Six In The Morning Wednesday 28 April 2021

 

Serum Institute of India cuts Covishield vaccine price for States to ₹300 per dose

Shoumojit Banerjee

With a number of States expressing their inability to commence the third phase of vaccination from May 1 owing to vaccine paucity, the Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII) on Wednesday announced that it was reducing the price of its ‘Covishield’ vaccine to the States from ₹400 to ₹300 per dose as a “philanthropic gesture”. 

“As a philanthropic gesture on behalf of SII, I hereby reduce the price to the states from ₹400 to ₹300 per dose, effective immediately; this will save thousands of crores of state funds going forward. This will enable more vaccinations and save countless lives,” said SII CEO Adar Poonawalla on Twitter. 

SII had earlier given its per dose pricing of its ‘Covishield’ vaccine as ₹150 for the Central government, ₹400 for State governments and ₹600 for private hospitals while Bharat Biotech (which rolls out ‘Covaxin’) had quoted ₹150 for the Centre, ₹600 for State governments ₹1200 for private hospitals.  

Hong Kong passes law that can stop people leaving

Bar association and activists decry Beijing-type immigration act with ‘exit ban’ powers

Agence France-Presse in Hong Kong

Wed 28 Apr 2021 13.31 BST

Hong Kong has passed a new immigration law that includes powers to stop people entering or leaving the city, raising fears of Chinese mainland-style “exit bans” in the international business hub.

The legislation sailed through a legislature now devoid of opposition, as Beijing has quashed dissent and sought to make the semi-autonomous city more like the authoritarian mainland after huge and often violent democracy protests.

Activists, lawyers and some business figures have sounded the alarm over provisions in the bill, including one allowing the city’s immigration chief to bar people from boarding planes to and from the city. No court order is required and there is no recourse to appeal. The city’s bar association (HKBA) said the bill’s wording gave “apparently unfettered power” to the immigration director.

Greek court sentences Syrian refugee to 52 years in prison over ‘illegal’ crossing from Turkey 

He ‘will be sitting in prison for nothing... for just fleeing Turkey and fleeing Syria 

Chantal Da Silva

A Greek court has sentenced a Syrian refugee to 52 years in prison for “illegally” crossing into the country with his family in the midst of the country’s crackdown on irregular migration through Turkey last year.

Identified only by the initials KS in court, the refugee was handed the heavy sentence in a Mytiline court on the Greek island of Lesbos on Friday.

According to campaigners, KS had crossed from Turkey to the Greek island of Chios by boat with his family, including three young children, and dozens of others in early March 2020.

Glacier melt is speeding up, raising seas: global study

Nearly all of the world's glaciers are losing mass at an ever increasing pace, contributing to more than a fifth of global sea level rise this century, according to unprecedented research released Wednesday.

Glaciers -- vast bodies of frozen water that sit above ground -- have been melting fast since the middle of the 20th century, but until now the full extent of ice loss had only been partially understood.

An international team of researchers has for the first time observed all of Earth's some 220,000 glaciers, excluding the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, to properly evaluate the amount and rate of melt over the past two decades.

'I thought I would die.' Myanmar protesters describe torture they suffered in detention

By Helen Regan, Sandi Sidhu and Clarissa Ward and Salai TZ, CNN

Updated 0145 GMT (0945 HKT) April 28, 2021

The 19-year-old's eyes are so swollen he cannot open them properly. His face is marked with big purple welts and bruises. Etched into his shoulders and back are long, dark lacerations that have yet to heal over -- wounds, he said, that were inflicted when Myanmar military officers who had detained him whipped him repeatedly with cable wires.

"I thought I would die," the teenager, who did not want to be named for safety reasons, said of his three-day stint in a military detention camp, while showing a photo of his wounds.

3 nuclear reactors to become 1st in Japan to operate beyond 40-year limit

In a significant move as Japan seeks to stick to nuclear power, three nuclear reactors on the Sea of Japan coast will become the first in the country to operate beyond the 40-year limit after a local governor Wednesday consented to their restarts.

The rebooting of the No. 3 unit at the Mihama plant and the Nos. 1-2 reactors at the Takahama plant, both in Fukui Prefecture and idle since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, will come as the country seeks to meet its goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 with continued reliance on atomic power.

But concerns remain among local communities over the safety of restarting the aging reactors operated by Kansai Electric Power Co and the effectiveness of evacuation plans in the event of an accident. How to dispose of the highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel to be produced from the plants is also an unresolved issue.