WORLD

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will visit Tehran on Thursday to attend the swearing-in ceremony of newly elected Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.

“At the invitation of the government of Iran, the External affairs Minister will visit Iran on August 5-6, 2021 to attend the swearing-in ceremony of the President-elect H.E. Ayatollah Sayyid Ebrahim Raisi on August 5,” the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.

Jaishankar will meet Raisi and also hold talks with other leaders during the trip.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is all set to announce a new 60-day moratorium on residential evictions in areas with high levels of Covid-19 infections, the Senate's top Democrat confirmed.

While some details were still in flux, the new CDC order will protect millions of renters from eviction but will be more limited than a nationwide moratorium that expired Saturday at midnight.

The Senate Democratic Leader said in a statement the CDC had decided to "extend the eviction moratorium for 90 per cent of the country for sixty days." The CDC order is expected to be released later on Tuesday (US time), sources told an international news agency.

China used its “close connections” with Left parties in India to “build domestic opposition” to the Indo-US nuclear deal between 2007 and 2008. This might have been the “first instance for China to operate politically in Indian domestic politics”.

This revelation, that could have political and diplomatic ramifications, is part of former foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale’s new book, The Long Game: How the Chinese Negotiate with India, published by Penguin Random House India, which hit the stands recently.

As Joint Secretary (East Asia), Gokhale was dealing with China in the Ministry of External Affairs in 2007-09, when the deal was being negotiated and India got a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) after Beijing yielded.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to chair a UN security council session on maritime security on August 9, as India assumes the rotating chairmanship of the council for the month of August.

Maritime security, terrorism and peacekeeping will be the three areas of focus for India in the UNSC. India will organise a virtual high-level ‘Open Debate’ for heads of state and government titled, ‘Maintenance of international peace and security: Enhancing maritime security — A case for international cooperation’.

Foreign minister S Jaishankar tweeted, “As we take over UNSC Presidency for August, look forward to working productively with other members. India will always be a voice of moderation, an advocate of dialogue and a proponent of international law.”

The Pandemic will end when the world chooses to end it. It's in our hands, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, chief of World Health Organisation. He added that people have all the tools they need.

"We can test for it, and we can treat it," he said.

Almost 4 million cases were reported to WHO last week, and going by the current trends, "we expect the total number of cases to pass 200m within the next two weeks."

On average, in five of WHO's six regions, Covid-19 infections have increased by 80%, or nearly doubled, over the past four weeks. In Africa, deaths have increased by 80% over the same period.