USA

(AP) --- The first one-shot COVID-19 vaccine provides good protection against the illness, Johnson & Johnson reported in a key study released Friday, offering the world a potentially important new tool as it races to stay ahead of the rapidly mutating virus.

The pharmaceutical giant’s preliminary findings suggest the single-dose option may not be as strong as Pfizer’s or Moderna’s two-dose formula, and was markedly weaker against a worrisome mutated version of the virus in South Africa.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden warned Friday of a steep and growing “cost of inaction” on his $1.9 trillion COVID relief plan as the White House searched for “creative” ways to win public support for a package that is getting a cold shoulder from Senate Republicans.

In the age of COVID, it’s not as simple as jumping on a plane to travel the country and try to gin up a groundswell. And at a time of deep polarization, Biden may struggle to convince Republican voters of the urgency when Congress already has approved $4 trillion in aid, including $900 billion last month.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 29 (APP): Pakistan has called for the implementation of the U.N. resolutions that promised the right of self-determination to the Kashmiri people, saying a “surge in diplomacy” was essential to resolve the old and new disputes.

“The process of de-colonization will be incomplete until the people of Jammu & Kashmir are enabled to exercise their right to self-determination through a UN-supervised plebiscite as called for in several resolutions of the Security Council,” Ambassador Munir Akram told the UN General Assembly on Thursday.

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 29 (APP): Delegates of India and Pakistan got into a fresh verbal duel in the UN General Assembly on Thursday, after Pakistani Ambassador Munir Akram exposed New Delhi’s human rights abuses in the occupied Kashmir as well as the design of the BJP-RSS extremists against Pakistan.

Indian delegate Vidisha Maitra reacted to Ambassador Akram’s pointed words, claiming that Kashmir was an integral part of India.

Exercising his right of reply, Pakistan’s delegate Jawad Ali rejected India’s claim that Jammu and Kashmir was its part.

JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden’s plan to work to reopen the Palestinians’ diplomatic mission in Washington could be held up over a law that exposes Palestinian officials to U.S. anti-terror lawsuits, officials and advisers to the Palestinians say.

The Biden administration hopes to repair relations with the Palestinians after a sharp deterioration under former President Donald Trump, who closed the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Washington office in 2018 and cut millions of dollars in aid to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

(Reuters) -Tehran will not accept U.S. demands that it reverse an acceleration of its nuclear programme before Washington lifts sanctions, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Friday.

The demand “is not practical and will not happen”, he said at a joint news conference in Istanbul with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu.

The new administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has said Tehran must resume compliance with curbs on its nuclear activity under the world powers’ 2015 deal before it can rejoin the pact.

29 Jan 2021; MEMO: Democrat politicians in the US have slammed Israel for preventing Palestinians from accessing the coronavirus vaccine.

In an Instagram post by the Institution of Middle East Understanding (IMEU), politicians criticised Israel for its lack of responsibility in ensuring Palestinians also received the vaccine to protect against COVID-19, which has ripped across the world, causing a global pandemic.

Washington, Jan 29 (PTI) The Biden administration is going to remain committed to a strong bilateral relationship with India, the Pentagon has said, a day after US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke for the first time with Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.

The Secretary made it very clear that we're going to remain committed to a strong US-India bilateral relationship, Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby told reporters at a news conference here on Thursday.

United Nations, Jan 29 (PTI) UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said it is absolutely essential for India and Pakistan to be able to come together and seriously discuss their problems, cautioning that any military confrontation would be a disaster of unmitigated proportions for both countries and the whole world.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 28 (Xinhua) -- The Pentagon said on Thursday that the Afghan Taliban had not met its commitment under the U.S.-Taliban deal.

"Without meeting their commitments to renounce terrorism and to stop the violent attacks on the Afghan National Security Forces and by dint of that the Afghan people, it's very hard to see a specific way forward for the negotiated settlement," Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said at a press briefing.

"But we're still committed to that," he added.