USA

05 Feb 2021; MEMO: The economies of countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region will grow by 3.1 per cent during 2021, compared to 2020's 3.8 per cent contraction due to the repercussions of the coronavirus, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said yesterday.

"The economic recovery in the MENA region will accelerate this year, but in a disproportionate manner," IMF's Director for the Middle East and Central Asia, Jihad Azour, said in a statement.

04 Feb 2021; MEMO: US Congressman Andy Levin has warned that anti-Semitism cannot be properly defeated without addressing Israel's human rights abuses against Palestinians. Speaking earlier this week during an online discussion hosted by the progressive Jewish movement IfNotNow on how the Biden administration can combat anti-Jewish racism, the Michigan Democrat lawmaker mentioned his long track record of urging the US to oppose Israel's occupation.

Washington, Feb 5 (PTI) The Biden administration has announced that it is delaying the H-1B policy of the previous Trump administration on allocation of the popular foreign work visas by continuing with the lottery system until December 31, 2021, to give the immigration agency more time to develop, test and implement the modifications to the registration system.

On January 7, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced to do away with the traditional lottery system in deciding the successful applicants for the H-1B visas.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- The president of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly, Volkan Bozkir, received his first dose of COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday, said his spokesman.

Bozkir was given a Pfizer BioNTech vaccine at the Javits Center in New York, said Brenden Varma, his spokesman.

Following the injection, Bozkir said his priority remains to advance the fair and equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines around the world. He encouraged all people to get vaccinated when they can, saying that vaccines save lives, according to the spokesman.

New Delhi, Feb 5 (PTI) Waning immunity in some people following the first episode of infection with the novel coronavirus may make them more susceptible to reinfection, say doctors in a new case report.

While a decline in the levels of antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus after first encounter with the virus may heighten reinfection risk, the research, published in the journal BMJ Case Reports, noted that severe infection first time around may be followed by milder symptoms second time.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers stood before the House late Thursday to tell their personal, often stunning accounts of the siege of the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, preserving for the record their own memories of the most violent domestic attack on Congress in the nation’s history.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., led colleagues in the hourlong session days before the former president’s impeachment trial, saying their stories need to be told at a time when some in Congress and the nation are trying to minimize the damage of Jan. 6 and “move on.”

NEW YORK (AP) — A fund set up to provide money to scores of women who say they were abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein when they were as young as 14 has abruptly suspended payouts over uncertain funding, an action the Virgin Islands attorney general blamed Thursday on Epstein’s estate as she moved to freeze its assets.

The announcement by the Epstein Victims’ Compensation Program came through a release that attributed the suspension to uncertainty about the liquidity of estate assets needed to finance payouts.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits declined to 779,000 last week, a still-historically high total that shows that a sizable number of people keep losing jobs to the viral pandemic.

Last week’s total, the third straight, declined from 812,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said Thursday. It left the weekly figure at its lowest point in two months but nevertheless elevated: Before the virus erupted in the United States in March, weekly applications for jobless aid had never topped 700,000, even during the Great Recession.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned of “tough months ahead” with COVID-19 continuing to flare, making it critical that Congress pass President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief package.

In her first public interview since becoming Treasury secretary last week, Yellen said that Biden is willing to cooperate with Republicans to pass the measure on a bipartisan basis.

Democrats in Congress have signaled, however, that if GOP support is not forthcoming, they are prepared to pass the measure with only Democratic support.

NEW YORK (AP) — Despite its world-class medical system and its vaunted Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. fell behind in the race to detect dangerous coronavirus mutations. And it’s only now beginning to catch up.

The problem has not been a shortage of technology or expertise. Rather, scientists say, it’s an absence of national leadership and coordination, plus a lack of funding and supplies for overburdened laboratories trying to juggle diagnostic testing with the hunt for genetic changes.