‘India-funded projects to continue in Bangladesh’
Dhaka, Sep 10: A top adviser of the interim government said Tuesday that India-funded projects are “very important” and will continue under the new administration in Bangladesh. Finance Adviser Salehuddin Ahmed also said that Dhaka looks forward to “enhanced cooperation” with New Delhi during his meeting with Indian High Commissioner Pranay Verma here, the state-run BSS news agency reported. “Already, the projects they (India) have with us are big projects, and we’ll continue those, as those are not small projects and we’ll take another big project for the benefits of ours…,” the report quoted him as saying. “We’ll not stop on whatever we have got, and we’ll talk about those projects …funding of the projects and also their implementation part,” he added. The financial adviser’s remarks come amid concerns about the timely implementation of projects funded under India’s three lines of credit following the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League government last month after a mass uprising. (PTI)
Pope Francis’ Mass in East Timor draws 600,000 people
Tasitolu, Sep 10: The Vatican says some 600,000 people have attended Pope Francis’ Mass in East Timor, or nearly half the country’s population. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni cited crowd estimates by local organisers of the number of people in the Tasitolu park and surrounding areas, the same site as St. John Paul II’s historic Mass in 1989. While some faithful from Indonesia’s West Timor travelled for the Mass, the number would approximate around half of East Timor’s population of 1.3 million, making it the largest crowd ever to attend a papal event, in terms of the proportion of the population. Francis is visiting East Timor as part of his trip through Asia. (AP)
China’s drug regulator clears mpox vaccine
Beijing, Sep 10: China’s top drug regulator has cleared a mpox vaccine developed by local drug firm Sinopharm for clinical trials which could be the country’s first experimental dose to battle the deadly disease. The domestic vaccine candidate, created by the Shanghai Institute of Biological Products and administered by Sinopharm, is expected to play an important role in preventing and controlling mpox infections, the company said in a statement released on Monday afternoon. There is currently no approved mpox vaccine in China. Globally, a few vaccines have been approved in the United States, Canada, the European Union, Japan and Russia. In China, a vaccine candidate typically goes through three phases of clinical trials before gaining market approval. The process can take years, even decades. However, the National Medical Products Administration, China’s top drug regulator, has launched a number of accelerated or streamlined channels to facilitate applications of novel drugs and vaccines or those in urgent need, state-run China Daily reported. The new vaccine is a replication-deficient vaccine based on a strain called MVA. The description is the same as Jynneos, the world’s first mpox vaccine approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the US in 2019. (PTI)