UiTV Connect

New Delhi, Feb 26 (UiTV/IANS)  - A defiant Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged European countries to do more to help, as he urged his citizens to resist Russian invasion, BBC reported. The second day of fighting saw tanks enter the capital, Kiev, for the first time, as Ukrainian military vehicles also rushed to the city to defend it. Ukrainian officials said they have handed out 18,000 guns to volunteers, as well as issuing instructions on how to make petrol bombs, the report said. Fighting continues across the nation. "Russian tanks are still shooting residential buildings in our cities," Zelensky said in an address to the nation earlier. Zelensky said Western nations - and nearby Europe in particular - must go further and "act without delay", BBC reported. "Europe has enough strength to stop this aggression," he said. "The columns of tanks and the air strikes are very similar to what Europe saw a long time ago, during WW2 - something a...

Washington, Feb 25 (UiTV/IANS)  - At least three former police officers of Minneapolis, the US state of Minnesota , accused of violating the civil rights of George Floyd, were found guilty by a federal jury on Thursday. The jury found that Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng, and Tou Thao all deprived Floyd of his right to medical care and that two of them failed to intervene as their colleague Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes during an arrest, leading to the African American man's death. A sentencing date for the three has not yet been set. All of them could face up to life in prison, Xinhua news agency reported. Chauvin's state trial took place last year, and he was convicted of murdering Floyd. He is currently serving a 22-year prison sentence. Floyd's death in May 2020 sparked protests across the US against police brutality and systemic racism. Read More :-   https://www.uitvconnect.com/newspaper/us-jury-finds-three-ex-cops-involved-george-...

  Washington, Feb 23 (UiTV/IANS)  - In response to Russia declaring the two rebel regions of Ukraine as independent states, US President Joe Biden has imposed tough new sanctions on Moscow in the wake of what he called "the beginning of a Russian invasion" of Kiev. Addressing reporters in the White House on Tuesday, Biden said the first tranche of sanctions to impose costs on Russia are "far beyond the steps we and our allies and partners implemented in 2014". "And if Russia goes further with this invasion, we stand prepared to go further as - with sanction... These (sanctions) have been closely coordinated with our allies and partners, and we'll continue to escalate sanctions if Russia escalates," he added. The sanctions have been imposed on two large Russian financial institutions: V.E.B. and their military bank, as well as on Russian sovereign debt, which according to Biden is to "cut off Russia's government from Western financing". R...

  Kabul, Feb 21 (UiTV/IANS) -   Afghanistan's state -owned bread factory, Silo-e-Markazi or central silo located in Kabul, has resumed production decades after it stopped functioning, an official said here. "After hectic efforts we have reactivated the Silo-e-Markazi to resume production and for the first time over the past 30 years it begun baking breads and cakes," Xinhua news agency quoted chief of the bread producing body, Khayal Mohammad Maher as saying to reporters on Sunday. The factory, which has been badly damaged since the 1990s and stopped functioning since 1992, would be fully reconstructed to increase its products. "Two more branches of the silo are situated in the southern Kandahar and western Herat cities and authorities would soon buy necessary equipment to fully reactivate the said factories," Maher said. According to the official, the silo begun its production with baking 200 kg of flour to make bread and cake daily and in the future the capaci...

  Athens, Feb 19 (UiTV/IANS)  - Eleven people were reported missing, while a rescue operation was underway for two persons trapped on a ferry that caught fire off Corfu island in western Greece, authorities said. A total of 278 people have been transferred in safety on Corfu, including a person which was not included in the official list of people onboard, Xinhua news agency quoted a statement issued on Friday by the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy as saying. "According to the official lists the vessel's captain had submitted to port authorities in Igoumenitsa before departure, there were 239 passengers and 51 crew members onboard the Euroferry Olympia," Nikos Lagadianos, Greek Coast Guard senior official, told a press briefing at Piraeus. The two trapped persons were lorry drivers, Greek national broadcaster ERT said. Three people have been slightly injured, the director of Corfu hospital told ERT. The Italian-flagged ferry of Grimaldi Group had departe...

  New Delhi, Feb 18 (UiTV/IANS)  - Delhi Police have arrested a 27-year-old man for allegedly raping a minor girl in the national capital's Kirti Nagar area, an official said Friday. The accused, identified as Sarvesh, was the neighbour of the 14-year-old victim. According to the official, the minor girl, a student of Class 7 and resident of Chunna Bhatti Jhuggi had lodged a complaint on February 16 alleging that she was raped twice by the accused. "She alleged that her neighbour raped her first time in December. The second time the accused raped her on February 11," the official said, adding the victim was also threatened by the accused. The victim, after being sexually assaulted for the second time, disclosed about the incident to her mother who then reported it to the police. The official further informed that the accused was arrested on the same day on February 16 and sent to judicial custody." Further probe is on," the official added. Read More :-  https:/...

  Bengaluru, Feb 17 (UiTV/IANS)  - Tense situation continued in and around Karnataka colleges on Thursday as the pre-university students wearing hijab demanded to be let inside classrooms. The hijab-clad students were sent back and many protested the decision of college authorities. Six persons, who came in support of the hijab wearing students near the Vijay Para-Medical College, were taken into custody in Belagavi. The individuals who gathered in front of the college raised 'Allah hu Akbar' slogans and demanded that hijab wearing students must be allowed inside the classrooms. They were taken into custody after they indulged in heated arguments with the police. State Home Minister Araga Jnanendra met Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai at his residence and discussed the situation in the state. Meanwhile, Muskaan Khan, the student who made international news by raising 'Allah hu Akbar' slogans against saffron wearing protesting students, remained absent from PES College ...

  Unnao (UP), Feb 11 (UITV/IANS)  Two months after a 22-year-old Dalit woman in Unnao had gone missing, police recovered her decomposed body near an ashram owned by a former state minister's son. The station house officer (SHO) of the area has been suspended for alleged laxity in the probe. According to police, Rajol Singh , the son of former SP minister late Fateh Bahadur Singh, was arrested on January 24 in connection with the alleged kidnapping of the woman. On January 25, the woman's mother had tried to immolate herself in front of Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav's vehicle in Lucknow. The woman's mother has alleged laxity by police, especially the local SHO Akhilesh Chandra Pandey. Additional Superintendent of Police, Unnao, Shashi Shekhar Singh said: "On December 8, a missing complaint was filed after which an FIR was lodged on January 10 as per the rules. One person was arrested and the investigation is in progress. Based on the probe findings, the body...

  Los Angeles, Feb 10 (UITV/IANS)  Supply chain problems which had crippled leading ports in the US were relieved as the number of ships queuing outside of Southern California ports went down to the lowest number since last fall, says Port of Los Angeles (POLA) Executive Director Gene Seroka. "The number of ships coming across the ocean, those that have just left, are traversing the Pacific or just about to get here to the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, counts at 83," Xinhua news agency quoted Seroka as saying. He noted that it was the lowest number since last fall. According to the latest data from Marine Exchange of Southern California, 87 ships were in the POLA and the neighboring Port of Long Beach (POLB), including 28 at anchor or loitering and 59 at berths on Tuesday. POLA and POLB together form the fifth busiest port facility in the world and the busiest in the Americas. POLA processed about 10.7 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) in 2021, breaking its...

Rabat, Feb 9 (UITV/IANS)  The coast guards of Morocco's Royal Navy have rescued 256 illegal immigrants in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean since Saturday, the official news agency MAP reported. The immigrants , mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, included 41 women and 5 children, the report cited a military source as saying on Tuesday. They were facing difficulties on board the makeshift inflatable boats and received the first aid when they were rescued, said the source. Morocco has long been a transit country for African immigrants seeking to reach Europe, Xinhua news agency reported. Read More  :-  https://www.uitvconnect.com/newspaper/morocco-rescues-256-illegal-immigrants-coast

  Helsinki, Feb 8 (UiTV/IANS)  - Erkki Tuomioja, Finland's former Foreign Minister and long-time Member of Parliament, said he doubted that his country's possible North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) membership would strengthen its security. Commenting on his new book "Finland and NATO" on Monday, Tuomioja raised the question of what in practice would NATO countries be willing to do to help Finland in the event of a war, Xinhua news agency reported. If Finland were a NATO member, it would become the primary front in a war between NATO and Russia, he added. "I believe NATO would ultimately emerge as the winner and would show up as the liberator of Finland, but what would remain of us by that time, especially if nuclear weapons are used?" Tuomioja asked. According to him, it is not in the interest of either Finland or Russia to turn the 1,300-km border between them into a military conflict zone. In his opinion, Finland should have the opportunity to appl...

  Washington, Feb 5 (UiTV/IANS)  - The US Federal Reserve Board has named Jerome Powell as "chair pro tempore", pending his confirmation by the Senate for a second term as Chair of the central bank. "The action, effective February 5, enables him to continue to carry out his duties as Chair after the expiration of his term on the same day, and while the confirmation process is underway," the Fed said in a statement on Friday. The Federal Open Market Committee, the bank's policy-making committee, separately named Powell as its chair at its annual organisational meeting in January, Xinhua news agency reported. Powell's term as a Governor on the Fed board runs through 2028, the central bank said. President Joe Biden announced in November last year that he nominated Powell for a second term as Fed Chair and the bank's Governor Lael Brainard as Vice Chair. But the Senate hasn't voted on their confirmation. Powell is expected to be confirmed with a bipart...

  New York, Feb 4  (UITV/IANS)-  The pivot to Meta isn't helping Mark Zuckerberg 's Facebook. Markets directed their wrath on missing fundamentals - a sharper-than-expected decline in profits and a gloomy outlook - in the first earnings report of the newly christened company Wednesday. Shares opened Thursday down 25 per cent. This is a crash of about $230 billion from the social media networking giant's market capitalisation. Consequent to the bloodbath, Zuckerberg personally lost 23.34 percent of his net worth. At $87.7 billion, he slipped to No 12 in the Forbes real-time billionaires index - marginally behind India's Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani. Meta confirmed that it expected revenue growth to slow because users were spending less time on its more lucrative services. It cited inflation as a weight on advertiser spends and estimated that ad-tracking changes introduced by Tim Cook's Apple last year would cost it some $10 billion this year. Meta lost about a mill...