Polio case sets back eradication campaigns
Efforts to eliminate polio suffered another blow after a northern enclave reported its first case in seven years. Overall, it was the country's 11th case since January, despite the launch of several immunisation drives.
The virus was detected in a child from the district of Diamer in the Gilgit-Baltistan region, according to the country's polio eradication programme.
Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan remain the only two countries where the spread of the wild polio virus has not been stopped, according to the World Health Organisation. There are ongoing outbreaks linked to the oral vaccine in 10 other countries.
The new case was reported after Pakistan wrapped up its third nationwide polio vaccination drive of the year, aiming to immunise 45 million children.
Local health officials were still trying to determine how the poliovirus that was found in the southern port city of Karachi had infected the child in Diamer.
The polio eradication programme has been running campaigns for years, though health workers and the police assigned to protect them are often targeted by militants who falsely claim the vaccination are a Western conspiracy to sterilise children.
Since the 1990s, attacks on vaccination teams have killed more than 200. — AP
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8 hours ago
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New govt targets ex-president
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The Star
10 hours ago
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Trump and Musk's relationship flames out just as intensely and publicly as it started
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Hours later, Musk announced SpaceX would begin decommissioning the spacecraft it used to carry astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station for NASA. Musk also said, without offering evidence of how he might know the information, that Trump was "in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!' The deepening rift unfurled much like their relationship started - rapidly, intensely and very publicly. And it quickly hit Musk financially. After Trump started criticising Musk, shares of his electric vehicle company Tesla plunged more than 14%, knocking about US$150bil off Tesla's market valuation. Musk lost about US$20bil on his personal holding of Tesla. ALSO READ: Explainer-Does escalating spat with Trump pose regulatory threat for Musk businesses? Politicians and their donor patrons rarely see eye to eye. 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Trump said Thursday in the Oval Office that he and Musk had had a great relationship but mused: "I don't know if we will anymore." He said some people who leave his administration "miss it so badly' and "actually become hostile.' "It's sort of Trump derangement syndrome, I guess they call it,' he said. He brushed aside the billionaire's efforts to get him elected last year, including a US$1mil-a-day voter sweepstakes in Pennsylvania. The surge of cash Musk showed he was willing to spend seemed to set him up as a highly coveted ally for Republicans going forward, but his split with Trump, the party's leader, raises questions about whether they or any others will see such a campaign windfall in the future. Trump said Musk "only developed a problem' with the bill because it rolls back tax credits for electric vehicles. "False,' Musk fired back on his social media platform as the president continued speaking. "This bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!' In another post, he said Trump could keep the spending cuts but "ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill.' Besides Musk being "disturbed' by the electric vehicle tax credits, Trump said another point of contention was Musk's promotion of Jared Isaacman to run NASA. Trump withdrew Isaacman's nomination over the weekend and on Thursday called him "totally a Democrat.' Musk continued slinging his responses on social media. He shared some posts Trump made over a decade ago criticising Republicans for their spending, musings made when he, too, was just a billionaire lobbing his thoughts on social media. "Where is the man who wrote these words?' Musk wrote. "Was he replaced by a body double!?' On the White House grounds Thursday afternoon, Trump's red Tesla still sat in a parking lot.- AP
The Sun
11 hours ago
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US slaps sanctions on four ICC judges over Israel, US cases
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