KINSHASA, 06 January 2021, (TON): At least 22 civilians have been killed in a rebel attack on a village in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), according to local officials.

The violence in Mwenda village of the Beni territory was perpetrated by the Ugandan rebel group Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), Donat Kibwana, the administrator of the Beni territory, told Anadolu news agency.

“ADF rebels attacked the village of Mwenda on Monday about 19:00 GMT, killing 22 civilians with machetes,” Kibwana said, adding the death toll is provisional.

Local leaders Ruwenzori Bozy Sindiwako and Iteni Muvunga Kimwele said on Tuesday the rebels used machetes and bladed weapons to carry out the massacre and systematically loot the settlement.

Fulbert Kasairo, a local official, said a dozen other villagers were also kidnapped by the attackers in order to transport stolen goods to other localities.

“Our region is a powder keg, a cemetery. We live in a dying house while the authorities are disinterested,” Kasairo said.

The army intervened too late to push back the rebels, Bozy Sindiwako and Muvunga Kimwele said.

“These repeated killings … are causing massive displacements of the population of this sector towards secure [areas], including, in particular, the city of Beni,” Bozy Sindiwako said.

“At the moment, the whole village is crying, my constituents are killed, it sickens me,” Muvunga Kimwele said.

Lieutenant Antony Mwalushayi of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) confirmed the attack without giving details.

The ADF, which originated in Uganda’s northeast in the 1990s, has been attacking and killing civilians in eastern DRC for decades. The illicit exploitation of natural resources continues to be a root cause and driver of conflict in the east of the country, according to the UN.

JAKARTA, 6 January, 2021, (TON): Indonesia’s highest Muslim clerical council hopes to issue a ruling on whether a COVID-19 vaccine is halal, or permissible under Islam, before the country is due to start a mass inoculation programme using a Chinese vaccine next week.

Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation is planning to launch vaccinations on January 13 after obtaining 3 million doses from China’s Sinovac Biotech.

 “Hopefully the edict can be declared before the government starts its vaccination program,” said Muti Arintawati, an official at MUI in charge of analysing food and drugs to assess whether they are halal.

She said data was still being gathered before MUI could make a final edict.

 Asked about the risk of public resistance, a health ministry official said the government would wait to see how MUI handled the issue.

In a bid to boost acceptance, President Joko Widodo has said he will be the first to receive a vaccine shot next week.

Dicky Budiman, a researcher at Australia’s Griffith University, said authorities needed to be transparent on the halal certification to reassure the public.

The New York Times reported that Sinovac told Indonesia’s state-owned drugmaker Bio Farma that the vaccines were “manufactured free of porcine materials.”

Bambang Heriyanto, Bio Farma’s corporate secretary, confirmed receiving the statement, but said the halal status was decided by MUI. Sinovac did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ahmad Ishomuddin, an official at Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s biggest mainstream Muslim organisation, said emergency vaccines that were not halal could be used if there were no other options.

Indonesia is struggling with the worst COVID-19 outbreak in Southeast Asia and authorities are relying on a vaccine to help alleviate dual health and economic crises ravaging the country.

Earlier in 2018 Indonesia's top Islamic body issued fatwa against measles vaccine, calling it 'religiously forbidden'.

The Shariah (Islamic law) prohibited Muslim to consume any products containing Pork. Porcine gelatin is widely used in vaccine production, raising questions about whether the medicines are halal, or allowed under Islamic law.

NEW DELHI, 06 January 2021, (TON): Criticism of India's approval of a local COVID-19 vaccine without proof of its efficacy grew on Wednesday after news that a regulatory panel approved the shot just one day after asking the vaccine maker for more evidence on its work.

The recommendations of the Indian drugs regulator's subject expert committee (SEC) released on Tuesday show that the panel asked Bharat Biotech International Ltd to present more efficacy data for its COVID-19 shot before it could consider approving the treatment.

"After detailed deliberation, the committee recommended that the firm ... may perform interim efficacy analysis for further consideration of restricted emergency use approval," the SEC's recommendations on a 01 January meeting show.

The very next day, the committee recommended approving Bharat Biotech's vaccine for "restricted use in emergency situation in public interest as an abundant precaution."

The SEC also separately recommended emergency use authorisation for the Oxford University/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, being produced by India's Serum Institute.

The greenlighting of Bharat Biotech's COVAXIN had already faced criticism from opposition lawmakers and health experts for lack of efficacy data, typically obtained from a large, Phase III human trial - which the manufacturer is still conducting.

News of the SEC's recommendations spurred further criticism.

"Was the Subject Expert Committee (SEC) approval a command performance? This is as serious as it can get," Manish Tewari, an opposition lawmaker, said on Twitter.

Health experts questioned SEC abrupt recommendation of approval only one day after asking Bharat Biotech for more analysis.

"The SEC ... appears to have been pressured overnight into reconsidering its decision and giving approval the next day, albeit hedged in by many conditions," the All India People's Science Network, a network of science advocacy groups, said in a statement.

"We are perplexed at the abrupt change in thinking of the SEC from the first two meetings to the third day on which the approval was recommended while apparently discounting the need for efficacy data as the condition of the approval," the All India Drug Action Network, a nonprofit health watchdog, said.

Both Bharat Biotech and government officials have pointed to regulatory provisions that allow for quick drug approval for serious diseases even without Phase III trial data.

"They've introduced terminologies that are confusing," said Giridhar Babu, a professor of epidemiology at the Public Health Foundation of India. "The phrase 'in clinical trial mode' is not generally a term you will see in approvals."

Any confusion around vaccines could harm immunisation programmes by causing distrust, Babu said. "It takes decades of work to build confidence in vaccines."

JEDDAH, 6 January, 2021, (TON): The Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC) of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has strongly condemned the prolonged illegal detention of Kashmiri Hurriyat leader, Aasiya Andrabi, and her two associates in an Indian jail.

The IPHRC in a statement issued in Jeddah said the charges, based on India’s controversial Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), were “concocted” and “baseless.”

The IPHRC said that despite her advancing age, deteriorating health condition and the threat of coronavirus, Andrabi is being held on fabricated charges and denied due process. It said the situation was deeply concerning.

The IPHRC urged the UN, OIC member states and the international human rights organizations to demand the immediate release of Aasiya Andrabi, her associates and the commission reiterated its strong concerns over growing incidents of illegal detention of human rights and political activists, and members of civil society and media by the Indian security forces.

The body said “draconian” laws such as the Armed Special Forces Power Act (AFSPA), Public Safety Act (PSA) and the UAPA form the basis of many of the detentions.

It also called upon the UN to repeal its afore-mentioned discriminatory laws, which are incompatible with human rights standards and restore all fundamental freedoms of Kashmiris.

Andrabi is the founder of one of the most influential women rights organizations in held Kashmir and is widely respected as a voice of reason with concrete contribution towards women empowerment in held Kashmir.

NIA court orders framing of charges against Asiya Andrabi and her two associates. Andrabi and her associates are being held without access to free and fair trial and subjected to physical and psychological torture and denied critical medical care endangering their lives in contravention of the international human rights and humanitarian laws.

 BEIJING, 06 January 2021, (TON): China said on Wednesday it would take necessary measures to safeguard the legitimate rights of companies after Washington signed an order banning US transactions with eight Chinese apps.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying was speaking at a regular news briefing.

Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order banning transactions with eight Chinese software applications, including Ant Group’s Alipay mobile payment app, the White House said, escalating tensions with Beijing two weeks before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

Tensions between the two countries have been escalated since early last year when both countries started sanctioning each other entities and officials in retaliation.

ADDIS ABABA, 6 January, 2021, (TON): The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on Tuesday said it has relocated the first batch of Ethiopian refugees fleeing the violence in Ethiopia's Tigray region to a new site in Sudan.

“The UN Refugee Agency, continues to register new refugee arrivals at the Sudanese-Ethiopian border. Some 800 people crossed from Ethiopia’s Tigray region into eastern Sudan in just the first few days of the New Year” said a statement by the agency.

Since early November, more than 56,000 Ethiopian refugees have fled to neighbouring Sudan, it added.

"Refugees are arriving with little more than the clothes on their backs, fatigued and in weak conditions after days of travel. More than 30 percent of them are estimated to be under 18 and 5 percent over 60 years old," it said.

“In support of the government-led response in Sudan, UNHCR and Sudan’s Commission for Refugees (COR) continue to relocate the refugees from the arrival locations at the border to the designated refugee camps, further inland in Sudan’s Gedaref State” it said.

With the Um Rakuba refugee camp almost at full capacity, the UN agency and its partners "are striving to swiftly relocate refugees from reception sites at the border to a second, newly opened refugee camp, Tunaydbah, in order to keep refugees safe and offer them better living conditions."

The new site is located some 136 km from Gedaref town. Since Sunday, 580 refugees have been relocated to Tunaydbah from Village 8 reception site, with relocations from Hamdayet reception site set to start also this week, said the UN body.

Total of 1,000 tents, aimed at sheltering up to 5,000 people, have so far been set up by partners.

More than 56,000 Ethiopian refugees have fled Tigray into eastern Sudan since early November, according to the latest figures from the UN refugee agency.

UNHCR, COR, and partners are scaling up their response to meet the needs of the increasing refugee population in all locations. Currently, more than 20 humanitarian partners are on the ground in Um Rakuba and another six are starting their activities in Tunaydbah.

The UN agency said by the end of 2020, US$40 million has been pledged to UNHCR for the regional response to the emergency in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, which covers only 37 per cent of the financial requirements in Sudan, Ethiopia, and Djibouti.

 WASHINGTON, 06 January 2021, (TON): A US lawmaker moved a bill in US congress in a bid to strip Pakistan of its status as a major non-Nato ally of US.

Reportedly, there was no indication the bill will have momentum before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The mover, Congressman Andy Biggs, although a prominent Republican from Arizona, is not a member of the committee.

But the relations did show some signs of improvement during the last two years of the outgoing administration when it initiated a peace process with the Afghan Taliban with Pakistan’s help. The process led to a peace agreement between the United States and the Taliban but could not achieve the desired results of a complete troop-withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The incoming Biden administration also wants to reduce America’s military footprints in Afghanistan. And foreign policy experts in Washington say that the new administration may not want to start its tenure with a major rupture with Pakistan, as it could further complicate peace efforts in Afghanistan.

The bill will need support from President-elect Joe Biden’s Democratic Party to pass as Democrats are a majority in the House of Representatives.

Meanwhile, another report from US say the bill introduced on Sunday, the first day of the 117th Congress, “drew little US media notice but triggered headlines in India, which … has long been critical of US-Pakistan relations.”

NEW YORK, 6 January, 2021, (TON): UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday welcomed the declaration on "solidarity and stability" announced at the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit held in Saudi Arabia, said his deputy spokesman.

Farhan Haq said in a statement that “The declaration recognizes the importance of unity among the GCC states and aims to strengthen regional security, peace, stability and prosperity. Guterres also welcomes yesterday’s announcement on opening the airspace, land and sea borders between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt and the State of Qatar.”

“The Secretary-General expresses his gratitude to those from the region and beyond, including the late Emir of Kuwait and late Sultan of Oman, who worked tirelessly towards resolving the Gulf rift. He trusts that all countries concerned will continue to act in a positive spirit to strengthen their relations” said the statement.

In June 2017, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt imposed a land, air and sea blockade on Qatar against its alleged support for terrorism, Qatar vehemently denied the allegations.

Gulf leaders signed a “solidarity and stability” agreement towards ending the diplomatic rift with Qatar on Tuesday at the Gulf Arab leader’s annual summit in Saudi Arabia.

JOHANNESBURG, 6 January, 2021, (TON): South Africa's economy is expected to expand by 3.3 percent in 2021, said the World Bank in a report released on Tuesday.

In the latest Global Economic Prospects, the World Bank said South Africa's growth is expected to rebound to 3.3 percent in 2021, 0.7 percentage point below previous forecasts before softening to a near potential pace of 1.7 percent in 2022.

"With economic activity in South Africa already on a weak footing before the pandemic hit, output is expected to have fallen 7.8 percent last year," said the report. "The country suffered the most severe COVID-19 outbreak in Sub-Saharan Africa, which prompted strict lockdown measures and brought the economy to a standstill."

The report said that growth in the region is forecast to rebound moderately to 2.7% in 2021. While the recovery in private consumption and investment is forecast to be slower than previously envisioned, export growth is expected to accelerate gradually, in line with the rebound in activity among major trading partners.

The pandemic caused an estimated 6.1 percent fall in per capita income last year and is expected to lead to a further 0.2 percent decline in 2021, it said.

The decline in per capita income is expected to set average living standards back by a decade or more in a quarter of Sub-Saharan African economies, "with even more severe setbacks in South Africa," said the report.

Government debt in the region has increased sharply to an estimated 70% of GDP last year, elevating concerns about debt sustainability in some economies. Banks may face sharp increases in non-performing loans as companies struggle to service their debt due to falling revenues.

WASHINGTON, 06 January 2021, (TON): US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order banning transactions with eight Chinese software applications, including Ant Group’s Alipay, the White House said.

Trump’s executive order tasks the Department of Commerce with defining which transactions will be banned under the directive and targets Tencent Holdings Ltd’s QQ Wallet and WeChat Pay as well as Alipay.

The move is aimed at curbing the threat to Americans posed by Chinese software applications, which have large user bases and access to sensitive data, a senior official told media.

A US-based Tencent spokeswoman did not immediately comment.

The order signed by Trump also names CamScanner, SHAREit, Tencent QQ, VMate and WPS Office. It says, “The United States must take aggressive action against those who develop or control Chinese connected software applications to protect our national security.”

Trump’s order says, “by accessing personal electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, and computers, Chinese connected software applications can access and capture vast swaths of information from users, including sensitive personally identifiable information and private information”.

It added the data collection “would permit China to track the locations of federal employees and contractors, and build dossiers of personal information”.

Meanwhile, the Chinese embassy in Washington, DC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.