| Global Stair Lifts Industry Posted: 17 Aug 2020 05:12 PM PDT |
| Libya conflict: Why Egypt might send troops to back Gen Haftar Posted: 17 Aug 2020 04:26 PM PDT  The fall of Col Gaddafi nine years ago unleased chaos in North Africa, which Egypt fears could spill over.
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| Global Ultra-Low Temperature Freezers Industry Posted: 17 Aug 2020 03:12 PM PDT |
| Postal workers concerned about delivering ballots on time Posted: 17 Aug 2020 02:57 PM PDT  The U.S. Postal Service is poised to play a central role in this year's presidential elections, but some staffers are worried about the agency's ability to deliver. Mail processing machines have been decommissioned. The Postal Service has warned states that ballots might not arrive on time.
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| National Zoo awaits birth of pandemic panda cub Posted: 17 Aug 2020 02:49 PM PDT  Zookeepers at Washington's National Zoo are on furry black-and-white baby watch after concluding that venerable giant panda matriarch Mei Ziang is pregnant and could give birth this week. Although so-called "phantom pregnancies" are common with pandas and other large bears, Baker-Masson said an ultrasound scan revealed a "really strong-looking, fantastic fetus" that could be delivered this week.
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| AP survey: States uncommitted to Trump's unemployment boost Posted: 17 Aug 2020 01:49 PM PDT  President Donald Trump's plan to offer a stripped-down boost in unemployment benefits to millions of Americans amid the coronavirus outbreak has found little traction among the states, which would have to pay a quarter of the cost to deliver the maximum benefit. An Associated Press survey finds that as of Monday, 18 states have said they will take the federal grants allowing them to increase unemployment checks by $300 or $400 a week. For the past few weeks, she's been getting less than $300 in unemployment.
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| INVIZION and the United Nations: Presenting CETS Technologies and Our Vision to the UN General Assembly Posted: 17 Aug 2020 01:40 PM PDT  NVZN Tokens NVZNTOKEN.comHouston, Texas, Aug. 17, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- You've already heard about INVIZION \- an innovative project that combines blockchain technology, DeFi (Decentralized Finance) and IoT (Internet of Things) solutions to achieve a single goal: recycling waste into renewable, green energy in the most efficient and technologically advanced way possible. In simple words, INVIZION stores the entire lifecycle of waste on the blockchain, from its creation up until the moment it gets recycled into clean energy. The vision is so revolutionary that a partnership with CETS Technologies enabled an opportunity to present it directly to the United Nations General Assembly.The core part of INVIZION's mission is providing a technology able to unite a vast network of innovators under a single goal: turning our planet into a better, safer, cleaner and greener place. This vision is shared with our like-minded company CETS Technologies, which led to a working partnership. CETS is an industrial engineering company based in the US, and a leader in the architectural design, development, engineering and deployment of renewable energy and waste solutions for municipalities. CETS provides advanced technology solutions and systems specializing in infrastructures and services related to Renewable Energy, Waste-to-Energy, Energy Recovery and Smart Grid Networks to leading companies globally. The NVZN tokens enable waste tracking into an infallible, bullet-proof process, guaranteeing that the waste ends up exactly where it should end up: at CETS Mobile Hybrid Waste-to-Energy Stations. CETS mobile stations will intake any waste material and turn it into energy in a series of processes that are completely environmentally safe, and leave no harmful byproducts such as gases, solids or airborne carcinogens - CETS mobile stations produce clean, low-cost, electrical generated energy. The best part is that the method is the efficiency of this process. A 150kg (330 lb) package of waste can produce 100kWh of energy. This translates to not only a 30% carbon footprint reduction, but also a 20% reduction of the current monetary cost of waste disposal. CETS' groundbreaking technology is covered by pending US and International Patents, hence the detailed technological specifications remain undisclosed for the time being. However, the general properties of this revolutionary technology that can be disclosed are enough to catch everyone's attention. In fact, it's the reason why CETS Technologies was invited by the United Nations to speak about this extraordinary vision on September 21-23, 2020. INVIZION and CETS Technologies' partnership has created a revolutionary project in the environmental and tech industries. Together, they are a powerful team working towards a complete solution for a better, safer, greener, more efficient waste disposal. This vision caught the attention of the United Nations and soon the vision will become a reality.Media Details - Company: NVZNTOKEN.com Contact: Daryl Taylor Telephone: +1 (713) 518-4835 Company E-mail: Daryl@nvzntoken.com Website: www.nvzntoken.com Attachment * NVZN Tokens
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| Global Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) Devices Industry Posted: 17 Aug 2020 01:32 PM PDT |
| Iran reportedly paid bounties to Afghan group for attacks on Americans Posted: 17 Aug 2020 01:18 PM PDT  * Haqqani network responsible for six attacks, CNN reports * Pentagon refrained from retaliation in bid to save peace dealIran is reported to have paid bounties to a Taliban faction for killing US and coalition troops in Afghanistan, leading to six attacks last year including a suicide bombing at the US airbase in Bagram.According to CNN, US intelligence assessed that Iran paid the bounties to the Haqqani network, for the Bagram attack on 11 December, which killed two civilians and injured more than 70 others, including two Americans.The Pentagon decided not to take retaliatory action in the hope of preserving a peace deal the Trump administration agreed with the Taliban in February, the CNN report said. In January, less than a month after the Bagram attack, the US killed the Iranian Revolutionary Guard general Qassem Suleimani, in a drone strike in Baghdad, but that attack is not thought to have been a direct retaliation for Bagram."The Department of Defense does not disclose timelines or discussions surrounding internal deliberations and intelligence briefings. With that being said, the department has repeatedly demanded, both publicly and privately, that Iran cease its scourge of malign and destabilizing behavior throughout the Middle East and the world," a Pentagon spokesman, Maj Rob Lodewick, said."While the United States, its Nato allies and coalition partners are working to facilitate an end to 19 years of bloodshed, Iran's inimical influence seeks to undermine the Afghan peace process and foster a continuation of violence and instability."The report comes nearly two months after allegations that Russia was paying bounties to Taliban fighters for killing Americans in Afghanistan. Donald Trump rejected those reports as a "hoax", but the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, confirmed he warned his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, that there would be "an enormous price to pay" if Moscow was paying such bounties. The Pentagon has said it will investigate the reports of Russian bounties but has so far not produced a conclusion to that investigation.
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| Democrats claim 'big tent' for first convention in pandemic Posted: 17 Aug 2020 12:56 PM PDT  Joe Biden introduced the breadth of his coalition to a divided America on Monday night, progressive Democrats joining conservative Republicans and a billionaire CEO to deliver an urgent appeal for voters to unite against President Donald Trump regardless of political ideology or party. Former first lady Michelle Obama vouched for Biden's empathy and experience, while the extraordinary ideological range of Biden's many messengers on the opening night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention was perhaps best demonstrated by former presidential contenders from opposing parties: Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist who championed a multi-trillion-dollar universal health care plan, and Ohio's former Republican Gov. John Kasich, an anti-abortion conservative who spent decades fighting to cut government spending.
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| How the AP covered ratification of the 19th Amendment Posted: 17 Aug 2020 12:26 PM PDT  The bulletin moved just after 1 p.m. on Aug. 18, 1920, conveying the breaking news that the 19th Amendment had been ratified giving women the constitutional right to vote. The AP had been covering the slow progress toward suffrage around the country as state after state ratified the amendment in 1920, culminating with Tennessee's approval that put it past the threshold to become law. The initial AP wire dispatches that day included jubilant reaction from around the country, including telegrams of congratulations from White House cabinet secretaries to the Tennessee governor.
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| 'Historic' Israel deal won't likely bring peace to the Middle East Posted: 17 Aug 2020 12:15 PM PDT  The heralded recent agreement to normalize relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates may not be the grand achievement it was made out to be. The White House-brokered deal, which was announced with much fanfare on Aug. 13, is undoubtedly a diplomatic win for U.S. President Donald Trump and for Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who declared its signing a "historic day."But the United Arab Emirates and Israel have never been at war, so the new agreement between them is not really a peace treaty, as some White House officials and press accounts suggested. It is an agreement to begin officially upgrading relations that have been quietly improving for some time, a process that will probably unfold slowly and tentatively. Nor is it a deal that helps resolve the long-running conflict between Israel and the Palestinians – the subject of my academic research and recent book. For Palestinians, in fact, the Israeli-Emirati agreement is seen as a major setback, weakening their bargaining position with Israel. Winners of the Abraham AccordsUntil now, the growing Israeli-Emirati relationship has been conducted informally and secretly. It was largely focused on sharing intelligence to counter their mutual enemy, Iran. The new deal, dubbed the Abraham Accords, will bolster this de facto alliance against Iran. It will also accelerate commercial ties between the two nations, which have already begun to develop in recent years. Economic and technological cooperation between Israel and the United Arab Emirates – an important economic center in the Gulf region – can now take place publicly and expand into more areas. Scientific cooperation, especially around the COVID-19 pandemic, will also commence, as will tourism. Both Israel and the Emirates will undoubtedly benefit from their growing relationship. White House and Israeli officials hope that the agreement will also encourage other Arab states in the Gulf to upgrade their own relations with Israel, with Bahrain and Oman the most likely to follow the Emirates' lead. Both countries have expressed their support for the agreement. Saudi Arabia, the most important Gulf Arab state, however, has been conspicuously quiet about the deal. Due to their desire to lead the Sunni Muslim world and their typically cautious foreign policy, the Saudis seem unlikely to normalize their relationship with Israel unless major progress is made towards resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The agreement relates to that conflict by preventing Israel from implementing its pledge to unilaterally annex parts of the West Bank, an Israeli-occupied territory that the Palestinians claim as their land. Losers of the Abraham AccordsThe Emiratis demanded that concession from Israel in return for normalizing relations. But it's far from clear that the Israeli-Emirati agreement will help the prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. For one, Israel analysts question whether Prime Minister Netanyahu really intended to carry out his election campaign promises to annex some of the West Bank, especially in the midst of an economic and health crisis. Israel is now confronting its second wave of the coronavirus. Annexation, which would be illegal under international law, also faced domestic, American and international opposition. President Trump has declared annexation "off the table" as a result of the United Arab Emirates deal. But Netanyahu claims it is postponed.Palestinians say it makes little difference to them whether Israel has called off or merely paused its official annexation of West Bank territory. Either way, some 2.8 million Palestinians in the West Bank will continue to live under Israeli military rule alongside an ever-growing population of Jewish settlers, now numbering more than 430,000. Israel has been building its settlements in the West Bank since it conquered the territory in the 1967 war. Palestinians and many observers see the relentless expansion of Jewish settlements as amounting to Israel's "creeping annexation" of West Bank land. This process will continue despite the deal. It could even accelerate if Netanyahu tries to appease Jewish settlers, who feel betrayed by his suspension of annexation. 'Sold out by your friends'The divided, fractious leadership of the Palestinians has unanimously denounced the agreement. They describe it as a "stab in the back" for the United Arab Emirates to break from the Arab consensus not to normalize relations with Israel until it makes peace with the Palestinians. In practice, that would mean withdrawing from the West Bank and allowing a Palestinian state to be established. Now, Israel has achieved normalization with an important Arab state without making any territorial concessions to the Palestinians. Palestinians fear that gives Israel less incentive to ever leave the West Bank. That's especially true if other Arab allies tire of supporting the Palestinian cause, and opt to forge relations with Israel based upon their own interests, as the Emiratis have done. "May you never be sold out by your 'friends,'" Hanan Ashrawi, a veteran Palestinian politician, tweeted in reaction to the agreement.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * Israel suspends formal annexation of the West Bank, but its controversial settlements continue * Has Trump proposed a Middle East peace plan – or terms of surrender for the Palestinians?Dov Waxman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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| 'We are staring into the abyss - Hizbollah has no place in Lebanon's future' says former PM's son Posted: 17 Aug 2020 12:10 PM PDT  The son of Lebanon's murdered prime minister Rafic Hariri has called for the Iranian-backed militia Hizbollah to end its involvement in Lebanese politics and allow the country to rebuild following this month's devastating blast at Beirut port which killed more than 200 people. Bahaa Hariri, the 54-year-old son of the Lebanese prime minister who was killed by a massive car bomb in 2005, said the blame for the huge explosion at Beirut port lay squarely with Hizbollah, which he said controlled the port, and Lebanon's Maronite Chrstian President Michel Aoun, who supported the militia's role in Lebanese politics. "President Aoun is a very ardent supporter of Hizbollah, and I am very disappointed that our president stands where he stands," said Mr Hariri in an exclusive interview with The Daily Telegraph. "Hizbollah was in control of the port and they were in control of the storage facility. We had very explosive products stored in the port for 6 years even though there were very many warnings about it. The utter carelessness that led to this situation is appalling." Mr Hariri was speaking prior to publication on Tuesday of the long-awaited judgement of the special UN-sponsored criminal trial of four Hizbollah members who were accused of involvement in his father's assassination by a UN inquiry in 2011. The trial, which has been conducted in the Netherlands, was held in absentia because Hizbollah refused to hand over the suspects named by UN investigators. A guilty verdict would heap even more pressure on the Iran-backed militia, which many Lebanese have blamed for the devastating blast at Beirut earlier this month, which was caused after 2,750-tons of highly explosive ammonium nitrate stored at the port was ignited.
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| Universities scramble to deal with virus outbreaks Posted: 17 Aug 2020 12:10 PM PDT  The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said it will switch to remote learning on Wednesday and make arrangements for students who want to leave campus housing. "We have emphasized that if we were faced with the need to change plans — take an off-ramp — we would not hesitate to do so, but we have not taken this decision lightly," it said in a statement after reporting 130 confirmed infections among students and five among employees over the past week. UNC said the clusters were discovered in dorms, a fraternity house and other student housing.
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| Global Cadaver Bags Industry Posted: 17 Aug 2020 10:52 AM PDT |
| 'State of anarchy' in southern Colombia as 13 killed in a week, governor says Posted: 17 Aug 2020 10:38 AM PDT  * Young people massacred at barbeque in Samaniego * 'Complete disorder' in Nariño as armed groups wreak havocA provincial governor in southern Colombia has warned that the region is "in a state of anarchy – complete disorder" amid a fresh wave of violence that has claimed at least 13 lives in the past week.Jhon Alexánder Rojas, the governor of the Nariño province, sounded the alarm in an interview with the newspaper El Espectador, after eight people – all aged between 17 and 26 were killed in a massacre at a barbecue in the small town of Samaniego on Saturday night."This is what happens here, in any moment one can run into illegal armed groups who'll kill anyone without saying a word," said Rojas. "There's nothing we can de except hope to God that this stops."Authorities have yet to identify the masked attackers with rifles. Nariño, which sits on Colombia's southern border with Ecuador, is rife with coca crops, the key ingredient used to make cocaine, and plagued by armed groups.A 2016 peace deal with the country's largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), formally ended five decades of civil war that killed over 260,000 people and displaced 7 million.The accord was supposed to bring with it increased security and development in to Colombia's poorest regions – such as Nariño – but such change has been elusive, with dissident Farc factions fighting for territorial control with a rival leftist guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army, ELN, rightwing paramilitary groups, drug cartels and the Colombian military.Colombia has seen 33 massacres this year, according to the United Nations' peace mission in the country, which said on Monday that 45 human rights defenders have been killed in the same period.Rojas, the governor, called on the government of President Iván Duque – a skeptic of the peace deal – to dialog with armed groups in the region and to implement the accord.The massacre on Saturday night followed two other killings in the province in the past seven days that left at least four others dead.Five Afro-Colombian teenagers were found brutally tortured and murdered in Cali, the capital of the neighbouring Valle del Cauca province, on Tuesday, triggering outcry from human rights groups."Given Duque's unwillingness to truly advance the implementation of the peace process and refusal to make peace with the ELN it is not surprising that we are seeing a resurgence of massacres in Colombia," said Gimena Sánchez, Andes director at the Washington Office on Latin America, a thinktank. "Rather than taking advantage of the opportunity to dismantle illegal groups and strengthen justice, Duque is reverting to security policies that don't work."
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| Lawsuit against Trump, postal chief seeks proper funding Posted: 17 Aug 2020 10:36 AM PDT  Several individuals including candidates for public office sued President Donald Trump and the U.S. Postal Service and its new postmaster general in New York on Monday to ensure adequate funding for postal operations. The lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court as multiple lawsuits were threatened across the country as a response to comments the president recently made and actions taken by newly appointed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to change operations at post offices nationwide. The lawsuit alleges that Trump and DeJoy are trying to ensure the postal service cannot reliably deliver election mail.
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| What To Know About The Belarus Protests: From An Election Dispute To Workers Going On Strike Posted: 17 Aug 2020 10:12 AM PDT  In what amounts to the largest demonstration of any kind in the Belarus's history, an estimated 50,000 protesters descended on the capital in Minsk on Sunday to demand their freedom after a disputed election that left Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko's victory in question.Ever since it was announced that Lukashenko had amassed 80 percent of the vote during Belarus's August 8 polls, thereby extending his 26-year hold on power, election observers, including those in the U.S. and the E.U., have been vocal in questioning whether or not the contest had been free and fair. By Sunday, thronging crowds had turned out in Minsk to demand that Lukashenko — a Soviet-style strongman who has been dubbed "Europe's last dictator" — resign from his post. In addition to their massive size, the protests have been distinguished by brutal police violence, with human rights groups alleging violence against hundreds of demonstrators.Now, as an imminent strike takes hold of the entire country, many are wondering what exactly is going on in Belarus, how it started, and what will happen next. How did the Belarus protests start?Although the protests began peacefully, videos and photos show increasingly grizzly clashes between civilians and security forces. According to reports, some 6,700 people were detained amid the chaos, hundreds more injured, and at least two people have been killed thus far.The state violence, originally meant to quell the demonstrations, has only further galvanized protestors, and has now sparked calls for a general strike among the country's state-owned companies and factories. During a visit to the state-owned MZKT military vehicles factory on Monday, which had been planned as an outing to prove Lukashenko's enduring popularity among the factory workers that comprise the backbone of Belarus's economy, the president was instead met with cries of "Resign!" and "liar!" from the assembled crowd. "You are talking about unfair elections and want to hold fair ones," Lukashenko told the workers present at the address. "My answer to you is: we held elections, and as long as you don't kill me, there won't be any other elections." How could workers change the Belarus protests?The dissent among factory workers is the clearest evidence yet that Lukashenko's support is in free fall, since Belarus's working class has made up his base for more than two and a half decades. A general strike among workers could also help to turn up the momentum in what have so far been sustained and massive protests, especially when considering that workers at oil refineries, fabric manufacturers and even state television reporters are among those threatening to withhold their labor until Lukashenko steps down.One detained factory worker, who declined to give his full name out of concern for his safety, told the Financial Times that prison guards had asked protesters, "You wanted regime change and democracy? Here you go!" before forcing them to do 100 squats, subsequently beating those who failed to comply. "The first to be arrested were the luckiest, because they didn't hit them so badly," the man, identified only as "Yaroslav," said. "With every passing night the people they brought were treated worse. Two or three people might beat them, one guy even got hit in the face with a truncheon."In a video message released on Monday, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the opposition leader in who fled to Lithuania last week amid contested reports that she had only managed to secure 10% of the vote, claimed victory in the election and said that she was ready to become the country's "national leader.""I am ready to take on the responsibility and serve in this period as a national leader so that the country calms down, returns to a normal rhythm, so that we free all political prisoners in the shortest possible period and prepare … for new presidential elections," Tikhanovskaya said. She also appealed to the country's police, calling upon them to "come over to the side of the people." What is Alexander Lukashenko saying about the Belarus protests?Lukashenko has continued to grip onto his power throughout the protests, telling demonstrators that he will not back down unless they "kill" him. In a leaked video, he told workers, "Don't worry, I won't beat you, it's not in my interests…But if one of you provokes me, I'll deal with it cruelly. Be a man. There's a whole crowd of you here and I'm only all alone. Put your phone down!"Lukashenko, while refusing to concede, has called upon Russian President Vladimir Putin to come to his aid, but as his grasp on power becomes shakier by the day, it seems less and less likely that Russia will abide by the request. Meanwhile, E.U. sanctions appear to be looming."The violence against peaceful protesters in Belarus is appalling," U.K. foreign secretary Dominic Raab tweeted on Monday. "The U.K. does not accept the results of this fraudulent presidential election & calls for an urgent investigation through @OSCE into its serious flaws & the grisly repression that followed."Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?How You Can Help Beirut After The ExplosionWhy Protest Broke Out In Chicago OvernightHow To Vote Without Relying On A Mailbox
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| Belarus chaos brings a poker-faced response from Russia Posted: 17 Aug 2020 10:09 AM PDT  As Belarus experiences spasms of mass protests and a brutal police crackdown, its giant neighbor Russia has been uncharacteristically low key in its response. When upheavals struck other former Soviet states — notably Georgia and Ukraine — Russia pounced on opportunities to increase its influence. Moscow portrayed those protests as Western-backed efforts that roped in both naive young people and extremist forces, including neo-Nazis, and quickly capitalized on Ukraine's 2014 chaos to annex Crimea and back separatist rebels in the east.
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| After UAE-Israel deal, Kushner slams Palestinian leaders Posted: 17 Aug 2020 09:07 AM PDT  Top White House adviser Jared Kushner said Monday that the Palestinian leadership's credibility has fallen to an "all time low" and that the Trump administration wouldn't "chase" the Palestinians over a peace deal if they continue to reject American overtures. Kushner delivered his assessment in a conference call discussing last week's U.S.-brokered agreement forming official diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Speaking to reporters from the Middle East, Kushner said there was rising frustration in the region over what he said was the Palestinians' obstruction of their people's advancement.
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| Putin has no clear options in Belarus Posted: 17 Aug 2020 08:53 AM PDT  Protests in Belarus are reaching a boiling point for President Lukashenko, but Putin can afford to wait as he "doesn't particularly like or need" Lukashenko.
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| Global N95 Masks Industry Posted: 17 Aug 2020 08:52 AM PDT |
| Pompeo Says China's Huawei Dealt A Direct Blow, Has Limited Ability To Acquire Tech Posted: 17 Aug 2020 08:28 AM PDT  U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the U.S. has dealt a direct blow to China's Huawei Technologies and the Chinese Communist Party by further limiting the company's ability to acquire U.S. technology, which Pompeo says would compromise the integrity of the world's networks and Americans' private information.Trump Administration Clamps Down On Huawei: Huawei is an arm of the Communist Party's "surveillance state," the press release from Pompeo's office says.The measures announced Monday are intended to protect U.S. national security, citizen privacy and the integrity of 5G infrastructure, according to the government. The Commerce Department hadded 38 Huawei affiliates to its Entity List, which identifies foreign parties prohibited from receiving certain sensitive technologies, and has allowed Huawei's temporary general license to expire.Huawei has previously denied involvement in spying activities. The Previous Huawei Ban: This is not the first time Huawei has come under scrutiny. In May 2019, the Trump administration first added Huawei to a list of companies that U.S. firms can no longer trade with unless they have a license. The "entity list" includes companies that are banned from acquiring technology from U.S. firms without government approval.Trump told Chinese President Xi Jinping in July 2019 at the G20 summit that he would allow U.S. companies to sell products to Huawei.The U.S. has also previously urged members of the Five Eyes -- which is an Anglophone intelligence alliance comprised Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. -- to exclude Huawei from the construction of new telecommunications networks.The U.S. claims the company could provide covert access for Chinese intelligence collection, making secure data vulnerable.In July of this year, the U.K also said it is banning China's Huawei's 5G from next-generation mobile networks by 2027 under a new plan to protect critical systems from security threats.Related Links:Why The UK Is Removing Huawei 5G Technology By 2027Key Countries Huawei Products Aren't Allowed InSecretary of State Mike Pompeo. Benzinga file photo by Dustin Blitchok. See more from Benzinga * Hong Kong Police Enforce New Security Law, China Warns UK Not To Interfere(C) 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
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| Global Protective Eyewear Industry Posted: 17 Aug 2020 08:12 AM PDT |
| Sudanese demand reforms a year after deal with generals Posted: 17 Aug 2020 08:07 AM PDT  Sudanese protesters returned to the streets Monday to call for more reforms a year after a power-sharing deal between the pro-democracy movement and the generals. Sudan is on a fragile path to democracy after a popular uprising led the military to overthrow former autocratic President Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. The demonstrations were organized by local groups linked to the Sudanese Professionals' Association, which spearheaded the uprising against al-Bashir.
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| How Sanders is helping keep the progressive movement strong Posted: 17 Aug 2020 08:01 AM PDT  Bernie Sanders is in a familiar position: runner-up. Sanders, who is speaking at the Democratic National Convention later Monday, was the last primary challenger standing against Biden. "In response to the unprecedented set of crises we face, we need an unprecedented response — a movement, like never before, of people who are prepared to stand up and fight for democracy and decency and against greed, oligarchy and authoritarianism," Sanders plans to say, according to excepts released by the Democratic Party.
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| AP Interview: Iraqi leader says country still needs US help Posted: 17 Aug 2020 08:00 AM PDT  Iraq's prime minister said Monday ahead of a much anticipated trip to Washington that his country still needs U.S. assistance to counter the threat posed by the Islamic State group and that his administration is committed to introducing security sector reforms as rogue militia groups stage near-daily attacks against the seat of his government. Mustafa al-Kadhimi said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press that Iraq currently does not need direct military support on the ground, and that the levels of help will depend on the changing nature of the threat. Al-Kadhimi is slated to meet with President Donald Trump in Washington this week to conclude a strategic dialogue launched in June to reconfigure U.S.-Iraq ties.
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| Global Textile Fibers Industry Posted: 17 Aug 2020 07:52 AM PDT |
| Israelis eager to tighten ties to UAE after historic accord Posted: 17 Aug 2020 07:11 AM PDT  For eager Israelis, anticipation is mounting that Dubai's glitzy Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, will soon join the ranks of the Pyramids in Egypt and the ancient ruins in Jordan's Petra as a once-forbidden destination now within reach. Last week, the United Arab Emirates said it would establish full diplomatic ties with Israel, which would make it just the third Arab nation to do so. Israeli TV stations have already dispatched reporters to the oil-rich Persian Gulf nation and local media has been filled with footage of Dubai's shiny skyscrapers, massive malls, artificial islands and sandy beaches.
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| Lebanese customs chief arrested over Beirut blast Posted: 17 Aug 2020 07:04 AM PDT  The head of Lebanon's customs authority was formally arrested on Monday after being questioned over the massive explosion in Beirut earlier this month, the state-run National News Agency reported. The investigation is focused on why nearly 3,000 tons of explosive ammonium nitrate was being stored at the city's port. More than 70,000 workers are believed to be unemployed due to the explosions, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Monday, on top of 220,000 people estimated to have lost their jobs as a result of the financial crisis that began last October last year and those left jobless by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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| The home front: Virus stalks nurses after they leave work Posted: 17 Aug 2020 06:58 AM PDT  As the pandemic rages on and cases climb throughout California, once again one of the nation's hot spots, the answers remain unclear. The Associated Press spent several days in the coronavirus unit at St. Jude's and followed four nurses and their families after their shifts were over. Sarvnaz Michel feared for her family's safety.
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| Global Light Emitting Diode (LED) Lamps and Fixtures Industry Posted: 17 Aug 2020 06:52 AM PDT |
| Global Application Delivery Networks (ADN) Industry Posted: 17 Aug 2020 06:32 AM PDT |
| Israel frees Palestinian boycott activist from detention Posted: 17 Aug 2020 06:04 AM PDT  The Palestinian-led boycott movement against Israel said Monday that a campaign organizer has been released without charge by Israel after more than two weeks in detention. The BDS campaign said Mahmoud Nawajaa was on his way back to the occupied West Bank. In a statement, Nawajaa thanked his supporters and said a global pressure campaign on his behalf had helped win his release.
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| Egyptian envoys leave Gaza after bid to ease Israel tensions Posted: 17 Aug 2020 05:39 AM PDT  Egyptian mediators were in the Gaza Strip on Monday in an effort to reduce tensions and prevent a new cross-border conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, but departed without appearing to have secured a resolution. For the past week, Palestinian youth groups affiliated with Hamas, a militant group that seized control of Gaza from rival Palestinian forces in 2007, have fired incendiary balloons toward Israel, setting swaths of farmland on fire.
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| The ethical case for allowing medical trials that deliberately infect humans with COVID-19 Posted: 17 Aug 2020 05:24 AM PDT  Despite the urgent need to beat COVID-19, health officials may be delaying the development of an effective vaccine.Authorities in the U.S. and elsewhere are yet to authorize an ethically charged research procedure called "human challenge trials." Challenge trials entail deliberately infecting volunteers with the disease – which explains the official reticence – but they could substantially expedite the development of a vaccine.The debate over human challenge trials has been raging for months among health professionals and academics. But only now – some eight months into the pandemic – are authorities in the U.S. beginning to consider them in a bid to speed up the vaccine-development process. Sitting and waitingA vaccine has to go through multiple stages before it can be rolled out. After establishing its ability to trigger an immune response and its safety, developers must test it for efficacy. Inefficient vaccines may not justify the tiny risk inherent even in safe vaccines, may be enormously wasteful, may divert resources from better alternatives and may harm immunization rates.There are two principal ways with which to measure efficacy. Under the conventional method, researchers vaccinate tens of thousands of volunteers and then passively wait for some of them to get infected. The frequency of infection is then compared to a non-vaccinated control group.In the second method, human challenge trials, a much smaller group of volunteers is intentionally infected after receiving the experimental vaccine or a placebo. This allows for a much faster and efficient determination of vaccine efficacy.To date, more than 33,000 people from 151 countries have volunteered to be part of such a procedure. But there is no official authorization for human challenge trials for COVID-19 in the U.S. or other Western countries. This means that vaccine developers are forced to vaccinate many more volunteers – typically about 30,000 are involved for each candidate vaccine – and then release them into the general population, with the hope that enough data would soon accumulate.This is where we presently are in the U.S.: waiting for enough participating volunteers to catch the virus by happenstance. Paradoxically, these giant and expensive studies – American taxpayers have already spent billions of dollars on vaccine development – are slowed down by government efforts to minimize infection rates through quarantines, closures, masks usage or social distancing. Back in May, leading developers of potential COVID-19 vaccines, including the biotechnology company Moderna and Oxford University, issued a warning that low-level infections among their volunteers may delay the development of their vaccines.It is possible, of course, that the conventional studies will yield the required data. But there is a distinct possibility that challenge trials could speed up things. Medical ethicsOpposition to human challenge studies for COVID-19 is based, first and foremost, on ethical considerations. Since at present there is no cure for COVID-19, intentional infection can result in death or serious impairments. It is therefore argued by people like Michael Rosenblatt, a former dean of Tufts University School of Medicine and a present adviser to Moderna, that the risks are too high, and that volunteers cannot give a valid "informed consent" for intentional infection.The argument that willing adults cannot consent to risking their health for the greater good is, we believe, inconsistent with how society views other acts of volunteerism. Volunteer firefighters, for example, also face unknown dangers. Moreover, few countries refrain from risking the health and lives of their young citizens on the world's battlefields, if they deem that the common good requires such sacrifice. And while COVID-19 human challenge trials would include only volunteers, most battlefields also include people who are forced into service.Delaying a vaccine may also endanger volunteering health care workers. Current estimates put the number of U.S. health care workers' deaths from COVID-19 at around 1,000. Health care volunteers continue risking their lives as long as vaccine development is delayed.The opposition to human challenge trials derives from justified sensitivity to medical experiments on humans, and the horrific history of such experiments – which often ignored the interests and rights of their subjects. These included the experiments performed by the Nazis on prisoners or the notorious Tuskegee Study of untreated syphilis, which was conducted on unsuspecting African Americans. And of course, even medical experiments that subjects consent to can go terribly wrong. Lives at stakeBut rapid development of an effective vaccine could save hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide. At present, more than 5,000 people die of COVID-19 each day. At that rate, every month of delay in vaccine availability costs 150,000 lives. The indirect costs are tremendous as well. For example, the United Nations recently announced that pandemic-linked hunger is tied to 10,000 child deaths each month. From these perspectives, the arguments against human challenge trials appear far less convincing.[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation's newsletter.]We believe that the decision to allow human challenge trials for COVID-19 should not be examined solely through the narrow lens of medical ethics – with its cardinal principal of doing no harm to the individual patient or the volunteer. The COVID-19 epidemic is a global disaster, and decisions concerning it should be made with the wider perspectives of public health and general morality. In other words, the decision may be more suitable for high level policymakers than for medical ethics committees.In April, some American lawmakers did weigh in: 35 members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to the heads of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services, voicing support for human challenge trials. So far, however, this effort has had no effect.There is no doubt that human challenge trials carry significant risks for volunteers; but they also carry the chance of significant benefits for humanity. Instead of regarding these volunteers as uninformed, society may do better to valorize their altruism and heroism. We believe that, given present circumstances, human challenge trials for COVID-19 are not morally wrong: To the contrary, they express humanity's most noble values.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.Read more: * Russia's coronavirus vaccine hasn't been fully tested. Doling it out risks side effects and false protection * Coronavirus: what will happen if we can't produce a vaccine?The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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| Trump's Policies Are a Boon to the Super Rich. So Where Are All the Seven-Figure Checks? Posted: 17 Aug 2020 05:23 AM PDT  Timothy Mellon, reclusive heir to a Pittsburgh banking fortune, was such an unknown figure among Republican operatives that they needed to Google his name when he reached out in 2018, unexpectedly, to offer his help in the midterm elections.The staff of the Congressional Leadership Fund quickly discovered this was no middling donor: Mellon planned to give $10 million -- with the suggestion that he wanted to contribute more to the party at a later date, according to two people with knowledge of the exchanges.This April, Mellon gave another $10 million, this time to President Donald Trump's super PAC, America First Action, the only Trump-endorsed fundraising group permitted to collect unlimited contributions. The donation instantly transformed Mellon, a septuagenarian investor who would sometimes communicate by fax, into the president's biggest political benefactor of 2020.Mellon's millions would be a big deal in any cycle, but the gift was especially welcome for this incumbent this year. The fact that an outsider like Mellon has emerged as one of the few supporters willing to be so generous illustrates a surprising problem for the president: his struggle to attract and retain a reliable stable of millionaires and billionaires willing to write seven-figure checks, despite his takeover of the Republican Party and a policy agenda that largely serves the interests of America's ultrawealthy.Trump is hardly lacking for cash; he has received huge numbers of small donations online from a fervent grassroots base, and he raised a jaw-dropping $165 million in July for his campaign and the two fundraising committees that he shares with the Republican National Committee. The Trump Victory fund, one of those committees, has also collected respectable sums through donations that cannot exceed $580,600 -- as opposed to super PACs, which are vessels for unlimited contributions.But the president's sagging popularity, driven by his erratic and divisive behavior during the coronavirus crisis, has prompted some of the wealthiest Republicans -- the heavy artillery of modern politics -- to delay, divert or diminish their giving, just as Joe Biden has begun to tap a rich vein of Wall Street and Silicon Valley support, party operatives and donors said in interviews.Thus far, only six of the top 38 donors to Trump-related super PACs in 2016 and 2018 have contributed to America First for the president's reelection, according to a New York Times analysis of federal campaign finance data.In 2016, that group -- donors giving at least $500,000 -- shelled out a total of $71 million to four major Trump-backing super PACs, which America First was created to replace during the 2020 cycle. In contrast, with less than three months to go until the 2020 election, America First has raised only about $35 million from donors offering $500,000 or more.Many of the biggest checks to Trump came in the last few weeks of the 2016 campaign, and allies are hoping that history repeats itself.America First had, however, raised a total of just $45 million as of July 1, with 40% of that coming from three people: Mellon; Linda McMahon, the former pro wrestling executive who runs America First; and Geoffrey Palmer, a polo-playing, Beverly Hills, California, based real estate magnate.In June 2019, McMahon predicted that the PAC and its sister nonprofit, America First Policies, would raise about $300 million for the reelection cycle. As of last month, the two groups had raised about a third of that, roughly $107 million, according to a spreadsheet of their finances provided by a party official.The campaign faces significant headwinds going into its last few, furious months. In recent weeks, prospective contributors to America First, and Trump's joint-fundraising committees with the Republican Party, have responded to solicitations by expressing concern that the president has not articulated a clear vision for the next four years, according to interviews with donors and people close to Trump and his fundraising efforts.While many in Trump's orbit have been encouraged by an uptick in internal polling recently -- and see Biden as a weak Democratic nominee -- some of the party's top donors remain skeptical about their own candidate's prospects.In a move that speaks to that uneasiness, some of them -- including Trump's top 2016 contributor, Sheldon Adelson -- have begun discussing the possibility of putting their cash into other fundraising groups, ones not blessed by Trump or run by his team. The motive would be to promote a broader, more positive Republican message on the economy to offset the Trump campaign's focus on negative, anti-Biden attacks, according to two people with direct knowledge of those discussions.Some prominent donors have held back or have drastically decreased their support of the president while putting significant sums toward down-ballot races. Indeed, the PAC's problems stand in contrast to the Republican Party's Senate fundraising groups, which have been attracting a historic crop of big contributors hoping to hold onto the Senate even if Trump loses.Trump's two top 2016 benefactors, Adelson, a casino mogul, and his wife, Miriam, who gave a combined $20 million four years ago to a pro-Trump super PAC, have told party officials they are concerned about the optics of funding political campaigns at a time when their employees are facing financial hardship. Nonetheless, they recently uncorked a $25 million contribution to Senate Republicans. That donation prompted Trump to chastise Adelson when an aide slipped a news article about it onto his desk, according to party officials.Few of Trump's erstwhile donors have openly criticized him. But even those who have continued to give large amounts this cycle appear unhappy with aspects of his performance."Obviously, Trump, you wish sometimes he would just shut up -- don't go there, it's not necessary," said Liz Uihlein, a shipping supply company executive who, together with her husband, Richard, has donated nearly $3 million to America First in the 2020 cycle, after giving roughly a 10th of that in 2016 and 2018 to Trump-related super PACs.She said she had faced blowback for her support, including customers who have threatened to take their business elsewhere. "But I've got a thick skin," Uihlein said. "I just try to do the best for our company and our family."Big-Money Comings and GoingsTim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said the president's overhaul take, about $1.1 billion, gave him "all the resources he needs" to beat Biden.McMahon, a family friend who Trump appointed as head of the Small Business Administration, rejected suggestions that his unpopularity was driving away major money."No one could have anticipated the economic shock to our economy this spring due to the coronavirus, so of course that impacted our fundraising numbers," she wrote in an email. "We didn't push donors in May, but we began moving forward in June. Every day we are on the phone with donors and prospects."Some of the slack is being picked up by new supporters, or contributors like the Uihleins, who have increased their giving in 2020. Ten individuals and families who did not give significant amounts to pro-Trump super PACs in 2016 or 2018 have given at least half a million dollars to America First in the 2020 cycle.Among the best-known newcomers is Stephen Schwarzman, chief executive of investment firm Blackstone, who gave $3 million to America First early this year.Schwarzman, who has also given $10 million to the Republicans' Senate fund, has praised Trump's efforts to reduce federal regulations, while acknowledging, gingerly, his concerns with the president's style."He appears to be quite aggressive," Schwarzman said in January, the week before he made his contribution, adding that Trump's negotiating style was sometimes "quite difficult to watch."Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., and her husband, Jeffrey C. Sprecher, chair of the New York Stock Exchange, did not give to Trump's super PACs in 2016. But this year, as Loeffler's tough battle against fellow Republican Rep. Doug Collins intensified, Sprecher sent $1 million to America First, a contribution that Loeffler's aides say was not tied to her push for an endorsement. (Trump has stayed neutral.)Trump has filled his administration with wealthy individuals, and a number have become major donors to America First in the 2020 cycle.They include Trump's ambassador to Britain, Robert Wood Johnson IV, who has given $1 million to the PAC after contributing nothing last cycle, and Kelly Craft, Trump's ambassador to the United Nations. Craft and her husband, Joseph W. Craft III, a billionaire coal executive, gave $750,000 to a super PAC that supported Trump in 2016, and $500,000 to America First in March.Several of Trump's recent donors, including Joseph Craft, have direct ties to the energy industry, including coal. In 2017, the administration tried to subsidize the stockpiling of coal at energy plants, and it has subsequently taken various steps to weaken Obama-era restrictions on coal plant emissions.But other businesspeople who have said their economic priorities align with the administration's have so far limited the money they have put toward Trump's reelection.Diane Hendricks, who runs a building supply business in Wisconsin and has served as an economic policy adviser to the president, gave $8.1 million to a super PAC supporting Trump in 2016, but she has given nothing so far to America First this cycle, according to federal election filings.An Angel Investor EmergesMellon's outsize gift has made him stand out, but so has his biography, and the fact that his donation has established him as an angel investor of sorts in Trump's version of the Republican Party.A self-described former liberal, he had little history of multimillion-dollar political contributions before pouring more than $40 million into Republican groups since 2018.Seeking fewer people and lower taxes, he moved to Wyoming from Connecticut 15 years ago, as he detailed in a self-published autobiography in 2015. He made a splash in 2010 by giving $1.5 million to the legal defense of Arizona's strict immigration law, which was later partly struck down by the Supreme Court.Mellon, the grandson of Andrew Mellon, Treasury secretary in the 1920s and early 1930s who made a fortune in banking, has shown an interest in reviving embattled legacy brands, having attempted to pull Pan American World Airways out of bankruptcy in the 1990s.His book also revealed his views on race. In it, he wrote that in the mid-1980s "Black people" had become "even more belligerent and unwilling to pitch in to improve their own situations."He wrote that, decades later, he considered some Americans "slaves of a new master, Uncle Sam," for their reliance on federal aid. And his 2010 donation to Arizona's legal defense, unmentioned in the memoir, signaled his support of the restrictive immigration policies for which the future President Trump would go on to fight.When a reporter with a Hispanic surname first reached out to Mellon, he responded with two text messages written in Spanish, though the queries had been made in English.In one, he invoked the slogan of Goya, the Latin foods company whose chief executive's support of Trump set off a boycott among some consumers.Unprompted, he wrote: "¡Si es Goya, tiene que ser bueno!"This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Splintered militants rejoin Pakistani Taliban, vow holy war Posted: 17 Aug 2020 05:08 AM PDT |
| Global Aquatic Herbicides Industry Posted: 17 Aug 2020 04:52 AM PDT |
| Global Aramid Fibers Industry Posted: 17 Aug 2020 04:32 AM PDT |
| German minister in Tripoli to press for end to Libyan war Posted: 17 Aug 2020 04:28 AM PDT |
| Belarus President Sends SOS to Putin, Tells Protesters: You’ll Have to Kill Me to Get New Elections Posted: 17 Aug 2020 03:45 AM PDT  This doesn't sound like a man who's going to go quietly. Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko warned protesters Monday that he will not give in to their demands for a new presidential election—unless they assassinate him.Tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered in the capital city of Minsk over the weekend to protest against the disputed elections held earlier this month. Protesters have been infuriated by alleged poll-rigging and police violence at the ensuing protests, but Lukashenko has defied any suggestion that the vote could be re-run."We held elections already. Until you kill me, there will be no other elections," he was quoted by Belarusian media as saying during a visit to a tractor plant Monday morning. "You should never expect me to do something under pressure... They [new elections] won't happen."Lukashenko did appear to suggest that he would consider some kind of constitutional reform or even power-sharing but insisted his hand would not be forced by the protests. The man known as Europe's last dictator also reportedly told the workers that protesters had been tortured over the past week because they had attacked police. As the president spoke to what he must have thought would be a friendly audience, the workers chanted "Leave," and heckled him. Lukashenko, in the midst of an unprecedented public humiliation, eventually told the crowd he had finished and they could now shout, as he turned and stormed off stage.Lukashenko, Putin's Dictatorship Mentor, Moves to Crush the OppositionLukashenko's incendiary comments came after reports over the weekend that he had appealed to Vladimir Putin for help in saving his 26-year presidency. In calls to the Kremlin on Saturday and Sunday, he reportedly begged for assurance that Russia would help out with military assistance against unspecified external threats.The Kremlin later confirmed that Moscow would help in line with its collective military pact. However, Putin has not yet publicly backed Lukashenko, as the Russian president apparently waits to see how the protests and labor strikes play out this week and whether Lukashenko's position becomes completely untenable.Kremlin-watchers believe Lukashenko remaining in power but in a diminished capacity is Putin's favored outcome.The protests are showing no signs of slowing down. On Monday, state television staff walked out in protest against censorship and the election results. A bizarre state TV broadcast that went out early Monday morning showed nothing but empty news desks.The main challenger in the disputed presidential election released a new video Monday morning to say that she was prepared to take over the country's leadership after the wave of protests.Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who left for Lithuania after she publicly denounced the contested election results, only stood for election after other candidates, including her husband, were jailed.She reportedly said, "I did not want to be a politician. But fate decreed that I'd find myself on the frontline of a confrontation against arbitrary rule and injustice... I am ready to take responsibility and act as a national leader during this period."Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Coronavirus: How fast is it spreading in Africa? Posted: 17 Aug 2020 03:34 AM PDT  The rate of increase in cases may be slowing down, but do we know the true scale of the outbreak in Africa?
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| Global Aromatherapy Industry Posted: 17 Aug 2020 03:32 AM PDT |
| Sharp rise in virus cases in Lebanon after deadly port blast Posted: 17 Aug 2020 03:30 AM PDT  Lebanon is facing a surge in coronavirus cases after a devastating blast at the Beirut port earlier this month killed scores and wounded thousands, prompting medical officials on Monday to call for a two-week lockdown to try to contain the pandemic. The blast overwhelmed the city's hospitals and also badly damaged two that had a key role in handling virus cases. Medical officials had warned of the dangers of crowding at hospitals in the aftermath of the explosion, at funerals, or as people searched through the rubble.
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| Worldwide Nutritional Bar Industry to 2025 - Featuring General Mills, Halo Foods & Kellogg Among Others Posted: 17 Aug 2020 03:28 AM PDT |
| Syria says U.S. forces clash with Syrian troops, killing 1 Posted: 17 Aug 2020 03:18 AM PDT |
| Worldwide Pizza Crust Industry to 2025 - Featuring Rizzuto Foods, Monte Pizza Crust & B&G Foods Among Others Posted: 17 Aug 2020 03:18 AM PDT |
