11-12-2020 BEIRUT/ UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon on Friday sentenced Hezbollah operative Salim Ayache to five concurrent life sentences in absentia for the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 21 others. The Hezbollah operative had a “central,” “leading role” as part of the …

11-12-2020 WASHINGTON/ RIYADH: United States lawmakers have slammed Saudi Arabia for the sentencing of a prominent US-Saudi doctor to six years in prison, calling the charges against Dr Walid Fitaihi “baseless and politically motivated”. In a statement on Thursday, five Democratic US senators called on the Saudi authorities to immediately …

10-12-2020 KHAF/ TEHRAN- GHORYAN/ KABUL: Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani and his Afghan counterpart, Ashraf Ghani officially inaugurated Khaf-Herat railway in a ceremony on Thursday in line with expanding mutual relations between the two neighboring countries. The project connects the eastern city of Khaf in Iran to the western city of …

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 …