 Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch, where we bring you major news developments from around the world, our headlines, doctors' joint strike by frontline workers for fair compensation in Kenya, U.S. Congress approves COVID relief package but with only a $600 check per person, first meeting towards construction of a plurinational America takes place in Bolivia, U.S. and Ukraine vote against UN resolution to combat Nazism and racism, and finally we take a look at China's quantum computer and the implications of quantum supreme. In our first story, doctors and pharmacists in Kenya have downed their tools to join an ongoing strike by healthcare professionals. The call for the strike was first given by the union of nurses and clinical officers on December 7. Their demands include the payment of pending salaries, comprehensive health insurance and benefits, allocation of quality PPEs, and an increase in risk allowances. Unions have also demanded the contract workers be turned into full-time employees. At least 2,000 frontline workers have been infected with COVID-19 in Kenya. Healthcare professionals have reportedly not been paid salaries for months and are also not given proper coverage under the National Insurance Coverage Fund. This has left them unable to afford the very treatment they are providing to the rest of the country. The Kenya National Union of Nurses has also demanded the government provide compensation to the families of those who died after contracting the virus on duty. At least 30 doctors, 26 nurses and 10 clinical officers have died due to COVID-19 in the country so far. Members of the Kenya practitioners, pharmacists and dentists union joined the strike as well on December 21. They previously suspended the strike in order to give the government additional time to respond to the demands. However, this extension expired without a resolution on December 20. In our next story, the United States Congress has agreed to a $900 billion pandemic relief package after negotiations were concluded on December 20. This is the second biggest stimulus program to be introduced since the $2.5 trillion CARES Act which has passed in March. The Relief Fund includes a $600 allowance for each adult and child. However, this is half the amount that was allowed in the previous stimulus check. The relief package also includes a $300 increase for unemployment assistance per week. $284 billion have been allocated to the Payment Protection Program to offer soft loans and aid to small businesses to help pay their employees. The moratorium on foreclosures has been extended to 31 January and a $25 billion rental assistance plan has been put in place. Other key allocations have been made towards public schools, forced assistance, food assistance, transport, COVID-19 testing and vaccine distribution. In spite of these provisions, the bill has omitted certain contentious demands. These include a provision for direct aid to local and state governments as demanded by the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, key demands made by labor and social movements have also been left out of the bill. There has been a lot of criticism from the left and labor unions of the fact that the stimulus check is only $600. In our next story, the people and organizations of Abbeyayala concluded their first meeting towards the construction of a plurinational America on December 19th. The meeting was held at the headquarters of the Union of South American Nations, that's UNASUR, in San Benito in Bolivia. Former Bolivian President Eva Morales has joined by various peasant and worker organizations from Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru to participate in the event. A major objective of the session was to consolidate UNASUR, which will serve as a mechanism to integrate indigenous communities, peasants and workers across the American continent. Attendees also reaffirmed the need to strengthen existing regional integration platforms. These include UNASUR, the community of Latin American and Caribbean states at CELAC and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America, People's Trade Treaty, that's ALBA TPP. Oh, 1200 representatives from various indigenous movements, trade unions and social organizations from across Latin America attended the meeting. Attendees reaffirmed their commitment to protect natural resources against the forces of colonialism and capitalism. They also condemned the imposition of sanctions on Venezuela and the foreign interference in its political matters. In our next story, the US and Ukraine are the only two countries that have voted against a UN resolution against Nazism and contemporary forms of racism. The annual resolution was set to a vote in the UN General Assembly on December 16th. The resolution is formally titled, combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and written intolerance. It mandates member countries to pass legislation to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination. Signatories are further required to condemn attempts to glorify xenophobia and Nazism, including attempts at revising the history of the Second World War. The resolution was passed with 130 countries voting in favor, two opposition and 51 abstentions. Members of the European Union, the UK, Australia and New Zealand all abstained from voting, stating concerns regarding limitations of freedom of speech and association. A similar rhetoric has been employed by the US which has been voting against a resolution since 2005. Opposition and abstention vote by the majority of Western countries have been widely criticized by activists and human rights groups. The failure to actively condemn pro-Nazi and far-right movements has been seen as a sign of their increasingly visible mainstream audience. For our final story today, we turn to China where quantum computer Zhiyun Zhang has achieved quantum supremacy. It is the second quantum computer after Google's psychomore to do so. Here is news clicks editor-in-chief Praveer Purkha as sir to discuss the meaning and implications of quantum supremacy. If we are able to do programmable quantum computers, which I think now I have given another 5-10 years, we should be able to do both because of advance in materials that can take place, the kind of technologies we are dealing with that can take place. All of this is a function of the amount of money we are able to put on it. And if it has functions, obviously people will put in the money. So it really depends on what is the expectation from this. So there are two sorts of applications. One I will call the more benevolent, humanitarian kind, advancing science, advancing everyday technology. That is regarding a set of calculations which today our computers cannot do. For instance, the simple thing, which is called protein folding. Now protein folding is very important if you want to do biotechnology, you want to develop new materials, you want to see its properties, it could also be in drug development. So all of this is something that we cannot do with classical computers. Protein folding nature does in a couple of seconds, holds the protein even shorter, but a classical computer would take a thousand years, 500 years, 200 years to solve such a problem. Of course, Google has made some advances using heuristics, using past information and they are able to do using artificial intelligence as it is called. They have been able to predict protein folding much better than what we thought was possible a few years back. But nevertheless, it's something which is not easy to do in a classical computer. So these are one class of problems which have immediate implications. Then of course, the other sets of issues which are there is the fact that you can break code. And if you break code, therefore all the encryption algorithms that we use would then be obsolete. So that of course is something which the militaries of the world are very interested in because you could do that, they could crack the enemy's code on the, even the friend's code because you're always trying to steal other stuff from them as well. So in this world of gray and black, white world of spying and surveillance, this would be a huge boom. So of course, that is, that can be weaponized too. So that is of course the second attraction. And the converse of that, you could do quantum information exchange. You could use the principles of this kind, also to communicate with each other, with yourselves, I mean, your different entities, different places, which could also provide unbreakable codes. So there is a military application to it. But the civilian administration is really because we are now getting into the area of biotechnology in a very big way. And I think the future of technology lies today in biotechnology and competitions. Therefore quantum computers can provide really in the future huge advances in this direction because that's something that we cannot obviously do with classical computers. And therefore we do most of this stuff in Bentley. That's all. We have time for today. We'll be back tomorrow with more news from around the world. Until then, keep watching People's Dispatch. Avan saña, panderas de unidad. Y tu vendrás Lachando junto a mi, ya si verás Tu cantoy tu pandera, flores de la luz