18-02-2021 Bureau Report + Agencies WELLINGTON/ MELBOURNE: All schools in New Zealand will offer free period products from June, as part of efforts to stamp out period poverty. Authorities are concerned that some female students are skipping classes because they cannot afford products such as tampons and sanitary pads. The …

18-02-2021 By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report NEW DELHI: India’s former home minister who was accused of sexual harassment by a journalist has lost a criminal defamation case he had filed against her after a court in Delhi ruled that his libel claims were unproven. As the #MeToo movement globally …

18-02-2021 Bureau Report MENLO PARK (CALIFORNIA)/ MELBOURNE: Facebook has blocked Australian users of its platform from reading and sharing local and international news, stepping up its campaign against government plans to force technology giants to pay publishers for their news content. “The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our …

17-02-2021 TEHRAN/ WASHINGTON/ UNITED NATIONS: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran will only accept and react to positive action by other parties to its 2015 nuclear deal as it has seen promises broken before. Khamenei said during a televised speech on Wednesday that Iran has heard a lot of …

17-02-2021 YANGON/ RANGOON (MYANMAR): Thousands of people took to the streets of Yangon on Wednesday to show their anger at the military coup in Myanmar amid rising concern of violence in the troubled Southeast Asian nation. Protesters called for massive rallies to shatter the army’s claim that people backed its …

17-02-2021 NEW YORK: Dozens people have died and massive power outages have disrupted life in the US amid killer tornadoes in the Southeast and historic sub-zero temperatures as far south as Texas. The severe weather also led to the cancellation of COVID-19 inoculations, and continues to pose a threat to …

17-02-2021 UNITED NATIONS/ WASHINGTON/ SANA’A: The United Nations’ humanitarian chief has said he is “very alarmed” by a Houthi rebel advance on the Yemeni government’s last northern stronghold. Mark Lowcock, the UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, tweeted on Tuesday that an assault on Marib would endanger two million civilians and …

16-02-2021 BAGHDAD: A volley of rockets targeting an US airbase in Iraq’s Kurdistan region killed a foreign civilian contractor and wounded nine others including Americans in the worst attack in a year on the US-led military coalition. The rockets were launched late on Monday from an area south of the …

16-02-2021 Bureau Report + Agencies LUCKNOW/ NEW DELHI: Police in India’s largest state have launched a new crackdown against late-night parties but with a catch: their operation is inspired by Pakistani social media influencer Dananeer Mobeen of #PawriHoriHai fame. Dananeer, a young Pakistani blogger, shot to fame through a viral …

16-02-2021 WASHINGTON: The United States Congress will establish an independent commission to investigate and report on the January 6 siege of the US Capitol, a top Democratic Party lawmaker said on Monday. US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a note to House members that the commission would …