Author: zenger.news

QUETTA, Balochistan — Hundreds of members of the minority Hazara Shiite community in Quetta have blocked major roads in the provincial capital of Balochistan to protest the brutal killings of 11 coal miners by the Islamic State early on Jan. 3. The protesters at the Western Bypass, a major trade route, are demanding that the Balochistan government arrest the terrorists or else resign, and that Prime Minister Imran Khan come to Quetta and meet with them and offers some reassurance to victims’ families. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for kidnapping and killing at least 11 coal miners in the Mach…

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FOSHAN, China — Chinese officials are racing against time to save a pink-tinged albino dolphin that got lost and is now trapped between two floodgates. The rare Chinese white dolphin is estimated to be 30 to 40 years old. Experts believe it entered the Shakou Water Control Station in the city of Foshan in China’s Guangdong Province because its internal sonar system is no longer reliable. Foshan, China. (Map by Urvashi Makwana)The dolphin was trapped after the floodgates were closed, leaving it swimming between two barriers, occasionally surfacing to breathe as seen in the video below. The staff immediately reported the…

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YOKENEAM, Israel — Half of men over age 51 — and 90% of men over 80 — suffer from non-cancerous benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). That means they have trouble urinating because of an enlarged prostate. Butterfly Medical has developed an innovative metal coil, shaped roughly like a butterfly, to stop BPH symptoms without drugs or surgery. Any urologist can insert the device in an outpatient procedure in less than 10 minutes. For the 30 million men around the world with BPH, Yokneam-based Butterfly is a potential game changer. Pharmaceutical and surgical alternatives such as TURP (transurethral resection of the prostate)…

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Indians bade adieu to 2020 by gorging on biryani and pizza. After months of having to make do with home-cooked food due to pandemic-generated caution, Indians decided to bring in the New Year by ordering takeout. So much so that food delivery apps struggled to meet orders. Zomato, a food delivery app, hit a peak with nearly 4,254 orders being placed per minute on December 31, 2020, said a Tweet by Deepinder Goyal, founder and chief executive officer of Zomato. Swiggy, another food delivery app, saw orders crossing the 5000 mark per minute on the New Year eve, said news reports. “The demand…

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Bengaluru based delivery start-up, Dunzo released a report on December 26 that revealed that some of the highest ordered commodities in Indian metropolitan cities were condoms, pregnancy test kits, and rolling papers. According to the report, the demand for pregnancy test kits surged in Bengaluru and Pune, whereas Mumbai observed a surge in demand for condoms. Mumbai and Bengaluru together recorded a 200 percent increase in orders of condoms. Indians in Bengaluru also ordered 22 times more rolling paper than Chennai. Rolling papers are used to make hand-rolled cigarettes and cannabis reefers. Dr. Geetanjali Sharma, a counsellor and relationship coach…

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As dusk descends on Pulicat Lake—a large saltwater lagoon on the border of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh in South India—Isaivani starts singing a rousing “gaana” song. She is the only female singer of this particular genre of funeral music that originated in northern region of Chennai — the capital of Tamil Nadu. Isaivani’s rendition immediately strikes a chord with the fishing community that makes up most of her audience. The theme of land grabbing has hit close to home for they are soon to lose their livelihoods to a proposed port. A murmur of dissent spreads through the crowd.…

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Indore, 2 January 2020 — The arrest of a stand-up comedian in the central Indian city of Indore on Jan. 1 for allegedly hurting religious sentiments has yet again revealed the diminishing space of dissent in the country, claim free speech activists and lawyers. Mumbai-based comic Munawar Faruqui took the stage at Café Monroe in Indore on the evening of Jan. 1 for a show when he was stopped by Aklavya Singh Gaur, the convenor of Hind Rakshak. The organization claims to be a defender of Hindu culture and society. A video shared with Zenger News by an audience member…

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MOIA, Spain — Researchers have revealed that cave bears were actually cannibals — they ate their cave mates and their young. The cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) bones, found at the Paleolithic site of Cova del Toll, in Moia, Spain, were discovered in the 1950s. However, no research on them was undertaken until 2014, according to Jordi Rosell, from Rovira i Virgili University and the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES). The research, conducted by experts from those two schools, as well as the National Centre of Investigation for Human Evolution, Alcala University and Complutense University, coupled with new…

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Silicon Valley-based Theranos famously promised an in-office blood analysis device that could conduct dozens of tests from a single finger prick. That claim turned out to be fraudulent. But other startups — including three from Israel — are attempting to get it right. One of them, PixCell Medical of Israel, was just named to PM360’s Innovative Companies of 2020 list. PM360 is a monthly magazine covering the pharmaceutical, biotech, medical device and diagnostics industries. A recent study conducted by the University of Maryland and Sweden’s Linköping and Uppsala Universities compared PixCell’s HemoScreen system to standard analyzers. It found HemoScreen can…

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Pari Gul Tareen is the first woman in the history of Balochistan to be appointed Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) in Quetta. She was appointed to the post on Nov. 24. Tareen who belongs to Balochistan’s Pishin area, was the first woman in the province to join the Police Service of Pakistan (PSP) after passing the Central Superior Services (CSS) exam in 2017. She came fourth in the examination in the province. She is the first in her family to have attended a university. “It’s a great honor to be the first woman with this distinction, but it’s also a matter…

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