09-10-2021 Bureau Report NEW DELHI: Tata Sons Pvt. was selected as the winning bidder for India’s flag carrier, ending decades of attempts to privatize a money-losing and debt-laden airline, and potentially ending years of taxpayer-bailouts that’s kept the company alive. Tata Sons, which originally launched Air India Ltd. with a …

09-10-2021 OSLO: Journalists Maria Ressa, of the Philippines, and Dmitry Muratov, of Russia, have won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, recognized “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression”, which the prize-giving committee described as being under threat worldwide The two were given the prestigious award “for their courageous fight …

08-10-2021 By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report + Agencies KUNDUZ/ KABUL/ ISLAMABAD: A powerful explosion has targeted a mosque in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz and left over 50 martyred while hundreds other injured, a senior Taliban official and witnesses said. The blast occurred during the weekly Friday prayer …

08-10-2021 By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report + Agencies KABUL/ ISLAMABAD/ PARIS : Since it took power in August, the Taliban has been on a desperate quest to have its Islamic Emirate recognized internationally as the official government of Afghanistan but so far, those attempts have yet to bear fruit. …

08-10-2021 NEW DELHI: India has begun delivering Covid-19 vaccines by commercial drones to speed up the vaccination drive, a senior government scientist told the BBC. Dr Samiran Panda said drones are being used to deliver doses in mountainous states in the country’s north-east. India aims to vaccinate all eligible citizens …

08-10-2021 TEHRAN: Iran decried the United States and the Israeli regime’s decades-long efforts to prevent the establishment of a nuclear weapons-free Middle East region. “In our region, the US stance and that of the Israeli regime on the Middle East free zone of nuclear weapons, initiated by Iran in 1974, …

  08-10-2021 By SJA Jafri + Agencies AMSTERDAM/ BRUSSELS/ KARACHI: Croatia, Greece and Romania have carried out hundreds of illegal pushback operations at the European Union’s external borders since early 2020 as part of a “violent campaign” to deny access to asylum, a new report alleges. The findings, published on …

07-10-2021 By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report HARNAI/ QUETTA/ KARACHI/ ISLAMABAD: At least 20 people have been killed and more than 200 wounded after an earthquake strikes Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan, local officials say, with rescue teams attempting to clear debris and gain access to the area. The 5.9 …

07-10-2021 LONDON: The UK is eager to show off its environmental credentials an important UN summit in the coming days but for the moment, is having trouble dealing with mounting protests at home from climate activists. Direct action group Extinction Rebellion has brought cities to a standstill and vowed to …

07-10-2021 WASHINGTON: The United States Supreme Court has begun hearing the case of a Guantanamo detainee seeking to compel two CIA contractors to testify about the alleged torture he was subjected to at an agency “black site” in Poland. The country’s top court heard oral arguments on Wednesday in the case …