COVID-19 treatment: Her voice important – Trump hails Stella Immanuel [Video]

United States President, Donald Trump, has hailed a Nigerian-born doctor in America, Stella Immanuel, for her stance on COVID-19 treatment.

Trump’s commendation was sequel to her insistence that coronavirus has a cure.

At a news conference in Washington D.C., Immanuel insisted that three drugs were effective against the virus.

The physician listed them as, Hydroxychloroquine, Zinc, and Zithromax.

Trump had shared a footage of Immanuel addressing the media.

But the video, already viewed by millions worldwide via different platforms, was taken down by Twitter.

 

Other social media majors, YouTube and Facebook did the same.

The deletion sparked a fresh debate about the purported conspiracy of the pandemic and if COVID-19 truly has a cure.

Trump’s critics have launched attacks on Immanuel, accusing her of misinformation.

But the American leader’s supporters insist that her comments should not be discarded, wondering why opponents were being pessimistic.

At a White House briefing on Tuesday, Trump answered a question about Immanuel and her claim.

“She was on air along with many other doctors. They were big fans of hydroxychloroquine”, the president said.

“I thought she was very impressive in the sense that from where she came, I don’t know which country she comes from, but she said that she’s had tremendous success with hundreds of different patients.”

Trump added: “I thought her voice was an important voice but ut I know nothing about her.”

As the reporter pressed further, Trump said: “Okay, thank you very much everybody, thank you”. He then walked out of left the room.

During her speech, Immanuel asserted that she successfully treated 350 patients with Hydroxychloroquine, Zinc and Zithromax.

Trump has been a strong advocate of the mixture, insisting it was the solution to coronavirus.

Medical experts disagree and opine that only a vaccine could guarantee a total cure.

Below are excerpts of Immanuel’s speech.

“Hello, I’m Dr Stella Emmanuel. I’m a primary care physician in Houston, Texas. I went to medical school in West Africa, Nigeria, where I took care of malaria patients, treated them with hydroxychloroquine and stuff like that. So I’m used to these medications.

“I’m here because I have personally treated over 350 patients with COVID-19. Patients that have diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, old people. I think my oldest patients are 92, 87-year-olds. And the result has been the same. I put them on hydroxychloroquine, I put them on zinc, I put them on Zithromax, and they’re all well.

 

“After taking care of over 350 patients, we’ve not lost one. And on top of that, I’ve put myself, my staff, and many doctors that I know on hydroxychloroquine for prevention because by the very mechanism of action, it works early and as a prophylaxis. The study that made me start using hydroxychloroquine was a study that they did under the NIH in 2005 that says it works.

“Recently, I was doing some research about a patient that had hiccups and I found out that they even did a recent study in the NIH, which is our National Institute of Health. I know you’re going to tell me that you treated 20 people, 40 people, and it didn’t work. I’m a true testimony. So I came here to Washington DC to tell America nobody needs to get sick.

“This virus has a cure. It is called hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and Zithromax. I know you people want to talk about a mask. Hello? You don’t need a mask. There is a cure.I tell all of you doctors that are sitting down and watching Americans die. You’re like the good Nazi, the good Germans that watched Jews get killed and you did not speak up.

“I’ve gotten all kinds of threats. Or they’re going to report me to the bots. I say, you know what? I don’t care. And if this is the hill where I get nailed on, I will get nailed on it. You can kill me, you can do whatever, but I’m not going to let Americans die. And today I’m here to say it, that America, there is a cure for COVID-19.” 

"I thought her voice was an important voice, but I know nothing about her," President Trump says of the video he retweeted where a woman claims masks don't work & there's a cure for Covid-19. Instead of explaining the contradiction given he's endorsed masks, Trump left the room. pic.twitter.com/k8jKdrI1oz

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) July 28, 2020

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Scientists Begin Quest To Recreate Sun’s Energy On Earth

 

A picture shows a general view of the assembly hall during the launch of the assembly stage of nuclear fusion machine “Tokamak” of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in Saint-Paul-les-Durance, southeastern France, on July 28, 2020. CLEMENT MAHOUDEAU / AFP

 

Fourteen years after receiving the official go-ahead, scientists on Tuesday began assembling a giant machine in southern France designed to demonstrate that nuclear fusion, the process which powers the sun, can be a safe and viable energy source on Earth.

The groundbreaking multinational experiment, known as ITER, has seen components arrive in the tiny commune of Saint-Paul-les-Durance from production sites worldwide in recent months.

They will now be painstakingly put together to complete what is described by ITER as the “world’s largest puzzle.”

The experimental plant’s goal is to demonstrate that fusion power can be generated sustainably, and safely, on a commercial scale, with initial experiments set to begin in December 2025.

Fusion powers the sun and other stars when light atomic nuclei fuse together to form heavier ones, releasing huge amounts of energy in doing so.

Director-General of the ITER organisation Bernard Bigot speaks in front of the lower cyclinder of the cryostat, which provides the high vacuum, ultra-cool environment for the vacuum vessel and the superconducting magnets during the launch of the assembly stage of nuclear fusion machine “Tokamak” of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in Saint-Paul-les-Durance, southeastern France, on July 28, 2020.  CLEMENT MAHOUDEAU / AFP

 

The challenge is to build a machine which can harness this energy which is meant to be held in place in the reactor vessel and controlled by an immensely strong magnetic field.

“With fusion, nuclear holds promise for the future,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a message broadcast to an event Tuesday to mark the official start of assembly.

As a technology, it promises “clean, no-carbon, safe and practically waste-free energy,” added the president, who has long advocated nuclear power in the global fight against climate change driven by the greenhouse gases produced from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.

South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in, for his part, hailed “the biggest international science project in human history,” which he said offered hope of a clean, safe energy source as soon as 2050.

Low-risk

The ITER project was launched in 2006 by 35 countries including the United States, Russia, China, Britain, Switzerland, India, Japan, South Korea, and the 27 members of the European Union.

“Fusion is safe, with minute amounts of fuel and no physical possibility of a run-away accident with meltdown” as with traditional nuclear power stations, the partners said in a statement.

Scientific attache of the South Korean Embassy Lee Eun-ju sits with other representatives of the ITER member states during the launch of the assembly stage of nuclear fusion machine “Tokamak” of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in Saint-Paul-les-Durance, southeastern France, on July 28, 2020. CLEMENT MAHOUDEAU / AFP

 

A further advantage: the fuel for fusion and lithium to help manage the reaction is found in seawater and is abundant enough to supply humanity for millions of years.

“A pineapple-sized amount of this fuel is the equivalent of 10,000 tonnes of coal,” the partners said.

ITER, the world’s largest experimental fusion facility, is meant to produce about 500 megawatts of thermal power, equivalent to some 200 megawatts of electric energy if operated continuously, enough to supply some 200,000 homes.

Its “Tokamak” nuclear fusion reactor will comprise about a million components in all, some like its hugely powerful superconducting magnets standing as high as a four-floor building and weighing 360 tonnes each.

“Three-dimensional puzzle”

Some 2,300 people are at work on-site to put the massive machine together.

“Constructing the machine piece by piece will be like assembling a three-dimensional puzzle on an intricate timeline,” said ITER’s director general Bernard Bigot.

“Every aspect of project management, systems engineering, risk management and logistics of the machine assembly must perform together with the precision of a Swiss watch,” he said, adding: “We have a complicated script to follow over the next few years.”

A picture shows the fully-assembled 10-metre-large poloidal field coil number 6 (PF6), assembled by China, in the winding facility for the construction of poloidal field coils which will be part of the magnetic system that will contribute to confine and model plasma during the launch of the assembly stage of nuclear fusion machine “Tokamak” of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in Saint-Paul-les-Durance, southeastern France, on July 28, 2020. CLEMENT MAHOUDEAU / AFP

 

Once finished, the reactor should be able to recreate the fusion processes that occur at the heart of stars at a temperature of some 150 million degrees Celsius, 10 times hotter than the sun

It could reach full power by 2035, but as an experimental project, it is not designed to produce electricity.

If the technology proves feasible, future fusion reactors would be capable of powering two million homes each at an operational cost comparable to those of conventional nuclear reactors, Bigot said.

Such “artificial suns,” however, are criticised by environmentalists as a cripplingly expensive scientific mirage.

The ITER project is running five years behind schedule and has seen its initial budget triple to some 20 billion euros ($23.4 billon).

 

 

AFP

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Egypt Female Tiktok Influencers Get Two-Year Jail Terms For ‘Indecency’

An Egyptian court Monday sentenced five female social media influencers to two years in jail each on charges of violating public morals, a judicial source said. 

 

In this file photo illustration taken on November 21, 2019, the logo of the social media video sharing app Tiktok is displayed on a tablet screen in Paris. –  (Photo by Lionel BONAVENTURE / AFP) / 

The verdict against Haneen Hossam, Mowada al-Adham and three others came after they had posted footage on video-sharing app TikTok.

“The Cairo economic court sentenced Hossam, Adham and three others to two years after they were convicted of violating society’s values,” the judicial source said.

 

A woman watches a video of influencer Mowada al-Adham, who was sentenced to two years in jail on charges of violation public morals, on the video-sharing app TikTok in Egypt’s capital Cairo on July 28, 2020.  (Photo by Khaled DESOUKI / AFP)

The ruling, which can be appealed, included a fine of 300,000 Egyptian pounds ($18,750) for each defendant, the source noted.

Hossam was arrested in April after posting a three-minute clip telling her 1.3 million followers that girls could make money by working with her.

In May, authorities arrested Adham who had posted satirical videos on TikTok and Instagram, where she has at least two million followers.

 

A woman watches a video of Egyptian influencer Haneen Hossam, who was sentenced to two years in jail on charges of violation public morals, on the video-sharing app TikTok in Egypt’s capital Cairo on July 28, 2020.  (Photo by Khaled DESOUKI / AFP)

Lawyer Ahmed Hamza al-Bahqiry said the young women are facing separate charges over the sources of their funds.

The arrests highlight a social divide in the deeply conservative Muslim country over what constitutes individual freedoms and “social norms”.

Human rights lawyer Tarek al-Awadi has previously told AFP that the influencers’ arrests showed how society was wrestling with the rapid rise of modern communications technology.

Internet penetration has reached over 40 percent of Egypt’s youthful population of more than 100 million.

– ‘Dangerous indicator’ –
“The verdict is shocking, though it was expected. We will see what happens on appeal,” said womens rights lawyer Intissar al-Saeed.

A woman watches a video of Egyptian influencer Haneen Hossam, who was sentenced to two years in jail on charges of violation public morals, on the video-sharing app TikTok in Egypt’s capital Cairo on July 28, 2020.  (Photo by Khaled DESOUKI / AFP)

 

“It is still a dangerous indicator… Regardless of the divergent views on the content presented by the girls on TikTok, it still is not a reason for imprisonment.”

Egypt has in recent years cracked down on female singers and dancers over online content deemed too racy or suggestive.

Last month, an Egyptian court sentenced belly dancer Sama al-Masry to three years in jail for inciting “debauchery” on social media over posts deemed sexually suggestive.

In 2018, a female singer was detained for “incitement to debauchery” after an online video clip that included sensual oriental dance moves went viral.

The previous year, a female pop singer was sentenced to two years in prison on similar charges, also over a video deemed provocative. Her sentence was reduced to a year on appeal.

 

A woman watches a video of influencer Mowada al-Adham, who was sentenced to two years in jail on charges of violation public morals, on the video-sharing app TikTok in Egypt’s capital Cairo on July 28, 2020. (Photo by Khaled DESOUKI / AFP)

“The charges of spreading debauchery or violating family values are very loose… and its definition is broad,” said Saeed.

Egypt has in recent years enforced strict internet controls through laws allowing authorities to block websites seen as a threat to national security and to monitor personal social media accounts with over 5,000 followers.

 

 

 

-AFP

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Women Flogged For Online Pimping In Indonesia

This file photo taken on December 10, 2019 shows the first female flogger preparing to whip a woman in public, in Banda Aceh, after she was caught in close proximity with a man who is not her husband in a hotel. Two Indonesian women have been publicly whipped nearly 100 times each for selling sex workers’ services online, an official in the country’s conservative Aceh province said Tuesday. (AFP/CHAIDEER MAHYUDDIN)

 

Two Indonesian women have been publicly whipped nearly 100 times each for selling sex workers’ services online, an official in the country’s conservative Aceh province said Tuesday.

Aceh, at the tip of Sumatra, is the only region in Muslim-majority Indonesia to impose Islamic sharia law, which allows flogging for a range of offences including prostitution, gambling, adultery, drinking alcohol, and gay sex.

The punishment was handed down Monday in Langsa city where dozens gathered to watch the pair get lashed, despite bans on crowds over coronavirus fears.

Neither of the women wore disposable face masks, unlike in some other recent whippings.

The two hijab-wearing suspects were arrested in March along with five sex workers, who could also face a flogging if found guilty of violating Islamic law, said Aji Asmanuddin, head of Langsa’s Islamic sharia agency.

“They were punished for violating sharia by advertising (sex) through the internet,” Asmanuddin said.

Officials were struggling to crack down on the area’s booming online sex trade, he added.

“This is the first (pimping) case in Langsa although we believe there are many of them out there,” Asmanuddin said.

“We just don’t have the necessary tools to monitor them online.”

Rights groups have slammed public caning as cruel, and Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo has called for it to end.

But the practice has wide support among Aceh’s mostly Muslim population.

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China takes over closed US consulate in Chengdu

 

The American flag was lowered at the US consulate in China's Chengdu city on Monday and Chinese authorities entered the building, as Beijing carried out a Cold War-style retaliatory closure of the mission.

 

Earlier in the morning state broadcaster, CCTV showed footage of the flag being lowered, after diplomatic tensions soared between the two powers with both alleging the other had endangered national security.

Beijing later confirmed the consulate had closed at 10am (0200 GMT).

 

"Afterwards, Chinese authorities entered through the front entrance and took it over," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

 

Relations have deteriorated in recent weeks in an intensifying standoff, with the Chengdu mission Friday ordered to shut in retaliation for the forced closure of Beijing's consulate in Houston, Texas.

 

Both consulates closed 72 hours after the order was made.

 

Footage from state media showed officials arriving at the consulate in a minibus and walking into the front of the building.

 

They were followed by several workers in full hazmat suits and goggles, carrying cleaning equipment.

 

Two men wearing white gloves were shown covering up a US consulate sign on the wall outside the building with a large grey sheet.

The road leading to the Chengdu mission was closed on Monday, with police and cordons blocking the way. State media reported that staff members had left the compound at around 6 am Monday morning.

 

A crowd gathered outside the now-closed mission, and one man was escorted away by police after waving a banner and two Chinese flags while shouting "Long Live China's Communist Party".

 

The US embassy in Beijing posted a farewell to the Chengdu mission its the Twitter-like Weibo platform on Monday.

 

"Today, we bid farewell to the US consulate in Chengdu. We will miss you forever," it read.

 

Over the weekend, removal trucks entered the site and cleaners were seen carting large black rubbish bags from the consulate.

 

AFP reporters saw workers removing the US insignia from the front of the building.

 

The US consulate in the city covered China's southwest, including Tibet. Many Tibetans accuse the central government of religious repression and eroding their culture.

Beijing says closing the consulate was a "legitimate and necessary response to the unreasonable measures by the United States", and has alleged that staff at the diplomatic mission endangered China's security and interests.

 

Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters that some US staff in the Chengdu consulate "were engaged in activities outside of their capacity, interfered in China's internal affairs, and endangered China's security and interests".

 

Washington officials, meanwhile, said there had been unacceptable efforts by the Chinese consulate in Houston to steal US corporate secrets and proprietary medical and scientific research.

 

- Tensions -

 

Tensions have soared between the world's two biggest economic powers on a range of fronts including trade, China's handling of the novel coronavirus and a tough new security law for Hong Kong, with US officials warning of a "new tyranny" from China.

 

The last Chinese diplomats left the Houston consulate last Friday, with officials there seen loading large sacks of documents and other items onto trucks, and throwing some in bins.

 

Beijing said Saturday that US agents "forcibly" entered the Houston consulate, which it said was "China's national property".

 

Its statement warned that "China will make a proper and necessary response in this regard".

 

Nationalistic tabloid the Global Times warned in an editorial Monday that if Washington was "determined to push China-US ties in the worst direction... the 21st century will be darker and even more explosive than the Cold War era".

 

It said the rising tensions could lead to "unprecedented catastrophe".

 

[AFP]

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Rwandan Confesses To Setting French Cathedral On Fire

 

French police officers look at the partially burnt facade of the Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul cathedral in Nantes, western France, on July 19, 2020.  Sebastien SALOM-GOMIS / AFP

A volunteer church assistant has confessed to setting the fire that severely damaged a Gothic cathedral in Nantes, western France, his lawyer said Sunday.

The 39-year-old, an asylum-seeker from Rwanda who has lived in France for several years, was arrested Saturday after laboratory analysis determined that arson was the likely cause of the blaze, the local prosecutor’s office said.

“My client has cooperated,” lawyer Quentin Chabert told the Presse-Ocean newspaper, without elaborating on motives for attempting to burn down the Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

“He bitterly regrets his actions… My client is consumed with remorse,” Chabert said.

Prosecutors opened an arson inquiry after the early morning fire on July 18 after finding that it broke out in three different places in the church, which the volunteer had locked up the night before.

 

 

French Flag

He was taken in for questioning the next day but later released without charge, with the cathedral’s rector saying “I trust him like I trust all the helpers.”

But Nantes prosecutor Pierre Sennes said in a statement Saturday that he had been charged with “destruction and damage by fire,” and faces up to 10 years in prison and 150,000 euros ($175,000) in fines.

“He admitted during his first appearance for questioning before the investigating judge that he set three fires in the cathedral: at the main organ, the smaller organ, and the electrical panel,” Sennes told Presse-Ocean on Sunday.

‘Stone by stone’ 

The blaze came 15 months after the devastating fire at the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, which raised questions about the security risks for other historic churches across France.

While firefighters were able to contain the Nantes blaze after just two hours and save its main structure, the famed organ, which dated from 1621 and had survived the French Revolution and World War II bombardment, was destroyed.

Also lost were priceless artefacts and paintings, including a work by the 19th-century artist Hippolyte Flandrin and stained glass windows that contained remnants of 16th-century glass.

Work on the cathedral began in 1434 and continued over the following centuries until 1891.

It had already been damaged by a more serious fire in 1972 when officials added concrete reinforcements while redoing the roof over the next 13 years.

The French government has said it will ensure the cathedral’s restoration, though very few if any, elements of the main organ are likely to be saved, said Philippe Charron, head of the regional DRAC state heritage agency.

“It will take several weeks to secure the site… and several months of inspections that will be carried out stone by stone,” he said.

Reconstruction will take several years, he said.

AFP

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South Africa Records 572 COVID-19 Deaths In One Day

An undertaker from the AVBOB funeral house in Soweto, carries into a cold storage room the remains of a COVID-19 coronavirus patient on July 21, 2020. MARCO LONGARI / AFP

South Africa on Wednesday announced a record 24-hour increase of 572 coronavirus deaths, bringing its total number of fatalities to 5,940.

The country is the worst-affected in Africa and among the top five in the world in terms of confirmed cases, with 394,948 infections reported to date.

“Regrettably we report 572 new COVID-19 related deaths. This brings the cumulative number of deaths to 5,940,” Health Minister Zweli Mkhize said in a daily statement.

Almost half the total number of deaths have been reported in the Western Cape province, while the majority of positive cases are in Gauteng — South Africa’s financial hub and epicentre of the outbreak.

The mortality rate has remained low, however, at around 1.5 percent on Wednesday.

Almost 60 percent of the country’s COVID-19 patients have recovered from the virus.

 

AFP

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China vows retaliation after U.S. ordered its Houston consulate closed within 72 hours

President Donald Trump, left, poses for a photo with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, on June 29, 2019.

SUSAN WALSH, AP

 

China vowed to retaliate Wednesday after the United States abruptly ordered the closure of its consulate in Houston, a move that further inflamed tensions between the two superpowers. 

 

Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for China's foreign ministry, said China was notified on Tuesday that it must close the consulate within 72 hours. In a regular daily news briefing, he described the action as an "unprecedented escalation" and said China would "react with firm countermeasures" if the U.S. does not revoke the decision. 

State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a statement that the closure was "to protect American intellectual property and American's private information." 

She did elaborate on what prompted the decision but said: "The United States will not tolerate the (People's Republican of China's) violations of our sovereignty and intimidation of our people." It is unusual but not unprecedented for the U.S. to close another country's consulate.

 

The action swiftly follows a U.S. Department of Justice indictment of two Chinese hackersaccused of stealing trade secrets from hundreds of global targets and, more recently, probing for vulnerabilities in U.S. companies involved in the development of COVID-19 treatments and vaccines. 

 

Wang said the consulate was operating normally. 

Local media  in Houston reported on Tuesday night that documents were being burned in a courtyard at the consulate. Texas fire and police officers responded to the reports of a fire. It was not clear if they were permitted to enter the property in Houston's Montrose neighborhood. 

"You could just smell the paper burning,” a witness at the scene told KPRC 2, an NBC-affiliate television station. 

 

China's consulate in Houston could not immediately be reached for comment.

U.S.-China relations have been battered by a rift over the coronavirus pandemic, strained trade relations and Beijing's move to assert more authority over Hong Kong. In recent weeks, both nations have slapped sanctions on each other's officials. 

 

In addition to its embassy in Washington, D.C., and the consulate in Houston, China has consulates in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City and San Francisco. 

"The U.S. has far more diplomatic missions and staff working in China. So if the U.S. is bent on going down this wrong path, we will resolutely respond," Wang said. 

The U.S. has consulates in Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenyang and Wuhan. .

The U.S. Embassy is located in Beijing. 

A video captured by our crew outside the Consulate General of China in Houston shows people hosing down what appear to be flaming open containers in the courtyard of the property.
DETAILS: https://t.co/2cOeKoap96 pic.twitter.com/ToQitHjy2T

— KPRC2Tulsi (@KPRC2Tulsi) July 22, 2020

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