The Indian Premier League was suspended indefinitely on Tuesday after players or staff at three clubs tested positive for COVID-19. The Board of Control for Cricket in India issued a statement saying local authorities and tournament officials took the decision unanimously “to postpone IPL 2021 season, with immediate effect.” “The BCCI does not want to compromise on the safety of the players, support staff and the other participants involved in organizing the IPL,” the BCCI said. “These are difficult times, especially in India. While we have tried to bring in some positivity and cheer, however, it is imperative that the tournament is now suspended and everyone goes back to their families and loved ones in these trying times.” The first cases involving players inside the IPL’s biosecure bubble forced Monday’s game between Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore to be postponed. The count grew on Tuesday when two Chennai Super Kings staffers and a Sunrisers Hyderabad player also returned positive tests. The IPL has been staging games without spectators every evening since April 9 despite India’s stretched health system being pushed to the brink by another major wave of the pandemic. Players from all over the world compete in the lucrative Twenty20 tournament, which was forced by the pandemic to the United Arab Emirates last year. The BCCI said it would do “everything in its powers to arrange for the secure and safe passage of all the participants in IPL 2021.” India’s official count of coronavirus cases surpassed 20 million on Tuesday, nearly doubling in the past three months, while deaths officially have passed 220,000. Staggering as those numbers are, the true figures are believed to be far higher, the undercount an apparent reflection of the troubles in the health care system. On Monday, the IPL postponed the Kolkata-Bangalore game after Varun Chakravarthy and Sandeep Warrier, who play for Kolkata, became the first players to test positive for COVID-19 inside the IPL bubble. Last week, Australian players Andrew Tye, Adam Zampa and Kane Richardson flew home from the IPL amid the surge of cases. Richardson and Zampa were playing for Bangalore, and Tye for Rajasthan Royals. Two other cricketers — Englishman Liam Livingstone, who was with Rajasthan, and Ravichandran Ashwin, who was with Delhi — also left the IPL. Livingstone cited “bubble fatigue” and Ashwin wanted to be with his family in the crisis. IPL went ahead on the basis that teams stay in biosecure areas at hotels and resorts in the six venues in India where the competition is taking place. 
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«Ми закінчили один із найдовших сезонів відбору газу з підземних газосховищ на відмітці 15,1 млрд куб. м»
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Як стверджують в Кабінеті міністрів, він залишається «відданим реформі корпоративного управління»
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The U.S. and its NATO allies officially began withdrawing their remaining forces and equipment from Afghanistan on Saturday. Abdullah Abdullah, the chairman of Afghanistan’s High Council for National Reconciliation, discussed the implications for Afghanistan’s peace process and the future of the country, with VOA’s Ayesha Tanzeem.
 
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A citizen-funded COVID-19 effort in Malawi has received an award from Queen Elizabeth for its work fighting the coronavirus pandemic. The queen said the initiative shows the utmost transparency in the use of its privately raised funding.Malawi’s COVID Response Private Citizens Initiative started in January, when the country’s hospitals were overwhelmed with coronavirus patients and lacked resources at the peak of the second wave of the pandemic.Public hospitals were in short supply of oxygen cylinders, concentrators, diagnostics kits and other equipment essential to treat COVID-19 patients.Dr. Thandie Majenda Hara, deputy lead organizer for the initiative, said, “At some point we had a patient who literally went to Kamuzu Central Hospital and put up an SOS on his Facebook page saying that, apparently, they did not have enough flow meters, so he couldn’t have access to oxygen, as well as patients that were in the ward with him. And it was that particular cry for help that was a trigger for what in the end became this initiative.”Equipment, food, repairsShe said the group spearheaded a crowdfunding campaign that raised $286,000 to buy oxygen cylinders, ventilators, personal protective equipment and other items most needed in public hospitals.The initiative also brought food to health workers, fixed ambulances and repaired some damaged infrastructure inside hospitals.“The people that actually came together to donate here were not people who had extra cash to spend,” Hara said. “We had primary students; we had people [from] as far away [as] Australia, Chitipa, Nsanje [districts], everywhere.  People were committed to doing something about the lot.”In Britain, in a press release Friday, Queen Elizabeth said the award was given in recognition of the initiative’s transparency, accountability and efficiency.Arrests, auditThe Commonwealth Points of Light award was given at a time when police in Malawi have arrested more than 64 government officials after an audit revealed misuse of $8 million in government funds allocated for the fight against COVID-19.Police said some of the suspects were out on bail facing charges including fraud, theft by public servant and abuse of public office. In a statement this week, police said detectives were still investigating and more arrests would follow.David Beer, center, British high commissioner in Malawi, is pictured with members of Malawi’s COVID Response Private Citizens Initiative. (British High Commission)David Beer, the British high commissioner in Malawi, said the award was a token of appreciation for what Malawi’s citizen-driven COVID-19 response initiative had done.“The award on behalf of the queen, you know, is very much because the group, eight of them, has done such an astonishing job,” Beer said. “This initiative is having incredible effect — not the amount of money they have raised, but what they have managed to do with it, and we want them to have recognition.”Health rights campaigners said the award would send a message to those in charge of COVID-19 funds that good work pays.’Amazing response’Hara said the award was not something the team expected.”We never really went out to gain the award,” she said. “We are very, very happy; we are very proud that the initiative has been recognized. So, for us the award isn’t really about the team. It’s not about any of us. It’s about the amazing response Malawians gave in a time of the crisis.”She said the initiative would continue to assist in critical situations.Hara said the initiative above all had proved that collective responsible action by Malawi’s citizens was possible even in a time of national crisis.
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Issues in the News moderator Kim Lewis discusses with Dan Raviv, columnist for Newsday and Steve Redisch, VOA executive editor the highlights of President Joe Biden’s first address to a joint session of Congress, the FBI raid of former President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, the latest on COVID-19 vaccines as infection rates and deaths surge in India, and the controversial new report by Human Rights Watch that accuses Israel of apartheid and persecution of Palestinians.
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