News Headlines - 19 October 2020

▽US election 2020: Early voting records smashed amid enthusiasm wave - BBC News

State election officials across the US are reporting record numbers of voters casting their ballots ahead of election day on 3 November.
More than 29 million had voted early by Monday, either in person or by mail, according to the US Election Project.
At the same point in the 2016 race, about 6m votes had been cast.
Experts say the surge in early voting correlates to the coronavirus pandemic, which has caused many people to seek alternatives to election day voting.

▽Iran: UN arms embargo ends after ten years amid U.S. anger | Euronews

A decade-long U.N. arms embargo on Iran that barred it from purchasing foreign weapons like tanks and fighter jets expired Sunday as planned under its nuclear deal with world powers, despite objections from the United States, which insists the ban remains in place.
While Iran says it plans no “buying spree," it can now in theory purchase weapons to upgrade military armaments dating back to before its 1979 Islamic Revolution and sell its own locally produced gear abroad.

▽China GDP: economy grew by 4.9 per cent in third quarter of 2020 | South China Morning Post

China’s economy grew by 4.9 per cent in the third quarter compared with a year earlier, accelerating from growth of 3.2 per cent growth in the second quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced on Monday.
The world’s second-largest economy has recovered strongly after shrinking by 6.8 per cent in the first three months of the year - the first official contraction since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 - due to the lockdown efforts aimed at stemming the tide of the coronavirus pandemic.

▽Toshiba to launch quantum cryptography business | NHK WORLD

Toshiba Corporation has announced a plan to commercialize its quantum cryptography communication technology in fiscal 2021, for data protection in Japan and other countries.
The technology is called quantum key distribution... Toshiba has already accepted orders from the Japanese government for protecting its communication networks, the first commercial project in the country.
Outside Japan, the company has formed partnerships with Britain's telecom firm BT and US firm Verizon Communications.

▽Nazca Lines: Archaeologists discover 2,000-year-old cat figure in Peru - CNN Style

A huge feline figure carved into an arid hillside over 2,000 years ago has been discovered in southern Peru, according to the country's Ministry of Culture.
The ancient geoglyph, which measures 37 meters (121 feet) across, forms part of the Nazca Lines, a collection of hundreds of mysterious artworks etched onto a plateau 250 miles south of Lima.