10-12-2020 By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report KABUL/ JALALABAD/ ISLAMABAD: Another Shia journalist shot dead in Afghanistan along with her driver but neither the “West” could still recognize Shias nor wants to know who are Shias, who kills them, why they are being genocide, where they live, what is their …

10-12-2020 By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report + Agencies NEW DELHI/ OTTAWA/ ISLAMABAD: The Indian government’s offer to amend three laws in a set of new agricultural rules that has led to weeks of protests was rejected by farmers on Wednesday, who vowed to intensify demonstrations. The farmers maintained that …

10-12-2020 LONDON/ NEW YORK: United States drug-maker Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech said on Wednesday that documents related to their development of a COVID-19 vaccine had been “unlawfully accessed” in a cyber-attack on Europe’s medicines regulator. The European Medicines Agency (EMA), responsible for assessing and approving medicines and vaccines …

09-12-2020 JERUSALEM/ WASHINGTON: A former Israeli space security chief made a surprising revelation by claiming that the United States and Israel are in contact with extraterrestrials from a “galactic federation.” In an interview with an Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, Haim Eshed (87) said, “The Unidentified Flying Objects have asked not …

09-12-2020 BEIJING/ NEW YORK: A big-data program in China’s Xinjiang “arbitrarily selects” Muslims for detention, flagging behavior such as wearing a veil, studying the Quran or going on the Hajj pilgrimage as reasons for arrest, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). In a new report on Wednesday, the rights group said …

09-12-2020 RIYADH/ OTTAWA: Lawyers for Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman (MBS) on Monday evening filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit against him, saying there is no evidence to support claims he ordered a hit squad to assassinate a former Saudi intelligence official and that he is immune from …

08-12-2020 GENEVA/LONDON: A World Health Organization (WHO) official said Tuesday that only public health measures, not vaccines, can prevent a new surge of COVID-19 cases as the first vaccines are administered in Britain. “Vaccines are a great tool, they will be very helpful, but the effect of the vaccine in …

08-12-2020 TEHRAN: Iran’s Supreme Court has upheld a death sentence against dissident journalist Ruhollah Zam for fuelling anti-government unrest in 2017 on social media, a judiciary spokesman said. “Yes, the Supreme Court … has upheld the sentence passed by the Revolutionary Court in this case,” spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili told a …

08-12-2020 By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report NEW DELHI/ ISLAMABAD: Sikh farmers in India on Monday demonstrated religious solidarity at the farmers’ protest by standing up with their Muslim counterparts. In a video shared on Twitter by Indian journalist Rana Ayyub, some Muslim participants at the farmer’s protest in Delhi …

07-12-2020 LONDON: The United Kingdom and European Union will make a last-ditch attempt to strike a post-Brexit trade deal this week, with just days left for negotiators to avert a chaotic divorce at the end of the year. Micheal Martin, the prime minister of Ireland, which would face more economic …