#scam in amphan relief

[few-favorite-things]

tmc leader suspened: উম্পুন ত্রাণে দুর্নীতি, পঞ্চায়েত সদস্যকে কান ধরে ওঠবোস! বহিষ্কার তৃণমূলের – scam in amphan relief, one more tmc leader suspened in south 24 parganas হাইলাইটস হুগলি জেলার নেতাকেও বহিষ্কার করেছিল রাজ্যের শাসক দল। দক্ষিণ ২৪ পরগনার ক���ষেত্রেও একই কড়া অবস্থান নিল তৃণমূল।

[bbcbreakingnews]

Mamata Banerjee slams BJP for levelling corruption allegations in post-Amphan relief

PASHCHIM MIDNAPORE: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for levelling corruption allegations against the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in post-Amphan relief. “No matter how much work we do, our policies are always labelled bad. Rafale scam wasn’t bad, PM CARES fund which does not divulge its details isn’t bad for them (BJP) but they want an account of Amphan cyclone damage here,” Banerjee said at a rally here. “West Bengal will never bow its head to the people who murdered Mahatma Gandhi,” she said. BJP leader Kailash Vijayvargiya had reportedly alleged that the Mamata Banerjee-led government was involved in corruption over the distribution of relief in the aftermath of cyclone Amphan. West Bengal government had earlier told a central team that the state has suffered damages of over Rs 1 lakh crore due to cyclone Amphan occurred in May this year and submitted details of the damage caused to infrastructure and various other sectors. The “damage report” of the state about the super cyclone said as many as 28.56 lakh houses have been damaged and crops in 17 lakh hectares of agriculture land had been damaged.

source https://bbcbreakingnews.com/2020/12/07/mamata-banerjee-slams-bjp-for-levelling-corruption-allegations-in-post-amphan-relief/

[newstfionline]

Headlines

Coronavirus pandemic claims another victim: Robocalls (AP) Industry experts say robocalls are way down—scam calls as well as nagging from your credit-card company to pay your bill. The coronavirus pandemic has inflicted millions of job losses, and scammers have not been immune. YouMail, which offers a robocall-blocking service, says 2.9 billion robocalls were placed in April in the U.S., down from 4.1 billion in March and 4.8 billion in February. That’s a daily average of 97 million calls in April, down from 132 million in March and 166 million in April. The main reason: many global call centers have closed or are operating with fewer workers, said YouMail CEO Alex Quilici. While it may be odd to think of scams being run out of call centers rather than a dark, creepy basement or a garage, that’s often the case, particularly in countries such as India and the Philippines, experts said. After a lockdown order went into effect in India in late March, “we saw the volume of calls basically half the next day,” Quilici said. That means scammers will probably be back in force once the call centers come back online.

Virus ‘does not spread easily’ from contaminated surfaces or animals, revised CDC website states (Washington Post) The CDC made a change to its website, clarifying what sources are not major risks. Under the new heading “The virus does not spread easily in other ways,” the agency explains that touching contaminated objects or surfaces does not appear to be a significant mode of transmission. The same is true for exposure to infected animals. The virus travels through the droplets a person produces when talking or coughing, the CDC website says. An individual does not need to feel sick or show symptoms to spread the submicroscopic virus. Close contact means within about six feet, the distance at which a sneeze flings heavy droplets.

In Mexican border cities, many fear virus is coming from US (AP) Citing a threat of the coronavirus from Mexico, the Trump administration has banned hundreds of thousands of people from crossing the southern border with emergency measures that prohibit nonessential traffic and reject asylum seekers without a hearing. But in Tijuana and other Mexican border cities, many doctors, health officials and ordinary citizens worry about the disease coming in the other direction. San Diego—with roughly the same population as Tijuana—has triple the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19, at more than 6,000. The state of California has about 10 times as many people as the Mexican state of Baja California to the south—but reported more than 20 times the number of cases.

In Mexico City, experts find bones of dozens of mammoths (AP) Archaeologists have found the bones of about 60 mammoths at an airport under construction just north of Mexico City, near human-built ‘traps’ where more than a dozen mammoths were found last year. Both discoveries reveal how appealing the area—once a shallow lake—was for the mammoths, and how erroneous was the classic vision of groups of fur-clad hunters with spears chasing mammoths across a plain. Humans may have been smarter—and mammoths clumsier—than people had previously thought.

Venezuela desperate for gasoline (Foreign Policy) Five Iranian tankers carrying an estimated $45.5 million worth of gasoline and other oil products are sailing to Venezuela, where years of underinvestment and a lack of resources have left refineries struggling to convert the country’s plentiful oil supplies into gasoline. At 0.00000002 cents per gallon, subsidized gasoline in Venezuela is officially the cheapest in the world—but shortages exacerbated by U.S. sanctions that restrict imports have left drivers lining up at the pump for days. The shortages have even forced the bodyguards of government ministers to appeal for gasoline on social media. The Venezuelan military has said that it will provide an escort once the Iranian ships reach its exclusive economic zone in the coming days. The U.S. government is weighing its options to deter Iran’s export of oil products to Venezuela.

Argentina defaults on bond payments as debt talks heat up (Reuters) Argentina missed payments on around $500 million in already delayed bond coupons on Friday, creditors and a ratings agency said, marking the country’s ninth sovereign default amid ongoing restructuring talks with creditors. Argentina and its creditors, which have traded proposals over the last month, have indicated they are eager to avoid a messy default that could spark years of litigation and lock the major grains-producing country out of global capital markets.

Cyclone Amphan loss estimated at $13 billion in India, may rise in Bangladesh (Reuters) A powerful cyclone that tore through India’s eastern state of West Bengal this week has caused a damage of 1 trillion rupees ($13 billion) to infrastructure and crops, state officials said. Neighbouring Bangladesh, which also fell in Cyclone Amphan’s path on Wednesday, initially said it had suffered a loss of 11 billion taka ($130 million). But this could rise, government officials said. The two countries have lost at least 102 people in the cyclone, the most powerful in over a decade, mostly because of house collapses and electrocution.

Clashes in South Sudan (Foreign Policy) Hundreds of people have been killed in a flare-up of intercommunal violence in South Sudan’s eastern state of Jonglei last weekend. A government spokesperson told Al Jazeera that 287 people had been killed and at least 300 wounded after clashes broke out between the Murle and Lou Nuer communities on Saturday, the latest in a deadly cycle of revenge attacks over cattle raids and child abductions.

Virus spread feared where water is scarce around the world (AP) Violet Manuel hastily abandoned her uncle’s funeral and grabbed two empty containers when she heard a boy running down the dirt road shouting, “Water, water, water!” The 72-year-old joined dozens of people seeking their daily ration in Zimbabwe’s densely populated town of Chitungwiza. “Social distancing here?” Manuel asked tartly. She sighed with relief after getting her allotment of 40 liters (10.5 gallons) but worried about the coronavirus. “I got the water, but chances are that I also got the disease,” she told The Associated Press. And yet her plans for the water did not include hand-washing but “more important” tasks such as cleaning dishes and flushing the toilet. Such choices underscore the challenges of preventing the spread of the coronavirus in slums, camps and other crowded settlements around the world where clean water is scarce and survival is a daily struggle. Some 3 billion people, from indigenous communities in Brazil to war-shattered villages in northern Yemen, have nowhere to wash their hands with soap and clean water at home, according to the charity group WaterAid.

[few-favorite-things]

amphan in bengal: উম্পুনের ত্রাণেও দুর্নীতি! পঞ্চায়েত প্রধানকে দল থেকে বহিষ্কার তৃণমূলের – scam in amphan relief, tmc suspends hooghly party leader হাইলাইটস মুখ্যমন্ত্রী মমতা বন্দ্যোপাধ্যায় সাফ জানিয়ে দিয়েছিলেন, 'এখন মানুষের জন্যে কাজ করার সময়। ত্রাণ নিয়ে কোনও অনিয়ম, দুর্নীতির যেন অভিযোগ না ওঠে। আর তা হলে কড়া ব্যবস্থা নেবে প্রশাসন।' …