it on yourself if you have a particularly small head.
In case you feel like you should have this thing in your (and your cat’s) life, you can get it on Amazon or AliExpress.
A cleaner for Israel’s defense minister has been accused of espionage after allegedly offering to place malware on his boss’ household computer for an Iran-linked hacking group.
In a statement on Thursday, the Shin Bet security service said that Omri Goren, a housekeeper for Defense Minister Benny Gantz, and a former bank robber according to Israeli media, corresponded with an unnamed person over social media shortly before his arrest.
Goren reached out earlier this month to “a figure affiliated with Iran and offered to help him in different ways, in light of his access to the minister’s home,” the statement read, according to the Times of Israel.
It is understood that Goren offered to spy and place malware on Gantz’s computer on behalf of a hacking group, reportedly called ‘Black Shadow’ and associated with Iran, Tel Aviv’s perennial enemy. It is also said that he provided photos of Gantz’s residence to prove he had access.
A Central District prosecutor filed espionage charges against Goren on Thursday. If convicted, the accused could face a sentence of between 10 and 15 years, according to the Times of Israel.
The 37-year-old Lod resident has previously served four prison sentences, the most recent of which was for four years. Goren was found guilty of five crimes between 2002 to 2013, two of the convictions were for bank robbery.
The Shin Bet said they would review their processes for staff background checks “with the goal of limiting the possibility of cases like this repeating themselves in the future.”
Speaking on Kan public radio, Gal Wolf, the attorney representing Goren, suggested his client had intended to extract money from the Iranians without carrying out any spying.
As infections are rising again, scientists all around the world are rushing to fight the danger, offering a choice of new treatments and unusual variants of vaccines.
Levels of contagion are setting new records, hospitals are overwhelmed, governments are starting to introduce lockdowns, and not only for unvaccinated people – the picture of the fight against Covid-19 looks quite disappointing. However, there’s still a place for good news: Research teams report positive results while trialling new medicines and vaccine types.
Nasal vaccines
Vaccination will remain one of the most effective tools against Covid-19. As Professor David Dockrell, from the Center for Inflammation Research of the University of Edinburgh, told RT, “vaccines will continue to be a central part of how we control the virus.”
“If we can dampen down the number of infections, and the severity of infections, and also the extent to which the virus can replicate in people when they become infected, then we are slowing down the ability of the virus to change and to mutate,” he explains.
So I think the vaccines still will be a very important part of the preventive strategy. It’s vital that they are available to all the world’s population, irrespective of where people live, and the wealth of the country in which they live.
However, vaccination doesn’t always mean you have to get an injection. For instance, several intranasal Covid-19 vaccines are currently being developed. As the virus gets into the body through the nose, a nasal spray or drops are aimed to produce mucosal immune response and prevent it from getting into the lungs.
In India, a vaccine of this type is already completing Phase 2 of clinical trials. In Russia, a nasal vaccine is undergoing a clinical trial on volunteers. In Thailand, a home-developed product is expected to be trialed on humans next spring. In the US, Universities of Houston and Stanford recently reported good results of their experiments carried out on mice.
Intranasal vaccines can have several potential benefits compared to inoculation.
“They would be easier to use, because they can be self-administered. They wouldn’t need a nurse or clinical settings,” Swedish professor emeritus of epidemiology Marcello Ferrada de Noli explained to RT. As a result, he says, there’s hope that fewer people will be reluctant to be immunized. Not so many of us find it pleasant to get a jab – and after all, there are those who are just afraid of needles. Also, it would be much easier to vaccinate children with nasal substances.
However, what concerns Prof. de Noli the most is the duration of the effect of a vaccine of this type. Still, scientists can’t say for sure whether a nasal substance may completely replace a shot. According to Alexander Gintsburg, the head of Moscow’s Gamaleya Center biomedical research institute, which created the Sputnik V vaccine, the nasal version they are working on would serve for an additional protection against the virus, but would not replace the injections.
Chew the virus away?
A nasal vaccine is not the only one being developed. In summer, it was revealed that Russian Defense Ministry scientists were creating a ‘chewing gum’ vaccine, also targeting the mucosal immune response. Meanwhile, a UK firm announced this month that it would conduct a human trial of a skin patch that uses T-cells to confront the virus. Developers hope it would offer longer-lasting immunity than the existing vaccines. Work on a similar project is being done in the University of Queensland, Australia.
While it all looks so promising, Prof. de Noli warns that it would still take a lot of time until these products become available to the public. “I think that discoveries in this field are a very good thing. But if we say ‘We discovered a new type of vaccine’, people will say ‘Aha, so I’m going to wait’. But we need to vaccinate people now,” he points out.
Improving Covid treatment
Vaccines are not a silver bullet, unfortunately, given the not-so-high level of global immunization and the constantly emerging new strains of the virus. “People might get infected despite having had a vaccine, but I still think the vaccine strategy is going to be central to how we manage this kind of virus going forward,” Prof. Dockrell says. “But we will have other strategies that will be very important. We will have other elements. When we put them all together, it gives us the best opportunity that people can live with coronaviruses, and hopefully, the mortality can be limited to much lower extense than what we’ve sadly seen in the last eighteen months.”
Monoclonal antibodies will be central to the ongoing vaccine strategy, Prof. Dockrell explains. These are the antibodies similar to those the body uses to fight the virus. They are produced in labs and given via infusion or injection to boost the patient’s response against certain diseases. Monoclonal antibody treatment is used for people under a high risk of developing severe infection (including older patients 65+ years old or those with chronic medical conditions). It’s already being used in the US, following last year’s FDA approval. Earlier in November, the European Medicines agency recommended authorizing two monoclonal antibody medicines.
In October, UK’s AstraZeneca reported positive results of a Phase 3 study of its antibody combination, which, according to developers, is highly effective in both prevention and treatment of coronavirus.
Researchers are also working on a possibility to save Covid-infected patients from the so-called ‘cytokine storm’ – a situation when the immune system reacts so intensely that kills not only the virus, but the whole organism itself. A drug to ‘calm the storm’ was registered in Russia this year, and it’s already being used on patients.
Another way to fight Covid-19 is to use antiviral drugs. When the pandemic started, medics had to use something already existing (like anti-influenza Favipiravir) or something being authorized for emergency use (like remdesivir). Now, more than a year on, the work to create a special drug to specifically cure Covid-19 is giving its results. This month, Russia registered its first injectable anti-Covid medicine. A bit earlier, the UK became the first country to approve an antiviral pill produced by the US-based companies Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics. Another American firm, Pfizer, got positive results from trials of its drug of the same kind. Both firms hope that with a drug in the form of a pill it would be easier to treat people at home.
Appreciating all the efforts on the field of developing anti-Covid treatment, Prof. de Noli points out that still, the key issue now is to reduce the spreading of the virus. “The new medicines are developed for people who already got the disease,” he says.
But we need to prevent people from getting the infection, not let them get infected because we have some new medicine that can cure them.
The same idea is echoed by scientists all over the world quoted in plenty of articles dedicated to the medical gains: it’s great to have the treatment, but none of the drugs may substitute vaccination, as first and foremost, humanity has to adopt preventive measures and stop the pandemic.
When you think the internet can’t get any more niche, it finds a way to get even more specific. We’re, of course, talking about an Instagram account @BagDogs that is solely dedicated to sharing people’s photos of dogs chilling in bags as they are being transported from point A to point B. Scroll down to see some of their best photos!
Poland’s procedure for appointing senior judges by the executive branch violates EU rules, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has said.
Tuesday’s ruling by the CJEU said the situation in Poland in which the justice minister, “who is also the Public Prosecutor General,” can “second judges to higher criminal courts” and terminate them at any time “without stating reasons,” infringes on the independence of the judicial branch.
The EU court’s opinion was requested by a regional court in Warsaw, which was worried that the appointment and termination procedure compromised the presumption of innocence in cases adjudicated by minister-seconded judges.
The CJEU found “a number of factors” that could empower the justice minister to influence judges and thus “may give rise to doubts concerning their independence.” It said appointments and terminations of a judge should be made “on the basis of criteria known in advance and must contain an appropriate statement of reasons.” Under the current procedures, the criteria are not public at all and the minister doesn’t have to explain his or her decision to withdraw the secondment.
The European court also noted that while a judge has to consent to be seconded by the minister, the termination can be done without one, which “may have effects similar to those of a disciplinary penalty.”
The minister’s role as head of the prosecution is problematic in the context of judge appointments, since it calls into question the impartiality of prosecution and trial, the CJEU said.
Lastly, there is an issue with seconded judges’ involvement in disciplinary proceedings brought against other judges. They serve as deputies to the Disciplinary Officer for Ordinary Court Judges, also appointed by the minister of justice. The arrangement could cast doubt on “the imperviousness of the other members of the adjudicating panels concerned to external factors,” the EU court said.
The combination of factors gave the CJEU reason to believe that minister-seconded judges “are not provided with the guarantees and the independence which all judges should normally enjoy” in a member-state of the EU. The minister’s power “cannot be considered compatible with the obligation to comply with the requirement of independence.”
Considering the circumstances, the court added, “the presumption of innocence may be jeopardised” in cases presided over by judges such as these in Poland.
The disputed procedure is part of a sweeping reform of the judicial system, which put the conservative Polish government at loggerheads with the EU. The opinion is the latest blow dealt to Poland in the ongoing conflict.
Last month, the CJEU imposed a €500,000 ($568,000) per day fine on Warsaw for ignoring a previous order from the court in a case regarding a mining operation. Poland called the ruling part of a “political blackmail” campaign by Brussels.
The EU and Poland have long been entrenched in conflicts over domestic policies which officials in Brussels say go against the union’s rules. Warsaw, among other things, has been accused of compromising the rule of law, discriminating against the LGBT community, and curbing freedom of the press. The Polish government says the EU is attempting to encroach upon its national sovereignty.
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