Junior Digest

Dec 31,2022:Former Pope Benedict, who in 2013 became the first pontiff in 600 years to resign, died on Saturday aged 95 in a secluded monastery in the Vatican where he had lived since stepping down, a spokesman for the Holy See said.
The Vatican said his body would lie in state from Monday in St.Peter’s Basilica. The Vatican has painstakingly elaborate rituals for what happens after a reigning pope dies but no publicly known ones for a former pope.
Earlier this week, Pope Francis disclosed during his weekly general audience that his predecessor was “very sick”, and asked for people to pray for him.
“With sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican,” spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement.

New Delhi, December 23,2022: In a New Year gift for the country’s poor, the Union Cabinet on Friday decided that more than 80 crore people will now get free foodgrains under the National Food Security Act (NFSA).
Briefing reporters after a meeting of union cabinet here, Food and Consumers Affairs Minister Piyush Goyal said the beneficiaries will not be required to pay a single rupee to get the foodgrains till December 2023.
He said the central government will spend around Rs 2 lakh crore per year on this scheme.
The cabinet meeting was chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The government had said last week that India has sufficient food grain stocks under the central pool to meet the requirement under the National Food Security Act and its other welfare schemes as well as for additional allocation of Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY).
In a statement, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution said that about 159 LMT of wheat will be available on January 1 2023, which is well above the buffer norm requirement of 138 LMT. Around 182 LMT of wheat is available in the central pool as on December 12.
It said that the government is well aware of the price scenario of wheat and is constantly monitoring it regularly on a weekly basis along with other commodities and taking corrective measures, as and when required.

Dec 30,2022:Israel’s parliament has sworn in Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister, inaugurating the country’s most far-right, religiously conservative government in history.
Netanyahu, 73, took the oath of office on Thursday, moments after Israel’s parliament, or Knesset, passed a vote of confidence in his new government. Of the parliament’s 120 members, 63 voted in favour of the new government, with 54 votes against.
His swearing in marks a personal return to power and the arrival of a government that has sparked fears among Palestinians as well as left-wing Israelis.
Al Jazeera’s Sara Khairat, reporting from West Jerusalem, said this has been in the making for almost two months and is “quite a victory for Benjamin Netanyahu”, who partnered up with a coalition that includes “a mix of an ultra-Orthodox and right-wing bloc”.
The coalition, Khairat said, includes some of the most “right-wing politicians we’ve seen”. “They were on the fringes of politics and now here they are on the main stage.”
“Even though locals we’ve spoken to have said that yes, the process is democratic, they are very deeply concerned about the laws that have been put through,” she said from outside the parliament, where left-wing Israelis had gathered to protest.
Far-right government
Netanyahu, who was prime minister between 1996 and 1999, and then between 2009 and 2021, addressed a session of the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, ahead of the vote.
Netanyahu, along with his coalition partners, has a majority in the Knesset. He was heckled during his speech to the Knesset, with opponents chanting that he was “weak”.
He said an end to the “Arab-Israeli conflict” would be his top priority, as well as stopping Iran’s nuclear programme and building up Israel’s military capacity.
Netanyahu’s win in the November 1 parliamentary elections was expected to end years of political unrest in Israel, with governments repeatedly falling, and elections held five times in less than four years.
Much of that was the result of intense political opposition towards Netanyahu himself, who is on trial for corruption, an allegation he denies.

New Delhi,Dec 28,2022: Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday said that people are troubled due to rising inflation, and unemployment but the Centre does not care about them. He added that Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra has made party’s political rivals nervous.

Addressing party leaders and workers at the AICC headquarters in Delhi on the occasion of the 138th Foundation Day of the party, he said, “The basic principles of India are under constant attack. A pit of hatred is being dug all over the country. People are in trouble due to inflation, unemployment but the government does not care.”
“To make Congress inclusive, we have to include youth, women, intellectuals and it has already begun through Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra. This has made our rivals nervous. We appeal to people to join this Yatra,” he added.

WASHINGTON,Dec 28,2022: Stress in the form of traumatic events, job strain, everyday stressors and discrimination, accelerates aging of the immune system, potentially increasing a person’s risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease and illness from infections such as COVID-19, according to a new USC study.

The research, published June 13 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), could help explain disparities in age-related health, including the unequal toll of the pandemic, and identify possible points for intervention.

“As the world’s population of older adults increases, understanding disparities in age-related health is essential. Age-related changes in the immune system play a critical role in declining health,” said lead study author Eric Klopack, a postdoctoral scholar in the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. “This study helps clarify mechanisms involved in accelerated immune aging.”

As people age, the immune system naturally begins a dramatic downgrade, a condition called immunosenescence. With advanced age, a person’s immune profile weakens, and includes too many worn-out white blood cells circulating and too few fresh, “naive” white blood cells ready to take on new invaders.

Immune aging is associated not only with cancer, but with cardiovascular disease, increased risk of pneumonia, reduced efficacy of vaccines and organ system aging.

But what accounts for drastic health differences in same-age adults? USC researchers decided to see if they could tease out a connection between lifetime exposure to stress — a known contributor to poor health — and declining vigor in the immune system.

They queried and cross-referenced enormous data sets from University of Michigan’s Health and Retirement Study, a national longitudinal study of the economic, health, marital, family status, and public and private support systems of older Americans.

To calculate exposure to various forms of social stress, the researchers analyzed responses from a national sample of 5,744 adults over the age of 50. They answered a questionnaire designed to assess respondents’ experiences with social stress, including stressful life events, chronic stress, everyday discrimination and lifetime discrimination.

Blood samples from the participants were then analyzed through flow cytometry, a lab technique that counts and classifies blood cells as they pass one-by-one in a narrow stream in front of a laser.

As expected, people with higher stress scores had older-seeming immune profiles, with lower percentages of fresh disease fighters and higher percentages of worn-out white blood cells. The association between stressful life events and fewer ready to respond, or naive, T cells remained strong even after controlling for education, smoking, drinking, BMI and race or ethnicity.

Some sources of stress may be impossible to control, but the researchers say there may be a workaround.

T-cells — a critical component of immunity — mature in a gland called the thymus, which sits just in front of and above the heart. As people age, the tissue in their thymus shrinks and is replaced by fatty tissue, resulting in reduced production of immune cells. Past research suggests that this process is accelerated by lifestyle factors like poor diet and low exercise, which are both associated with social stress.

“In this study, after statistically controlling for poor diet and low exercise, the connection between stress and accelerated immune aging wasn’t as strong,” said Klopack. “What this means is people who experience more stress tend to have poorer diet and exercise habits, partly explaining why they have more accelerated immune aging.”

Improving diet and exercise behaviors in older adults may help offset the immune aging associated with stress.

Additionally, cytomegalovirus (CMV) may be a target for intervention. CMV is a common, usually asymptomatic virus in humans and is known to have a strong effect accelerating immune aging. Like shingles or cold sores, CMV is dormant most of the time but can flare up, especially when a person is experiencing high stress.

In this study, statistically controlling for CMV positivity also reduced the connection between stress and accelerated immune aging. Therefore, widespread CMV vaccination could be a relatively simple and potentially powerful intervention that could reduce the immune aging effects of stress, the researchers said.

Dec 26,2022:A brutal winter storm has killed at least 32 people across the United States and is expected to claim more lives after trapping some motorists inside their cars and knocking out power to several hundred thousand homes and businesses.

Much of the loss of life has centred in and around the city of Buffalo at the edge of Lake Erie in western New York state, as numbing cold and heavy “lake-effect” snow — the result of frigid air moving over warmer lake waters — persisted through the Christmas weekend.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said the storm’s confirmed death toll climbed to 12 on Sunday, up from three reported overnight in the Buffalo region. The latest victims included some found in cars and some in snow banks, Poloncarz said, adding that the death tally might rise further.

Despite a ban imposed on driving since Friday, hundreds of Erie County motorists were stranded in their vehicles over the weekend, with National Guard troops called in to help with rescues complicated by white-out conditions and drifting snow, Poloncarz said.

“This is not the Christmas any of us hoped for nor expected,” he said on Twitter. “My deepest condolences to the families who have lost loved ones.”
The scope of the storm has been nearly unprecedented, stretching from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande river along the border with Mexico. About 60 percent of the US population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning, and temperatures plummeted drastically below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians, the National Weather Service said.
The storm, one of the fiercest in decades, forced the cancellation of more than 2,400 US flights on Sunday, in addition to some 3,500 scrapped Saturday and nearly 6,000 Friday, according to tracking website Flightaware.com.

Travellers remained stranded or delayed at airports throughout Christmas Day, including in the cities of Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Detroit and New York. The airport in Buffalo remained closed, with the National Weather Service saying that the snow total there stood at 109cm (43 inches) on Sunday morning.

Dec 30,2022: Brazil football legend Pele, whose real name was Edson Arantes do Nascimento, died due to cancer at the age of 82 late on Thursday. Pele, who is also a three-time World Cup winner, was one of the greatest names in the world of football and scored a record 1,281 goals in his two-decade-long career.

The legend had undergone treatment for colon cancer in 2021. Since October this year, he was not keeping well. He had been hospitalised for the last month with multiple ailments. His agent Joe Fraga confirmed that Pele died at the Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paulo on Thursday, December 29, at 11:57 pm (3:27 pm as per Brazil time). Brazil’s record scorer, Nicknamed “the Black Pearl” and “the King”, won three World Cups as a player, in 1958, 1962, and 1970. Pelé was one of only three players to have scored in four World Cups.
Soon after the news broke out wishes and tributes started pouring in on social media from footballing legends, players, and celebrities, like superstars Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Neymar.

Leading the pack, superstar Messi, who recently lifted the FIFA World Cup with Argentina, posted his tribute on his official Instagram account.

MANILA ,Dec 30,2022: The death toll from flooding and landslides caused by Christmas Day rains in the southern Philippines rose to 44, with 28 others still unaccounted for, the national disaster agency said on Friday.

Damage to infrastructure and crops has been estimated at 1.36 billion pesos ($24.4 million), it said in a bulletin.
Heavy rains submerged villages, towns and highways in the Visayas and Mindanao regions on Christmas Day, forcing more than 50,000 people to flee their homes.

The floods had subsided but intermittent rains continued, the agency said.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said he may visit the stricken areas to assess the situation after his scheduled trip to China from Jan. 3 to 5.
“Unfortunately, the rainfall continues. So we have to keep watching the other areas also,” a presidential palace statement quoted him as saying.

MOSCOW, Dec 28,2022: President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday delivered Russia’s long-awaited response to a Western price cap, signing a decree that bans the supply of crude oil and oil products from Feb. 1 for five months to nations that abide by the cap.
The Group of Seven major powers, the European Union and Australia agreed this month to a $60-per-barrel price cap on Russian seaborne crude oil effective from Dec. 5 over Moscow’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.
The cap is close to the current price for Russian oil, but well beneath the windfall price Russia was able to sell for this year and that helped offset the impact of financial sanctions on Moscow.

Dec 23,2022:Nearly 37 million people in China may have been infected with COVID-19 on a single day this week, the Bloomberg news agency has reported, citing minutes from an internal meeting of the country’s National Health Commission held on Wednesday.

In all, the report which was published on Friday said about 18 percent of the country’s population – 248 million people – are likely to have contracted the virus in the first 20 days of December.
China is witnessing a dramatic surge in coronavirus cases since it dropped its controversial zero-COVID policy following widespread protests in recent weeks. Under the zero-COVID policy, the country’s authorities were placing entire towns and cities under lockdown if they reported a few cases.

Now with those restrictions mostly lifted, China has also stopped mass-testing policies and no longer reports asymptomatic cases.

This has led to concerns of widespread infections among a population that has largely been unexposed to the actual virus, and that has lost much of the protection it might have gained from vaccine shots taken several months ago.

The country’s health system has also been caught unprepared by the sudden U-turn in the government’s policy, with hospitals and pharmacies struggling to cope.
Concerns over official statistics
On Thursday, health data firm Airfinity estimated that there are likely more than 5,000 daily deaths and upwards of a million daily infections from COVID-19 in the country.

Airfinity said its mortality risk analysis suggested between 1.3 million to 2.1 million people could die in China’s current COVID-19 outbreak.

However, on the same day, China officially reported less than 4,000 new symptomatic local COVID-19 cases nationwide and no deaths from the virus.

The conflicting data has raised concerns in the international community and prompted United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken to request that China maintain “transparency” on the issue during a call with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi on Friday.

Gandhinagar,Dec 30,2022: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mother Heeraben breathed her last earlier today. PM Modi arrived at Ahmedabad to give adieu to his mother Heeraben Modi, who passed away at the age of 100. He was received by Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel at the airport. PM Modi`s brother Somabhai Modi and other family members also arrived at the residence of Heeraben Modi.
The Prime Minister informed the nation about her demise early Friday morning. Informing about her demise, the Prime Minister posted a heartfelt tweet early Friday morning, “A glorious century rests at the feet of God… In Maa, I have always felt that the trinity, which contains the journey of an ascetic, is the symbol of a selfless Karmayogi and a life committed to values. “PM Modi recalled his visit to his mother on her 100th birthday this year.

Dec 29,2022:Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju on Wednesday said that the government has planned to bring Millet into the diet in the G20 meetings that will be held in the country next year. “The government is celebrating the international year of Millet. In G20 meetings we have planned to bring Millet into the diet. It is nutritious and tasty as well. People should put efforts to bring Millet into their diet and make it a Millet movement,” Rijiju said.

Taking to Twitter, Rijiju said, “I can’t resist eating millets… Today, the entire staff in the Ministry of Law and Justice came together for the Millet Lunch to promote the International Year Of #Millets 2023 at Dr Ambedkar International Centre, New Delhi.” Earlier on December 20, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with fellow Members of Parliament, enjoyed a lunch hosted by agriculture minister Narendra Tomar to mark Millet Year 2023.

Sitting alongside PM Narendra Modi while having the meal were agriculture minister Narendra Tomar, defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankar and former prime minister HD Devegowda. “We prepared delicacies including Roti and sweets made out of Jwar bajra and ragi for which chefs were specially brought in from Karnataka. I was delighted that the Prime Minister really enjoyed his meal here,” Minister of State for agriculture Shobha Karandlaje told ANI.

Earlier, during the BJP Parliamentary Party meeting, PM Modi laid emphasis on the celebration of International Millet Year 2023 and suggested ways to promote an ongoing nutrition campaign through millet. On the initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the United Nations has declared the year 2023 as the International Year of Millet (IYOM).

The Government of India had notified millet as a nutritious- cereal in April 2018 and millet has also been included in the Poshan Mission campaign. Under the National Food Security Mission (NFMS), a nutritious cereal component for Millet is being implemented in 212 districts of 14 States.

Asia and Africa are the major production and consumption centres of millet crops. India, Niger, Sudan and Nigeria are the major producer of millet. India is the major production country of Millet in which Kangni, Kutki or small millet, Kodon, Gangora or Barnyard, china and Brown top are included with Jowar, Bajra, Ragi and small millets. Most of the states in India grow one or more millet crop species. During the last 5 years, our country produced more than 13.71 to 18 million tonnes of millet with the highest production in 2020-21.

ANKARA,Dec 27,2022: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged Monday to close the gaps in the border with Syria next year after saying that a porous border created security risks for his country.

“We will make new efforts to mend the gaps in our 30-kilometer (19-mile)-long security line to eliminate threats to our country that are stemming from Syria,” Erdogan said in a national address that followed a cabinet meeting.

Turkey accuses Kurds in neighboring Syria and Iraq of terrorist attacks on its soil. It has conducted inroads into both countries to target PKK and YPG militant groups and is mulling a new ground operation in northern Syria.

Dec 23,2022:Nataša Pirc Musar, a 54-year-old lawyer, was sworn in as Slovenia’s first woman president at a ceremony at the National Assembly on 22 December, a day before she takes over as the country’s fifth president from her predecessor Borut Pahor.

Taking her oath to respect the constitutional order, to act according to her conscience and work to the best of her abilities for Slovenia’s prosperity, Pirc Musar pledged to continue to fight for human rights and the rule of law.

She promised to be the voice of citizens every time when sovereignty, equality, justice and welfare state are at stake. She also pledged to advocate the autonomy of society’s sub-systems.

“Police, armed forces, diplomacy, healthcare and education are our property. We should therefore care deeply about how these subsystems are treated. We all need to know where politics must stop, and we need to remember again and again every day that these subsystems are there to serve us, the citizens, not the rulers,” she said.

Listing the many challenges at home and abroad, Pirc Musar promised to work hard for a multilateral world order and a strong Europe made up of democratic and inclusive societies.

“You will recognise me in the international community as a champion of human rights, of the coexistence of nature and human, of understanding the opportunities and dangers of new technologies, of bringing together the strong, the like-minded for the rights of the weak, of a free and professional media, and of the fight against disinformation and hate speech,” she announced.

She promised to work with parliament and the government as Slovenia takes its share of responsibility for the stability of the international community.

She mentioned Slovenia’s candidacy for a non-permanent membership of the UN Security Council, describing the country as an excellent candidate. She strongly supports the bid and plans to actively campaign for it.

She said faint heart or silence never brought about change. “And no change will ever please everyone. Not even criticism. We must strive to make change acceptable to the majority – with clear condemnation of unacceptable practices and the hope of looking forward together.”

Pirc Musar also thanked her predecessor Pahor for his work and mission, praising in particular his efforts in the Western Balkans.

Dec 31,2022: Venezuela’s biggest opposition parties voted to remove Juan Guaidó as their leader, marking an end to a bold, U.S.-backed political gambit in which he was recognized as the country’s legitimate president as part of an unsuccessful bid to oust authoritarian Nicolás Maduro from power.

Lawmakers, scattered in exile around the world, voted in a Zoom call to restructure their movement, removing Mr. Guaidó and eliminating the so-called interim government he leads. The interim government had been recognized as Venezuela’s legitimate government by more than 60 countries when it was created in early 2019. But now, the U.S. and only a handful of allies continue to recognize the Guaido-led movement, while Mr. Maduro maintains an ironclad grip on the country with support from Russia, Iran and China.

Mr. Guaidó, 39 years, will continue to head both Venezuela’s opposition congress and the interim government until Jan. 5, when his movement’s duties will be divided up. The opposition said it would create a new committee to oversee Venezuelan state assets that came into its control—including U.S. refiner Citgo Petroleum Corp. as well as gold bullion at the Bank of England—and are being targeted by creditors looking to seize them.

Meanwhile, a special panel made up of political representatives will work on negotiations that the opposition is preparing with the Maduro regime, with the hopes of organizing free and fair elections in 2024.
The leadership shake-up comes after four years of unsuccessful efforts to dislodge Mr. Maduro through street demonstrations, international sanctions and a failed military uprising. A majority of lawmakers, who voted 72-29 in favor of removing Mr. Guaidó, said their political coalition needed different strategies to restore democracy in the troubled, oil-rich nation.

New Delhi,Dec 29,2022: According to reports, the Election Commission has developed a prototype of a remote EVM voting machine for domestic overseas voters. It can control remote voting in 72 constituencies from a single booth.

“Voter turnout in General Elections 2019 was 67.4% and the Election Commission of India is concerned about the issue of over 30 crore electors not exercising their franchise,” Election Commission officials said regarding the move. They further added, “It is understood that there are multifarious reasons for a voter not opting to register in a new place of residence, thus missing out on exercising the right to vote. Inability to vote due to internal migration (domestic migrants) is one of the prominent reasons.”
The technical and legal boundaries of the move are being considered now before it is implemented on the ground zero level. As per reports, if this comes into effect then it will be able to accept votes from voters living far away from their hometowns. It is programmed in a way that it will switch to the person according to his/her constituency during voting. This move shall benefit a lot of people working or living overseas and is sure to increase the vote percentage as well.

Dec 26,2022:CPN-Maoist Centre chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal “Prachanda” was appointed Nepal’s new Prime Minister on Sunday, December 25. This was after the former guerrilla leader dramatically broke away from the five-party ruling alliance led by the Nepali Congress, ending the political uncertainty after last month’s general elections failed to produce a clear winner. Prachanda, the 68-year-old leader of former communist rebels, was appointed as the Prime Minister of Nepal, according to a statement issued by the President’s Office here.
The President had called any member of the House of Representatives, who can garner a majority with support from two or more parties as stipulated in the Article 76 clause 2 of the Constitution to submit a claim for the Prime Minister’s post by 5 pm on Sunday. Prachanda submitted the claim before the deadline given by the President expired. The swearing-in ceremony of the newly-appointed Prime Minister will take place at 4 pm on Monday, according to the President’s Office.

Prachanda along with his rival-turned ally CPN-UML chairman Oli, Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) president Ravi Lamichhane, Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) chief Rajendra Lingden among other top leaders earlier went to the President’s Office with a proposal to appoint him as the new Prime Minister, sources said. Prachanda has the support of 169 lawmakers in the 275-member House of Representatives.
Prachanda, who is being appointed as the Prime Minister of Nepal for the third time, is seen as pro-China. He has, in the past, said a new understanding with India needed to be developed on the basis of “changed scenario” in Nepal and after addressing all outstanding issues, like revision of the 1950 Friendship Treaty and resolving Kalapani and Susta border disputes.

Dec 27,2022:Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has given Ukraine an ultimatum: Fulfil Moscow’s demands — including surrendering Ukrainian territory that Russia now controls — or the Russian army will decide the fate of Ukraine.

Speaking a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin once again said he was open to peace talks — and which the United States has described as disingenuous — Lavrov told Kyiv that it should, for its “own good”, comply with Moscow’s wishes.
“Our proposals for the demilitarisation and denazification of the territories controlled by the regime, the elimination of threats to Russia’s security emanating from there, including our new lands, are well known to the enemy,” state news agency TASS quoted Lavrov as saying late on Monday.

“The point is simple: Fulfil them for your own good. Otherwise, the issue will be decided by the Russian army,” Lavrov said.

Asked by TASS how long the conflict will last, Lavrov said: “The ball is in the regime’s court and Washington behind it.”

On Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin again said Moscow was open to negotiations and blamed Kyiv and its Western backers for a lack of talks, comments which the US has dismissed as insincere.