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 …

07-12-2020 TEHRAN: A satellite-controlled machine-gun with “artificial intelligence” was used to kill Iran’s top nuclear scientist, a Revolutionary Guards commander says. Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was shot dead in a convoy outside Tehran on 27 November. On Sunday, Brig-Gen Ali Fadavi told local media the weapon, mounted in a pick-up truck, had …