01-03-2021 The Asian Independent

www.theasianindependent.co.uk
NEWS
01-03-2021 to 15-03-2021
5
Afghanistan marks National
Day of Armed Forces
London : British Queen
Elizabeth II on Friday urged those
who are hesitant to take the coronavirus
vaccine jab to "think about
other people".
The Queen, 94, who had the jab
in January, made the remarks during
a video call with health leaders
delivering the coronavirus vaccine
across Britain, the Xinhua news
agency reported.
"Once you've had the vaccine you
have a feeling of, you know, you're
protected, which is, I think, very
important," she said.
"As far as I could make out it was
quite harmless. It was very quick,
and I've had lots of letters from people
who have been very surprised by
how easy it was to get the vaccine.
And the jab -- it didn't hurt at all,"
she added.
The Queen's remarks came after
research showed that certain communities
in Britain, especially some
black and ethnic minority groups,
Kabul : Afghanistan on Saturday
marked the National Day of Armed Forces
as the security forces continued fighting a
Taliban-led insurgency, the state-run TV
channel reported.
"The National Day of Armed Forces is
the greatest day, it is the greatest honor for
people of Afghanistan and the state government
to celebrate this great day,"
Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf
Ghani told a ceremony held at country's
Defence Ministry and broadcasted live in
Radio Television of Afghanistan (RTA).
"Your morale is unique. You are the real
guardians of Afghanistan's Constitution
and you are the guardians of this land, the
British Queen urges
vaccine doubters to
think about others
reportedly remain hesitant to take
the vaccine.
"I think the other thing is, that it is
obviously difficult for people if
they've never had a vaccine... But
they ought to think about other people
rather than themselves," she said.
Another 9,985 people in Britain
have tested positive for Covid-19,
bringing the total number of coronavirus
cases in the country to
4,154,562, according to official figures
released Thursday.
The country also reported another
323 coronavirus-related deaths. The
total number of coronavirus-related
deaths in Britain stood at 122,070.
These figures only include the
deaths of people who died within 28
days of their first positive test.
The latest figures were revealed
as more than 18.6 million people in
Britain have been given the first jab
of the coronavirus vaccine.
England is currently under the
third national lockdown since outbreak
of the pandemic in the country.
Similar restriction measures are
also in place in Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland.
On Monday, British Prime
Minister Boris Johnson announced
his long-anticipated "roadmap" exiting
the lockdown.
Schools in England will reopen
from March 8 as first part of the
four-step plan, which Johnson said
was designed to be "cautious but
irreversible". Johnson said he is
"very optimistic" that all coronavirus
restrictions in England will be
removed by June 21. To bring life
back to normal, countries such as
Britain, China, Germany, Russia and
the United States have been racing
against time to roll out coronavirus
vaccines.
great nation of Afghanistan stands behind
you," Ghani said.
Earlier in the day, Ghani laid a wreath at
a minaret inside the ministry's compound
after inspecting guards of honour to pay
tribute to security forces who have sacrificed
their lives for peace and security,
Xinhua reported.
The Afghan National Defence and
Security Forces (ANDSF) has been continuing
cleanup operations across
Afghanistan in recent months as daily violence
and clashes remain in the country.
The ANDSF remains in control of most
of the Afghanistan's population centres and
all the 34 provincial capitals, but the
Taliban insurgents control large portions of
rural areas, staging coordinated large-scale
attacks against Afghan cities and districts
from time to time.
Eligible military officers and soldiers
received awards and medals from the
President and other high-ranking officials
during the ceremony.
Singapore's manufacturing output
surges 8.6% on year in Jan
Singapore : The Singapore Economic Development Board
(EDB) announced on Friday that the country's manufacturing output
increased 8.6 per cent year on year in January 2021, compared
to the 16.2 per cent increase last December.
Excluding biomedical manufacturing, the output grew 12.1 per
cent year on year in January, the Xinhua news reported.
As for the performance of different clusters, the electronics
cluster's output grew 19.8 per cent year on year in January, while
the biomedical manufacturing cluster saw its output fall 8.6 per
cent, the chemicals cluster's output grew 9 per cent, the precision
engineering cluster's output grew 15.3 per cent, the transport engineering
cluster's output decreased 19 per cent, and the general
manufacturing cluster's output expanded 3.3 per cent.
'The Code Breaker'
is an uplifting tale
in TRYING TIMES
New Delhi : In these days of the
digital coding will be joined
coronavirus pandemic, Walter
by those who study genetic
Isaacson, the bestselling author of
"Leonardo da Vinci" and "Steve
Jobs", returns with "The Code
Breaker" (Simon & Schuster), a
gripping account of how Nobel
Prize winner Jennifer Doudna and
code.
Should we use our new evolution-hacking
powers to make
us less susceptible to viruses?
What a wonderful boon that
would be! And what about preventing
her colleagues launched a revolution
depression?
that will allow us to cure diseases,
fend off viruses, and have
healthier babies.
When Jennifer Doudna was in
sixth grade, she came home one
day to find that her dad had left a
paperback titled "The Double
Helix" on her bed. She put it aside,
Hmmm�Should we allow
parents, if they can afford it, to
enhance the height or muscles
or IQ of their kids?
After helping to discover
CRISPR, Doudna became a
leader in wrestling with these
moral issues and, with her collaborator
thinking it was one of those detective
Emmanuelle
tales she loved. When she read
it on a rainy Saturday, she discovered
she was right, in a way. As she
sped through the pages, she
became enthralled by the intense
drama behind the competition to
discover the code of life. Even
though her high school counsellor
told her girls didn't become scientists,
she decided she would.
Driven by a passion to understand
how nature works and to turn
discoveries into inventions, she
would help to make what the
book's author, James Watson, told her
was the most important biological
advance since his co-discovery of the
structure of DNA. She and her collaborators
turned a curiosity of nature into
an invention that will transform the
human race: an easy-to-use tool that can
edit DNA. Known as CRISPR (clustered
world of medical miracles and moral
questions.
The development of CRISPR and the
race to create vaccines for coronavirus
will hasten our transition to the next
great innovation revolution. The past
half-century has been a digital age,
based on the microchip, computer, and
Charpentier, won the Nobel
Prize in 2020. Her story is a
thrilling detective tale that
involves the most profound
wonders of nature, from the
origins of life to the future of
our species.
New Scientist has described
the book as "a gripping tale,
showing how our new ability
to hack evolution will soon
start throwing us curveballs."
Walter Isaacson, a professor
of history at Tulane University
in New Orleans, has been CEO of the
Aspen Institute, chair of CNN, and editor
of Time. He other books include
"The Innovators" "Einstein: His Life
and Universe", "Benjamin Franklin: An
American Life", and "Kissinger: A
Biography", and the co-author of "The
Wise Men: Six Friends and the World
regularly interspaced short palin-
internet. Now we are entering a life-sci-
They Made". Visit him at
dromic repeats), it opened a brave new ence revolution. Children who study Isaacson.Tulane.edu.