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Nirmal Purja - Climbs 14 highest mountains in six months

Nirmal Purja is a Nepalese mountaineer. Prior to taking on a career in mountaineering, he served in the British Army with the Brigade of Gurkhas followed by the Special Boat Service (SBS), the special forces unit of the Royal Navy. Purja is notable for having climbed all 14 eight-thousanders (peaks above 8,000 metres or 26,000 feet) in a time of six months and six days with the aid of bottled oxygen between April and October 2019. This was a record at the time of climbing, although it was broken in 2023 by Kristin Harila and Tenjen Sherpa, who summitted all 14 eight-thousanders in 92 days. Purja was the first person to reach the summits of Mount Everest, Lhotse and Makalu within 48 hours. In 2021, Purja, along with a team of nine other Nepalese climbers, completed the first winter ascent of K2.

Early Life

Nirmal ("Nims") Purja was born in July 1983 in Dana, a small village in Nepal's Myagdi District near Dhaulagiri, at 1,600 m above sea level.  At age 4, his family moved lower down to the Chitwan District near Kathmandu. His father was a Gurkha soldier and his mother was from a farming background.  Being from two different Nepalese castes, their marriage was frowned upon and they were cut off financially and socially from their respective families. Purja told National Geographic, "We came from a really poor family", and "As a kid, I remember I didn't even have flip-flops". His three much older brothers became Gurkha soldiers and they funded Purja to attend an English-speaking boarding school. During his schooling, Purja became proficient in kick-boxing. He later attended Loughborough University (England), where he received a postgraduate diploma in security management.

Climbing Career

He made his first major Himalayan climb in 2012, reaching the summit of Lobuche East with no previous experience as a mountaineer. On 18 May 2014, he made his first ascent of an eight-thousander by summiting Dhaulagiri (8,167 metres) during a return trip of only 15 days. On 13 May 2016, Purja summited Mount Everest, his second eight-thousander. On 15 May 2017,  Purja led the Gurkha Expedition "G200E", which summited Everest together with 13 Gurkhas to commemorate 200 years of Gurkha service in the British Army. He has climbed Mount Everest six times: the third time 27 May 2017,  the fourth time 22 May 2019,  the fifth time 31 May 2021  and the sixth time 15 May 2022. On 9 June 2018, he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for his outstanding work in high altitude mountaineering.

Purja, along with nine other Nepali mountaineers, made history on 16 January 2021 as the first to climb K2 in the harsh weather conditions of the winter. His team consisting of Mingma David Sherpa, Mingma Tenzi Sherpa, Geljen Sherpa, Pem Chiri Sherpa, Dawa Temba Sherpa and himself, joined by the team of Mingma Gyalje Sherpa (Mingma G), Dawa Tenjin Sherpa and Kilu Pemba Sherpa, and Sona Sherpa from Seven Summits Treks successfully ascended K2 at 16:58 local time in Pakistan. This is the first successful K2 winter expedition after numerous attempts since 1987. Purja was the only team member to reach the summit without using supplemental oxygen, becoming the first person to do so in winter. After terrible weather conditions hit the lower camps at the foot of K2 and some equipment was lost, Nepali mountaineers of these three teams decided to join efforts and climb the peak together, as a team.

In May 2022, Purja set a new speed record for ascending Kangchenjunga, Mount Everest, and Lhotse consecutively without oxygen, with a time of 8 days 23 hours, and 10 minutes. He ascended Kangchenjunga on 7 May at 10:50 am, Mount Everest on 15 May at 8 am (his sixth ascent of Mount Everest), and after 26 hours, on 16 May, at 10 am, ascended Lhotse. On 4 October 2024, Purja broke two world records after summiting Shishapangma: the fastest time to summit all 14 peaks with no supplementary oxygen (2 years and 5 months); and, the fastest to summit all 14 peaks both with and without supplementary oxygen. On 21 October 2024, Purja broke yet another record by becoming the first person to summit the 14 peaks and the Seven Summits both with and without supplementary oxygen. In 2025, Purja announced his latest challenge - called the Hat-Trick Challenge - the aim being to complete the 14 Peaks and the Seven Summits for the third time. Purja announced he would be self-funding the project, with all donations and sponsorship money going to support the Nimsdai Foundation.  The Foundation's mission is to support the Big Mountain communities through initiatives including education, emergency aid and environmental projects. The most high-profile project is the Big Mountain Clean Up - launched to remove waste from the high peaks. On July 3rd, 2025, Purja announced that he had summitted Nanga Parbat in Pakistan. This was his 50th successful summit of an 8,000m peak, and his 22nd 8,000er without the use of supplementary oxygen.  This sets two new records for Purja - the most successful summits by any climber and the most successful summits without oxygen use.

Courtesy : Wikipedia

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Who is Zohran Kwame Mamdani?

Zohran Kwame is an American politician who has served since 2021 as a member of the New York State Assembly from the 36th district, representing the Queens neighborhood of Astoria. A member of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America, he is the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City in the 2025 election. Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda, to academic Mahmood Mamdani and filmmaker Mira Nair. The family immigrated to South Africa when he was five years old and then to the United States when he was seven, settling in New York City. Mamdani graduated from the Bronx High School of Science and received a bachelor's degree with a major in Africana studies from Bowdoin College in Maine in 2014. After working as a housing counselor and hip-hop musician, he entered local politics as a campaign manager for Khader El-Yateem and Ross Barkan. Mamdani was first elected to the New York State Assembly in 2020, defeating five-term incumbent Aravella Simotas in the Democratic primary. He was reelected without opposition in 2022 and 2024. In October 2024, Mamdani announced his candidacy for mayor of New York City in the 2025 election. He won the Democratic primary in an upset victory over Andrew Cuomo. His campaign platform includes support for fare-free city buses, public child care, city-owned grocery stores, LGBTQ rights, a rent freeze on rent-stabilized units, additional affordable housing units, comprehensive public safety reform, and a $30 minimum wage by 2030. Mamdani also supports tax increases on corporations and those earning above $1 million annually.

In October 2019, Mamdani announced his campaign to represent New York's 36th State Assembly district, which encompasses Astoria and Long Island City in Queens. He was endorsed by the DSA, running on a platform of housing reform, police and prison reform, and public ownership of utilities. Mamdani's June 2020 primary victory over five-term Democratic incumbent Aravella Simotas took almost a month to call, and he won the general election with no Republican opposition in November.[48] Mamdani was reelected without opposition in 2022  and 2024. Mamdani is a member of the DSA's nine-member "State Socialists in Office" bloc in New York and a member of the Muslim Democratic Club of New York. Mamdani was the keynote speaker at the 2023 DSA convention, saying, "We are special as DSA electeds not because of ourselves; we are special because of our organization". As of January 2025, Mamdani was a member of nine Assembly committees: the Committee on Aging; the Committee on Cities; the Committee on Election Law; the Committee on Energy; the Committee on Real Property Taxation; the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic & Asian Legislative Caucus; the Puerto Rican/Hispanic Task Force; the Asian Pacific American Task Force; and the Task Force on New Americans. Mamdani had been the primary sponsor of 20 bills in the Assembly—three of which became law—and the co-sponsor of 238 bills as of May 2025.  As a member of the Assembly, Mamdani helped to launch a successful fare-free bus pilot program and participated in a hunger strike alongside taxi drivers.

New York City mayoral campaign (2024–present)

On October 23, 2024, Mamdani announced his candidacy for mayor of New York City.  His platform includes support for free city buses and a rent freeze in rent-stabilized housing. Mamdani also wants the city government to operate five grocery stores—one in each borough—to drive down grocery prices. His platform includes support for universal child care and for the construction of 200,000 new affordable housing units. He also supports public safety reform and a $30 minimum wage by 2030.  His platform calls for tax increases on corporations and those earning above $1 million annually. For most of the primary campaign, Mamdani trailed former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in polling. He and Cuomo raised similar amounts of money, but his donor base was considerably larger than Cuomo's.  A poll taken shortly before the June 24 primary election showed that Mamdani had caught up to Cuomo.  First-choice results on election night showed Mamdani had a large lead over Cuomo,   who conceded the race that evening. On July 1, after the New York City Board of Elections released its ranked-choice ballot tabulation, the Associated Press announced Mamdani had won the Democratic primary.  It was considered a major upset.  A July 2025 poll indicated a shift in Jewish American political attitudes, with 43% of Jewish New Yorkers and 67% of Jewish voters under 44 planning to support Mamdani — levels of support suggesting waning attachment to traditional pro-Israel politics, while many Jewish leaders and voters remained critical of Mamdani. Donald Trump has issued a warning to withdraw federal funding should Mamdani emerge victorious. In response, Mamdani asserts that he will stand firm despite the threat.

Courtesy : Wikipedia

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Piers Morgan Life and History

Piers Morgan is an English journalist and media personality. He began his career in 1988 at the tabloid The Sun. In 1994, at the age of 29, he was appointed editor of the News of the World by Rupert Murdoch, which made him the youngest editor of a British national newspaper in more than half a century. From 1995, Morgan edited the Daily Mirror, but was fired in 2004. He was the editorial director of First News from 2006 to 2007. In 2014, Morgan became the first editor-at-large of the MailOnline website's American operation. As a television presenter, Morgan hosted the ITV talk show Piers Morgan's Life Stories (2009–2020), the CNN talk show Piers Morgan Live (2011–2014), and co-presented the ITV Breakfast programme Good Morning Britain (2015–2021) alongside Susanna Reid. He has been a judge on the television talent shows America's Got Talent (2006–2011) and Britain's Got Talent (2007–2010). In 2008, Morgan won The Celebrity Apprentice, appearing with future US president Donald Trump. He was a presenter for TalkTV (now known as Talk), hosting the program Piers Morgan Uncensored from 2022 to 2024, before leaving the network and moving the show to YouTube. 

Morgan was the editor of the Daily Mirror during the period in which the paper was implicated in the phone hacking scandal. In 2011, Morgan denied having ever hacked a phone and stated that he had not, "to [his] knowledge published any story obtained from the hacking of a phone". The following year, he was criticised in the findings of the Leveson Inquiry by chair Brian Leveson, who stated that comments made in Morgan's testimony about phone hacking were "utterly unpersuasive" and "that he was aware that it was taking place in the press as a whole and that he was sufficiently unembarrassed by what was criminal behaviour that he was prepared to joke about it". The judge in a 2023 court case against Mirror Group Newspapers found truthful evidence that Morgan knew about private phone hacking from a reporter, shared a method of phone hacking with a media professional while being questioned about a reporting scoop, and that Morgan played another's private phone message in the newsroom he had received from another tabloid editor. 

Morgan's outspoken views and controversial comments on Good Morning Britain have led Ofcom to adjudicate on multiple occasions. In March 2021, Morgan left the programme with immediate effect, following his criticism of the Oprah with Meghan and Harry interview. Ofcom received over 57,000 complaints from viewers, including a complaint from Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, herself;  Morgan was subsequently cleared of wrongdoing by Ofcom. 

Early life and education

Morgan was born as Piers Stefan O'Meara in Guildford, Surrey on 30 March 1965, the son of Vincent Eamonn O'Meara, an Irish dentist, and Gabrielle Georgina Sybille (née Oliver),  an English woman who raised Morgan as a Catholic.  A few months after his birth, the family moved to Newick, East Sussex. His father died when Morgan was 11 months old; his mother later married Glynne Pughe-Morgan,  a Welsh pub landlord who later worked in the meat distribution business, and he took his stepfather's surname. He was educated at the independent Cumnor House prep school between the ages of seven and 13, then Chailey School, a comprehensive secondary school in Chailey, followed by Priory School, Lewes, for sixth form.  After nine months at Lloyd's of London, Morgan studied journalism at Harlow College, joining the Surrey and South London Newspaper Group in 1985.

Press Career

Morgan began to work as a freelance at The Sun in 1988, at this point dropping his double-barrelled name. He told Hunter Davies in December 1994 that he was personally recruited by Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie to work on the newspaper's show business column "Bizarre", his first high-profile post.  Although he was not a fan of pop music, he was considered skilled at self-publicity and became the column's main writer. "I became the Friend of the Stars, a rampant egomaniac, pictured all the time with famous people – Madonna, Stallone, Bowie, Paul McCartney, hundreds of them. It was shameless, as they didn't know me from Adam", he told Davies. In January 1994, he became editor of the News of the World after being appointed to the job by Rupert Murdoch. Initially an acting editor, he was confirmed in the summer, becoming at 29 the youngest national newspaper editor in more than half a century. In this period, the newspaper led with a series of scoops for which Morgan credited a highly efficient newsdesk and publicist Max Clifford. 

Morgan left this post in 1995 shortly after publishing photographs of Catherine Victoria Lockwood, then wife of Charles, Earl Spencer, leaving an addictive disorders clinic in Surrey. This action ran against the editors' code of conduct, a misdemeanour for which the Press Complaints Commission upheld a complaint against Morgan.  Murdoch was reported as having said that "the boy went too far" and publicly distanced himself from the story.   Fearful of a privacy law action if he had not criticised one of his employees, Murdoch is said to have apologised to Morgan in private. The incident was reported to have contributed to Morgan's decision to leave for the Daily Mirror editorship. Morgan's autobiography The Insider states that he left the News of the World for the Mirror of his own choice. It asserts he was an admirer of former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for most of her period of office, making the appointment surprising as the Mirror is a Labour-supporting title.

Courtesy : Wikipedia

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Ratan Tata - Life and History

Ratan Naval Tata was an Indian industrialist and philanthropist. He served as the chairman of Tata

Group and Tata Sons from 1991 to 2012 and he held the position of interim chairman from October 2016 to February 2017. In 2008, he received the Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian honour in India. Ratan had previously received the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian honour, in 2000. Ratan Tata was the son of Naval Tata, who was adopted by Ratanji Tata, son of Jamshedji Tata, the founder of the Tata Group. He graduated from Cornell University College of Architecture with a bachelor's degree in architecture. He joined the Tata Group in 1962 starting on the shop floor of Tata Steel. He later succeeded J. R. D. Tata as chairman of Tata Sons upon the latter's retirement in 1991. During his tenure, the Tata Group acquired Tetley, Jaguar Land Rover, and Corus, in an attempt to turn Tata from a largely India-centric group into a global business. Throughout his life, Tata invested in over 40 start-ups, primarily in a personal capacity, with additional investments through his firm, RNT Capital Advisors.

Early years

In 1961 Tata met architect A. Quincy Jones who spent three weeks as architecture design critic at Cornell. After completing Cornell, Tata briefly joined Jones at his firm Jones & Emmons in Los Angeles. While Tata was planning to settle in Los Angeles, he was called back to India by his grandmother. 

Later years

In the 1970s, Ratan Tata was given a managerial position in the Tata group. He achieved initial success by turning the subsidiary National Radio and Electronics (NELCO) around, only to see it collapse during an economic slowdown. In 1991, J. R. D. Tata stepped down as chairman of Tata Sons, naming him his successor. Initially, Tata faced stiff resistance from the heads of various subsidiaries, who had a large amount of operational freedom under the senior Tata's tenure. In response, Tata implemented a number of policies designed to consolidate power, including the implementation of a retirement age, having subsidiaries report directly to the group office, and requiring subsidiaries to contribute their profit to building the Tata group brand. Tata prioritised innovation and delegated many responsibilities to younger talent. Under his leadership, overlapping operations between subsidiaries were streamlined into company-wide operations, with the group exiting unrelated businesses to take on globalisation. 

Personal life and death

Tata never married and had no children. In 2011, he stated, "I came close to getting married four times and each time I backed off in fear or for one reason or another." However, he was very close to his personal assistant Shantanu Naidu during the later part of his life. Tata was admitted to Breach Candy Hospital in critical condition due to dyspnea and was under intensive care from 7 October 2024. He died there at 23:30 IST on 9 October 2024, at the age of 86 due to age-related issues. Following his death, the Government of Maharashtra and the Government of Jharkhand announced a day of mourning. On 10 October, Tata was given a state funeral. His last rites were conducted at the Worli crematorium. He was accorded with military and 21-gun salute during his final rites. Mumbai Police delivered a ceremonial guard of honour and his body was wrapped in the Indian flag. 

Honours and awards

President Pratibha Patil presenting the Padma Vibhushan to Ratan Tata, at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, in 2008 Ratan Tata received the Padma Bhushan in 2000 and Padma Vibhushan in 2008, the third and second highest civilian honours awarded by the Government of India.  Tata also received various state civilian honours such as 'Maharashtra Bhushan' in 2006 for his work in the public administration in Maharashtra and 'Assam Baibhav' in 2021 for his contribution towards furthering cancer care in Assam.

Courtesy : Wikipedia

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Hassan Nasrallah : Life and History

Hassan Nasrallah was a Lebanese cleric and politician who served as the secretary-general of Hezbollah, a Shia Islamist political party and militia, from 1992 until his assassination in late 2024. Born into a Shia family in the suburbs of Beirut in 1960, Nasrallah finished his education in Tyre, when he briefly joined the Amal Movement, and afterward at a Shia seminary in Baalbek. He later studied and taught at an Amal school. Nasrallah joined Hezbollah, which was formed to fight the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. After a brief period of religious studies in Iran, Nasrallah returned to Lebanon and became Hezbollah's leader after his predecessor, Abbas al-Musawi, was assassinated by an Israeli airstrike in 1992. Under Nasrallah's leadership, Hezbollah acquired rockets with a longer range, which allowed them to strike at northern Israel. After Israel suffered heavy casualties during its 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon, it withdrew its forces in 2000, which greatly increased Hezbollah's popularity in the region, and bolstered Hezbollah's position within Lebanon. Hezbollah cultivated Nasrallah's media image as a charismatic authority, though this image was later weakened.  Hezbollah's role in ambushing an Israeli border patrol unit leading up to the 2006 Lebanon War was subject to criticism, though he projected the end of the war as a Lebanese and Arab victory. During the Syrian civil war, Hezbollah fought on the side of the Syrian government against what Nasrallah termed "Islamist extremists". Nasrallah also promoted the "Axis of Resistance", an informal coalition of Iran-backed groups focused on opposing Israel and the United States. After the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Hezbollah engaged in the war against Israel, resulting in an ongoing conflict that impacted both sides of the border. On 27 September 2024, Israel assassinated Nasrallah when its air force struck the group's headquarters. 

Early life and education

Hassan Nasrallah was born the ninth of ten children into a Shia family in Bourj Hammoud, Matn District (an eastern suburb of Beirut), on 31 August 1960. His father, Abdul Karim Nasrallah, was born in Bazourieh, a village in Jabal Amel (Southern Lebanon) located near Tyre, and worked as a fruit and vegetables seller. Although his family was not particularly religious, Hassan was interested in theological studies. He attended the al-Najah school and later a public school in the predominantly Christian neighborhood of Sin el Fil. In 1975, the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War forced the family, including Nasrallah who was 15 at the time, to move to their ancestral home in Bazourieh, where Nasrallah completed his secondary education at the public school in Tyre. There, he briefly joined the Amal Movement, a Lebanese Shia political group. Nasrallah studied at the Shia seminary in the Beqaa Valley town of Baalbek. The school followed the teachings of Iraqi Shi'ite scholar Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr, who founded the Dawa movement in Najaf, Iraq during the early 1960s. In 1976, at 16, Nasrallah traveled to Iraq where he was admitted into al-Sadr's seminary in Najaf. It is said that Al-Sadr recognized Nasrallah's qualities and Al-Sadr is quoted as saying "I scent in you the aroma of leadership; you are one of the Ansar [followers] of the Mahdi...". 

Nasrallah was expelled from Iraq, along with dozens of other Lebanese students in 1978. Al-Sadr was imprisoned, tortured, and brutally murdered.  Nasrallah was forced to return to Lebanon in 1979, by that time having completed the first part of his study, as Saddam Hussein was expelling many Shia, including the future Iranian supreme leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, and Abbas Musawi. Back in Lebanon, Nasrallah studied and taught at the school of Amal's leader Abbas al-Musawi, later being selected as Amal's political delegate in Beqaa, and making him a member of the central political office. Around the same time, in 1980, Al-Sadr was executed by Hussein. On 27 September 2024, the Israeli Air Force launched an airstrike on Hezbollah's headquarters in Beirut, reportedly targeting Nasrallah. At least six people were killed and over 90 injured following the strike, with several missing. The following day, the IDF stated that Nasrallah had died in the strike; Hezbollah and Lebanese authorities later confirmed his death. The Economist wrote that his death would "reshape" Lebanon and the Middle East in ways which "would have been unthinkable a year ago" and that the next leader of Hezbollah would face the "most precarious moment" in the organization's history owing to Israel's destruction of almost their entire leadership. The Economist felt the Lebanese public perceived the group as "humiliated" and had come to resent their domination of Lebanese politics.

Courtesy : Wikipedia

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Who was Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi?

Ebrahim Raisi was an Iranian politician who served as eighth president of Iran from 2021 until his death in 2024.  A Principlist and a Muslim jurist, he became president after the 2021 election. In his early career, Raisi served in several positions in Iran's judicial system, including as Deputy Prosecutor and Prosecutor of Tehran. For his role on the so-called death committee during the 1988 executions of Iranian political prisoners, he became known as the "Butcher of Tehran". He was sanctioned by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control in accordance with Executive Order 13876. He was accused of crimes against humanity by international human rights organizations and United Nations special rapporteurs. He was later Deputy Chief Justice (2004–2014), Attorney General (2014–2016), and Chief Justice (2019–2021). He was Custodian and Chairman of Astan Quds Razavi, a bonyad, from 2016 until 2019. He was a member of Assembly of Experts from South Khorasan Province, being elected for the first time in the 2006 election. He was the son-in-law of Mashhad Friday prayer leader and Grand Imam of Imam Reza shrine, Ahmad Alamolhoda.

Raisi ran for president in 2017 as the candidate of the conservative Popular Front of Islamic Revolution Forces, losing to moderate incumbent president Hassan Rouhani, 57% to 38.3%. Raisi successfully ran for president a second time in 2021 with 62.9% of the votes, succeeding Hassan Rouhani. According to many observers, the 2021 Iranian presidential election was rigged in favour of Raisi, who was considered an ally of Ali Khamenei. Raisi was often seen as a frontrunner to succeed Khamenei as Supreme Leader, but he died in the 2024 Varzaqan helicopter crash. Considered a hardliner in Iranian politics, Raisi's presidency saw deadlock in negotiations with the U.S. over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and large-scale protests throughout the country in late 2022, triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini on 16 September. During Raisi's term, Iran intensified uranium enrichment, hindered international inspections, and supported Russia in its invasion of Ukraine. Additionally, Iran launched a missile and drone attack on Israel during the Gaza conflict and continued arming proxy groups like Hezbollah and the Houthi movement.

Early life and education

Ebrahim Raisi was born on 14 December 1960 to a clerical family in the Noghan district of Mashhad. His father, Seyed Haji, died when he was 5. Ancestrally, Raisi was among Husayn ibn Ali (Hussaini) Sayyids, and he was connected to Ali ibn Husayn Zayn al-Abidin Sayyids. Raisi passed his primary-education in "Javadiyeh school"; then started studying in the Hawza (Islamic seminary). In 1975, he went to "Ayatollah Boroujerdi School" in order to continue his education in Qom Seminary.[citation needed] He has claimed to have received a doctorate degree in private law from Motahari University; however, this has been disputed. 

Clerical credentials

Raisi began his studies at the Qom Seminary at the age of 15. He then decided to study in the Navvab school for a short time. After that, he went to Ayatollah Sayyed Muhammad Mousavi Nezhad school, where he studied while also teaching other students. In 1976, he went to Qom to continue his studies at the Ayatollah Borujerdi school. He was a student of Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi, Morteza Motahhari, Abolghasem Khazali, Hossein Noori Hamedani, Ali Meshkini and Morteza Pasandideh. Raisi also passed his "KharejeFeqh" (external-Fiqh) to Seyyed Ali Khamenei and Mojtaba Tehrani.  According to Alex Vatanka of the Middle East Institute, Raisi's "exact religious qualification" is a "sore point". "For a while" prior to investigation by the Iranian media, he "referred to himself" as "Ayatollah" on his personal website. However, according to Vatanka, the media "publicized his lack of formal religious education" and credentials, after which Raisi ceased claiming to hold the aforementioned rank. After this investigation and criticism he "refer[ed] to himself as hojat-ol-eslam", a clerical rank immediately beneath that of Ayatollah. Raisi subsequently again declared himself an Ayatollah shortly before the 2021 presidential election. The decree by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei appointing him as President, refers to him as a hojat-ol-eslam. 

Judicial career

Early years

In 1981, he was appointed the prosecutor of Karaj. Later on, he was also appointed Prosecutor of Hamadan and served both positions together. He was simultaneously active in two cities more than 300 km away from each other. After four months, he was appointed Prosecutor of Hamadan Province. 

Tehran deputy prosecutor

He was appointed Deputy prosecutor of Tehran in 1985 and moved to the capital.  After three years and in early 1988, he was placed in the attention of Ruhollah Khomeini and received special provisions (independent from judiciary) from him to address legal issues in some provinces like Lorestan, Semnan and Kermanshah.

Source : Wikipedia

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Titanic was a British passenger and mail carrying ocean liner

RMS Titanic was a British passenger and mail carrying ocean liner, operated by the White Star Line, that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 as a result of striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, United States. Of the estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, about 1,500 died, making it the deadliest sinking of a single ship up to that time. The disaster drew public attention, spurred major changes in maritime safety regulations, and inspired many artistic works. RMS Titanic was the largest ship afloat at the time she entered service and the second of three Olympic-class ocean liners built for the White Star Line. She was built by the Harland and Wolff shipbuilding company in Belfast. Thomas Andrews Jr., the chief naval architect of the shipyard, died in the disaster. Titanic was under the command of Captain Edward John Smith, who went down with the ship. The ocean liner carried some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as hundreds of emigrants from the British Isles, Scandinavia, and elsewhere throughout Europe, who were seeking a new life in the United States and Canada.

The first-class accommodation was designed to be the pinnacle of comfort and luxury, with a gymnasium, swimming pool, smoking rooms, high-class restaurants and cafes, a Turkish bath, and hundreds of opulent cabins. A high-powered radiotelegraph transmitter was available for sending passenger "marconigrams" and for the ship's operational use. Titanic had advanced safety features, such as watertight compartments and remotely activated watertight doors, contributing to its reputation as "unsinkable". Titanic was equipped with 16 lifeboat davits, each capable of lowering three lifeboats, for a total of 48 boats. Despite this capacity of 48, the ship was only equipped with a total of 20 lifeboats. Fourteen were regular lifeboats, two were cutter lifeboats, and four were collapsible and proved difficult to launch while she was sinking. Together, the 20 lifeboats could hold 1,178 people—about half the number of passengers on board, and one-third of the number of passengers the ship could have carried at full capacity (a number consistent with the maritime safety regulations of the era). The British Board of Trade's regulations required 14 lifeboats for a ship 10,000 tonnes. Titanic carried six more than required, allowing 338 extra people room in lifeboats. When the ship sank, the lifeboats that had been lowered were only filled up to an average of 60%.

Source : Wikipedia

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The Bab EL Mandeb - An important and busy shipping route

The Bab-el-Mandeb  the Gate of Grief or the Gate of Tears, is a strait between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula, Djibouti, and Eritrea in the Horn of Africa. It connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and by extension the Indian Ocean.

Name

The strait derives its name from the dangers attending its navigation or, according to an Arab legend, from the numbers who were drowned by an earthquake that separated the Arabian Peninsula from the Horn of Africa. In "Bab-el-Mandeb", "Bab" means "gate" while "Mandeb" means "lamentation" or "grief".

Geography

The distance across is about 26 kilometres (16 mi) from Ras Menheli in Yemen to Ras Siyyan in Djibouti. The island of Perim divides the strait into two channels, of which the eastern, known as the Bab Iskender (Alexander's Strait), is 5.37 kilometres (3.34 mi) wide and 29 metres; 96 feet (16 fathoms) deep, while the western, or Dact-el-Mayun, has a width of 20.3 kilometres (12.6 mi) and a depth of 310 metres; 1,020 feet (170 fathoms). Near the coast of Djibouti lies a group of smaller islands known as the "Seven Brothers". There is a surface current inwards in the eastern channel, but a strong undercurrent outwards in the western channel. 

Significance in the maritime trade route

The Bab-el-Mandeb acts as a strategic link between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea via the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. Most exports of petroleum and natural gas from the Persian Gulf that transit the Suez Canal or the SUMED Pipeline pass through both the Bab el-Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz. Under the purview of the article 37 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the legal concept of transit passage applies to Bab el-Mandeb, although Eritrea (unlike the rest of coastal countries) is not a party to the convention. Chokepoints are narrow channels along widely used global sea routes that are critical to global energy security. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is 18 miles wide at its narrowest point, limiting tanker traffic to two 2-mile-wide channels for inbound and outbound shipments. Closure of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait could keep tankers originating in the Persian Gulf from transiting the Suez Canal or reaching the SUMED Pipeline, forcing them to divert around the southern tip of Africa, which would increase transit time and shipping costs. In 2006, an estimated 3.3 million barrels (520,000 m3) of oil passed through the strait per day, out of a world total of about 43 million barrels per day (6,800,000 m3/d) moved by tankers. In 2018, an estimated 6.2 million barrels per day (b/d) of crude oil, condensate, and refined petroleum products flowed through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait toward Europe, the United States, and Asia, an increase from 5.1 million b/d in 2014. Total petroleum flows through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait accounted for about 9% of total seaborne-traded petroleum (crude oil and refined petroleum products) in 2017. About 3.6 million b/d moved north toward Europe; another 2.6 million b/d flowed in the opposite direction mainly to Asian markets such as Singapore, China, and India. 

History

Paleo-environmental and tectonic events in the Miocene epoch created the Danakil Isthmus, a land bridge forming a broad connection between Yemen and Ethiopia. During the last 100,000 years, eustatic sea level fluctuations have led to alternate opening and closing of the straits. According to the recent single origin hypothesis, the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb were probably witness to the earliest migrations of modern humans. It is presumed that the oceans were then much lower and the straits were much shallower or dry, which allowed a series of emigrations along the southern coast of Asia. According to Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church tradition, the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb were witness to the earliest migrations of Semitic Ge'ez speakers into Africa, occurring c. 1900 BC, roughly around the same time as the Hebrew patriarch Jacob. The Kingdom of Aksum was a major regional power in the Horn of Africa. It extended its rule across the strait with the conquest of the Himyarite Kingdom shortly before the rise of Islam. The British East India Company unilaterally seized the island of Perim in 1799 on behalf of its Indian empire. The government of Britain asserted its ownership in 1857 and erected a lighthouse there in 1861, using it to command the Red Sea and the trade routes through the Suez Canal.

It was used as a coaling station to refuel steamships until 1935 when the reduced use of coal as fuel rendered the operation unprofitable. The British presence continued until 1967 when the island became part of the People's Republic of South Yemen. Before the handover, the British government had put forward before the United Nations a proposal for the island to be internationalized  as a way to ensure the continued security of passage and navigation in the Bab-el-Mandeb, but this was refused. In 2008 a company owned by Tarek bin Laden unveiled plans to build a bridge named Bridge of the Horns across the strait, linking Yemen with Djibouti.  Middle East Development LLC issued a notice to construct a bridge passing across the Red Sea that would be the longest suspended passing in the world. The project was assigned to engineering company COWI in collaboration with architect studio Dissing+Weitling, both from Denmark. It was announced in 2010 that Phase 1 had been delayed; however, as of mid-2016, nothing more has been heard about the project.

Sub-region

The Bab-el-Mandeb is also a sub-region in the Arab League, which includes Djibouti, Yemen, and Eritrea. 

Source : Wikipedia

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Gang members packed into El Salvador prison cells

 Members of the MS-13 and 18 gangs were packed into overcrowded cells yesterday in El Salvador as they waited to be searched and inspected due to coronavirus concerns.  Authorities from the General Directorate of Penal Centres (DGCP) visited three Salvadorean prisons, some of them maximum security, to check on the inmates and to carry out searches amid the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic. Pictures show the heavily tattooed gangsters, most of them wearing coronavirus face masks, rammed into tiny cages as authorities inspect the facilities.   

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Hundreds of Thousands Displaced By Beirut Explosion

On the afternoon of 4 August 2020, a team of 10 firefighters were dispatched to extinguish a warehouse fire at the Port of Beirut. A first, smaller, explosion sent a cloud of smoke above the fires and created flashes of light that were caused by a stash of fireworks stored in the warehouse.  The second explosion was much more substantial and occurred at about 18:08 local time UTC+03:00. It rocked central Beirut and sent a red-orange cloud into the air, briefly surrounded by a white condensation cloud. The second blast was felt in northern Israel and in Cyprus, 240 kilometres (150 miles) away. The United States Geological Survey measured the blast as a 3.3 local magnitude earthquake, while the Jordan Seismological Observatory reported that it was equivalent to a 4.5 local magnitude earthquake. Specialists from the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom estimated the blast had one-tenth the force of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, making it one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions in history. The Beirut explosion was similar to explosions of large amounts of ammonium nitrate in Tianjin, China, in 2015, in the city of West, Texas, in 2013, and in Texas City, Texas, in 1947.

The cause of the explosions was not immediately determined, although state media initially reported them taking place at a fireworks warehouse, while others placed them at an oil storage or chemical storage facility. There were warehouses in the port that stored explosives and chemicals including nitrates, common components of fertilizers and explosives. The Director General of Public Security stated the explosion was caused by the ammonium nitrate that was confiscated from the Rhosus. LBCI stated that, according to attendees of a Higher Defence Council briefing, the fire was ignited by workers welding a door at a[f] warehouse. Following the explosions, at least 135 people were confirmed dead, 80 missing and more than 5,000 injured. Nazar Najarian, the secretary-general of the Kataeb Party, died after suffering severe head injuries during the blast, and Kamal Hayek, chairman of the state-owned electricity company, was in critical condition. The Kazakhstani consul was wounded in his office.

The explosion overturned cars and stripped steel-framed buildings of their cladding.[69] Within the port area, the explosion destroyed a section of shoreline and left a crater nearly 120 metres (390 ft) in diameter. Witnesses said that homes as far as 10 kilometres (6 miles) away were damaged by the blast, and up to 300,000 people were left homeless by the explosions. The grain elevator, the city's second-largest, was destroyed,  exacerbating food shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and a severe financial crisis. About 15,000 tonnes of grain were destroyed, representing 85% of the city's grain reserves , and leaving the country with less than a month's worth of grain in reserve. The damage extended over half of Beirut, with the likely cost above $10 billion; 90% of hotels in the city were damaged and three hospitals completely destroyed, while two more suffered damage.  Dozens of injured people brought to nearby hospitals could not be admitted because of the damage to the hospitals. Windows in buildings across the city were shattered, and residential homes over ten kilometres away were rendered unsuitable to live in Saint George Hospital is one of the city’s largest medical facilites.

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Coronavirus : Life and death in ICUs around the world

Scenes from intensive care units at hospitals around the world, where medical staff are treating the most severe cases of COVID-19. A third of coronavirus patients admitted to Scotland's intensive care units (ICU) did not recover, a new NHS study has found. The report into 472 patients admitted up to 2 May revealed 32.9% died there, 44.1% recovered and were discharged and the rest were still in intensive care. Men made up nearly 75% of the people in ICU with Covid-19, it also revealed. The groups with the highest number of admissions include older people and those living in areas of deprivation. 

The Scottish Intensive Care Society Audit Group study looked at 472 adult ICU patients with confirmed Covid-19 infections between 1 March and 2 May. The study's ICU mortality rate of 32.9% for Covid-19 patients is higher than normal death rates for critical care settings. In 2018, 18% of all Scottish patients admitted to ICU and combined units died in hospital. A similar study of coronavirus ICU patients in the rest of the UK has found 46.8% died where their care outcome was reported.

Courtesy : BBC

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The Coronavirus Pandemic Is Out of Control in the United States

The surge in coronavirus continues to rage uncontrolled across the United States as cases are rising in 35 states, including record numbers in Florida. Florida health officials reported Sunday a staggering record of new cases in a single day: 15,300. If Florida were a country, it would be the fourth highest in the world in reporting new cases. The state would rank 10th in the list of nations with the most cases, according to data from Johns Hopkins University data. The state added at least 12,343 cases since Sunday, according to the Florida Department of Health. At least 35 states are seeing a rise in new cases compared to the previous week, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

 The U.S. has recorded more than 3.3 million coronavirus cases since the pandemic began, meaning nearly 1 out of every 100 Americans has tested positive for COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University. At least 135,379 Americans have died. Across the world, 12.9 million people have tested positive for the virus. Both local and state leaders in the U.S. have said in recent weeks new cases are largely driven by Americans who have opted to resume gatherings and outings to bars. In many states, the average age of new cases has shifted downward, with more young people testing positive than ever before since the start of the pandemic. The rising U.S. numbers could just be the tip of the iceberg, as experts have often highlighted infections could be around 10 times higher than what is reported, as many go untraced. To blunt the rise in case, at least 36 states now have some type of mask requirement order in place, and more than half of U.S. states have paused or rolled back their reopening plans in efforts to contain the spread of the virus. But precautions have been met with heavy backlash from many officials and residents and some governors have stayed away from statewide mask orders, including Florida. Courtesy : CTV News

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Can the United States control its Covid-19 outbreak?

By March 26, the United States, with the world's third largest population, surpassed China and Italy as the country with the highest number of confirmed cases in the world. On a per capita basis, the U.S. had the 11th most cases of any country. By April 25, The United States ranked 10th in deaths per million people with 158, compared to Italy (423), Spain (474), and France (326). By April 25, the U.S. had over 905,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and nearly 52,000 deaths, giving it a mortality rate around 5.7 percent. Comparatively, Spain's mortality rate was 10.2 percent and Italy at 13.5 percent; Dr. Deborah Birx pointed out the nation's low mortality rate during a White House coronavirus briefing. Of those, more than 10,000 deaths occurred in nursing homes. Most nursing homes did not have easy access to testing, making the actual number unknown. Subsequently, a number of states including Maryland and New Jersey reported their own estimates of deaths at nursing homes, ranging from 20 to 50 percent.

In counting actual confirmed cases, some have questioned the reliability of totals reported by different countries. Measuring rates reported by countries such as China or Iran have been questioned as potentially inaccurate. In mid-April 2020, China revised its case totals much higher and its death toll up by 50% for Wuhan, partly as a result of a number of countries having questioned China's official numbers. Iran's rates have also been disputed, as when the WHO's reports about their case counts were contradicted by top Iranian health officials.[329] Within the U.S., there are also discrepancies in rates between different states. After a group of epidemiologists requested revisions in how the CDC counts cases and deaths, the CDC in mid-April updated its guidance for counting COVID-19 cases and deaths to include both confirmed and probable ones, although each state can still determine what to report.[330] Without accurate reporting of cases and deaths, however, epidemiologists have difficulty in guiding government response.

The federal government of the United States responded to the pandemic with various declarations of emergency, which resulted in travel and entry restrictions. They also imposed guidelines and recommendations regarding the closure of schools and public meeting places, lockdowns, and other restrictions intended to slow the progression of the virus, which state, territorial, tribal, and local governments have followed. The response to the pandemic has resulted in unprecedented expansion of government power. Advocates of small government worry that the state will be reluctant to give up that power once the crisis is over, as has often been the case historically.

 After mid-March, the federal government made a major move to use the U.S. military to add health care capacity to impacted areas. The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), under existing statutory authority that comes from authorizations and powers of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), is leasing many buildings nationwide such as hotels, college dormitories, and larger open buildings to immediately convert them into hospital facilities. To assist USACE and FEMA efforts, the United States Army is setting up field hospitals in cities widely affected by the pandemic. Some of these facilities will have ICU capability for patients of the pandemic, while others will serve non-coronavirus patients to allow established hospitals to concentrate on the pandemic. A public briefing of the plan was given by Army General Todd Semonite on March 20. USACE will handle leasing and engineering, with contracts for rapid facility modification and setup issued to local contractors. The plan envisions that the operation of the facilities and the provision of medical staff would be entirely handled by the various U.S. states rather than the Federal government.[334] One of the early and largest buildings to be converted is the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City, which was quickly being transformed into a 2,000-bed care facility on March 23, 2020.

The pandemic, along with the resultant stock market crash and other impacts, has led a recession in the United States following the economic cycle peak in February 2020. The economy contracted 4.8 percent from January through March 2020, and the unemployment rate rose to 14.7 percent in April. The total healthcare costs of treating the epidemic could be anywhere from $34 billion to $251 billion according to analysis presented by The New York Times. A study by economists Austan Goolsbee and Chad Syverson indicated that most economic impact due to consumer behavior changes was prior to mandated lockdowns.

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Desperate, hungry and broke : A Day in the Life of a Stranded Migrant ...

Impoverished, starving, and exhausted-millions of India's anguished migrant workers are struggling to return home amid the lockdown. Indian migrant workers during the COVID-19 pandemic have faced multiple hardships. With factories and workplaces shut down due to the lockdown imposed in the country, millions of migrant workers had to deal with the loss of income, food shortages and uncertainty about their future. Following this, many of them and their families went hungry. Thousands of them then began walking back home, with no means of transport due to the lockdown. In response, the Central and State Governments took various measures to help them, and later arranged transport for them.

There are an estimated 139 million migrants in the country, according to the World Economic Forum. The International Labour Organization (ILO) predicted that due to the pandemic and the lockdown, about 400 million workers would be poverty-stricken. Most migrants in the country originate from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, followed by Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. The cities of Mumbai and Delhi attract the highest number of migrants. While most men migrate for work, women migrate due to marriage. Migrant workers majorly comprise of daily-wage labourers working in the manufacturing and construction industries. They are often denied adequate healthcare, nutrition, housing and sanitation, since many of them work in the informal sector. They are mostly from rural areas but live in cities for work for most of the year. Many have no savings and lived in factory dormitories, which were shut due to the lockdown. Additionally, there was no central registry of migrant workers, despite the existence of the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979.

Maharashtra has the largest number of migrants, according to the 2011 Census of India. The State Government imposed a lockdown on 20 March in Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region and Nagpur, leaving the migrant workers with no work. Thousands then gathered at the train termini and bus stations, seeking transport to their hometowns. With the nationwide lockdown, all transport facilities were closed. According to government reports, there was enough food grain stocked up in the FCI godowns to feed the poor for at least a year-and-a-half. While government schemes ensured that the poor would get additional rations due to the lockdown, the distribution system failed to be effective as the ration cards are area-specific and fair price shops were largely inaccessible. Additionally, the 'One Nation, One Ration Card' system has been implemented in very few states, as of mid April. While the scheme allowed migrant workers to retrieve foodgrains for free anywhere across the country, very few are aware of the scheme. In addition to this, the scheme also requires biometric authentication, which was discontinued due to fears of spreading the virus through common fingerprint sensors. In Telangana, many could not avail of the ration due to a lack of Aadhaar cards.

Due to the lockdown, more than 300 deaths were reported till 5 May, with reasons ranging from starvation, suicides, exhaustion, road and rail accidents, police brutality and denial of timely medical care. Among the reported deaths, most were among the marginalised migrants and labourers. Some others died while travelling back home on the Shramik Special trains.

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Americans protest covid-19 restrictions

Protesters across the U.S. rally against stay-at-home orders aimed at reducing the spread of coronavirus. Leading coronavirus modeling shows the country's collective sacrifice of an economic shutdown — which has resulted in over 30 million jobless claims — has likely prevented hundreds of thousands of deaths, serving as a sign that social distancing is effective. Protests to reopen economies have been held across the U.S. over the last few months as the number of coronavirus cases and fatalities continues to rise. COVID-19 has infected more than 1.4 million people and killed over 85,000 in the U.S., per Johns Hopkins data.

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Italy's Hospitals struggle through Coronavirus outbreak

The pandemic outbreak put pressure on the Italian healthcare system. On 17 March Undersecretary at the Ministry of Health, Sandra Zampa announced the purchase of many new ventilators as well as the importing of one and a half million masks from South Africa. In order to deal with the numbers of COVID-19 patients, intensive care units were expanded, and new hospitals were created, especially in Lombardy. In Emilia-Romagna, professor Marco Ranieri developed a method to double the efficiency of ventilators in ICUs. The lack of a single protocol for hospitals was considered to be a problem. Due to hospitals overcrowding with coronavirus patients, thousands of cancer patients experienced difficulties in getting access to treatment and transplants, with their lives put at even higher risk. Dozens of cancer hospital sections were indeed wither dedicated to host coronavirus wards, or closed after personnel got infected. According to a study, cancer patients represented 17% of coronavirus fatalities in Italy.

 A letter published on the New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery claimed that one of the reasons for the high death count in the area of Bergamo was hospital contamination. Progressively, different hospitals became dedicated to COVID-19 patients only, and more rigid separations were set up between hospital sections and triage structures. In some regions, hotels were used to host healthcare workers or patients, and in Liguria a ship was adapted to host people in quarantine. On 1 April, the first Italian drive-through testing facilities opened in Alessandria and in north-western Tuscany.

At least ten different clinical trials were ongoing in Italian hospitals at the beginning of April.  The supercomputer of ENEA in Portici was used to run advanced simulations related to other possible drugs.  Some of the treatments employed for COVID-19 patients involved the administration of antiviral drugs. Remdesivir was tested with promising initial results in Naples. Despite doubts from the scientific community, Avigan (favipiravir) was also included in testing protocols by Italian Medicines Agency even though it was not authorised in Europe. Similarly to France, hydroxychloroquine (the less toxic version of the malaria drug chloroquine) was also tested : in Lazio, its use was reported by the second week of April on a significant fraction of the roughly a thousand COVID-19 patients confined at home. Plasma treatment already tried in China (transfer of antibodies from recovered COVID-19 patients to sick people) was tested at the hospital of Pavia (and later in Mantua) under the supervision of professor Cesare Perotti; the first two donors involved in the research programme were a married couple, both doctors and among the first COVID-19 patients reported in the province.

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The grim toll from Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Most people with COVID-19 recover. For those who do not, the time from development of symptoms to death has been between 6 and 41 days, with the most common being 14 days. As of 12 April 2020, approximately 113,000 deaths had been attributed to COVID-19. In China, as of 5 February about 80% of deaths were in those over 60, and 75% had pre-existing health conditions including cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. Official tallies of deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic generally refer to dead people who tested positive for COVID-19 according to official protocols. The number of true fatalities from COVID-19 may be much higher, as it may not include people who die without testing—e.g. at home or in nursing homes. Partial data from Italy found that the number of excess deaths during the pandemic exceeded the official COVID-19 death tally by a factor of 4–5x. A spokesperson for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acknowledged "We know that [the stated death toll] is an underestimation", a statement corroborated by anecdotal reports of undercounting in the U.S. There are indications of undercounting of deaths in Brazil, China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, the UK, and the U.S. Such underestimation often occurs in pandemics, such as the 2009 H1N1 swine flu epidemic.

The first confirmed death was in Wuhan on 9 January 2020. The first death outside mainland China occurred on 1 February in the Philippines, and the first death outside Asia was in France on 14 February. By 28 February, outside mainland China, more than a dozen deaths each were recorded in Iran, South Korea, and Italy. By 13 March, more than forty countries and territories had reported deaths, on every continent except Antarctica. Several measures are commonly used to quantify mortality. These numbers vary by region and over time, and are influenced by the volume of testing, healthcare system quality, treatment options, time since initial outbreak, and population characteristics such as age, sex, and overall health. The death-to-case ratio reflects the number of deaths divided by the number of diagnosed cases within a given time interval. Based on Johns Hopkins University statistics, the global death-to-case ratio is 6.2% (113,296/1,833,685) as of 12 April 2020. The number varies by region. In China, estimates for the death-to-case ratio decreased from 17.3% (for those with symptom onset 1–10 January 2020) to 0.7% (for those with symptom onset after 1 February 2020).

Other measures include the case fatality rate (CFR), which reflects the percent of diagnosed people who die from a disease, and the infection fatality rate (IFR), which reflects the percent of infected (diagnosed and undiagnosed) who die from a disease. These statistics are not timebound and follow a specific population from infection through case resolution. A number of academics have attempted to calculate these numbers for specific populations. The University of Oxford's Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine estimates that the infection fatality rate for the pandemic as a whole is between 0.1% and 0.39%. The upper estimate of this range is consistent the first random testing in Germany, and a study analysing the impact of testing on CFR estimates.