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Happy Diwali Vol 19 - Issue 41
Saturday, November 14, 2020
‘There are 5 Bidens in Mumbai’: When US President-elect spoke of distant kin in India When US President-elect Joe Biden was in India’s financial capital in 2013, he had told an audience that his distant relatives live in Mumbai. Biden reiterated his claim two years later at an event in Washington, saying there are five Bidens living in Mumbai. With the 77-year-old Democrat set to take oath as the 46th US President in just over two months, nobody in Mumbai has so far turned up to claim that he is Biden’s relative. Decades after he received a letter from someone by the last name of Biden from Mumbai, soon after becoming a senator, Biden learned that his “great, great, great, great, great grandfather” had worked in the East India Company. “There are five Bidens in Mumbai, India,” Continued on page 6
BC feared money-laundering crackdown would hurt provincial revenue, Cullen Commission hears The former commander of an RCMP gambling unit says British Columbia’s solicitor-general told him in 2009 the provincial Liberal government of the day did not want to crack down on organized crime in casinos because it would dampen a massive source of provincial revenue. Retired RCMP officer Fred Pinnock described a 2009 conversation with then-solicitor-general Kash Heed The former commander of an RCMP gambling unit says British Columbia’s solicitor-general told him in 2009 the provincial Liberal government of the day did not want to crack down on organized crime in casinos because it would dampen a massive source of provincial revenue.
BC’s stellar COVID-19 performance diminishing with surge in new cases Through the spring and into late summer, British Columbia’s coronavirus case numbers were the envy of the country. But beginning in earnest in September, B.C.’s COVID-19 test positive case numbers started increasing.
By mid-October they were up significantly, and by November, the province’s sevenday moving average of new daily cases per one million population surpassed Ontario, according to data compiled by the B.C.
Centre for Disease Control. B.C.’s stellar COVID-19 performance diminishing with increase in cases Ontario, along with Quebec, has been a hot spot for COVID cases and deaths in Canada.
Shoppers shrug off pandemic & pollution ahead of India’s biggest festival, Diwali Crowds packed New Delhi markets on Thursday ahead of India’s biggest holiday of the year, shrugging off record coronavirus cases and toxic smog in the capital. Shoppers looking for food and last-minute gifts before the Diwali festival of lights said they were fed up with being cooped up, no matter the deadly threats around them. New Delhi recorded 8,600 new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, the highest number since the pandemic started and 85 deaths, and experts said the teeming markets could easily become “super-spreaders”.
BC on track to see 1,000 new COVID-19 cases a day if changes not made: Modelling numbers British Columbia could be seeing more than 1,000 new cases of COVID-19 every day over the next two weeks if people don’t cut down on contacts now. In the latest modelling numbers, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says the cases of COVID-19 are set to double over the next 13 days without significant changes in people’s behaviour. Continued on page 6
India has reported nearly 8.7 million infections, the world’s second-highest caseload behind the United States, and there are fears that a Diwali surge could hit major cities across the country of 1.3 billion. Nearly a week of “hazardous”
level air pollution has only added to health fears. Loudspeaker warnings to wear masks and maintain social distancing serenaded bargain hunters who packed the narrow lanes of Lajpat Nagar market, one of the busiest in the city of 20 million people. Some winced in pain from swabs put up their nose as they took a Covid-19 test at an open-air centre set up in one street. Health experts have warned that crowded markets during Diwali this year could become super-spreaders But university student Harsimran Singh said it was almost like a normal chaotic Diwali.
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