International

30-12-2021 NEW YORK/ SYDNEY/ ROME: Daily COVID-19 infections have hit record highs in the United States, swathes of Europe and Australia as the new Omicron variant of the virus races out of control, keeping workers at home and overwhelming testing centres. Almost two years after China first reported a cluster …

29-12-2021 BEIJING: On September 24, Chinese authorities released Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig after detaining them for more than 1,000 days. The pair were not held in an ordinary prison but were instead placed in “Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location” (RSDL), conditions that have been compared with enforced …

29-12-2021 CAIRO: Egypt has digitally “unwrapped” the mummy of famed Pharaoh Amenhotep-I, revealing its secrets for the first time since it was discovered in 1881 without disturbing his funerary mask. Thanks to the advanced digital 3D imagery, researchers unearthed new mummification techniques used for the pharaoh, who ruled from 1525 …

29-12-2021 BEAUVAIS/ PARIS: A mosque in the northern French region of Oise has been closed because of an imam’s radical sermons, said to have “defended jihad”. The mosque in the town of Beauvais will remain shut for six months, local authorities say. Oise’s prefect said sermons there called jihadist fighters …

29-12-2021 JERUSALEM/ DAMASCUS: An Israeli air raid has struck Syria’s Mediterranean port of Latakia for the second time this month, causing “significant material damage”, according to Syrian state media. “At around 3:21am (05:21 GMT), the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial aggression with several missiles from the direction of the …

28-12-2021 WASHINGTON/ MOSCOW: The United States and Russia will hold much-anticipated talks in January, a White House official told AFP Monday, with the rivals due to negotiate on nuclear arms control and mounting tensions over Ukraine. “The United States looks forward to engaging with Russia,” a spokesperson for the National …

28-12-2021 ZEALANDIA/ LONDON: In 1642, Abel Tasman, an experienced Dutch sailor and penchant for rough justice, was confident that in the southern hemisphere exists a vast continent and was determined to find it. He believed that he had discovered the great southern continent, evidently, it was hardly the commercial utopia …

27-12-2021 By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report PANJSHIR/ KABUL/ ISLAMABAD: Hundreds of residents of Panjshir province staged a massive demonstration in front of the provincial governor’s office on Sunday to protest the killing of another “innocent Shia resident” by the Taliban in the province, sources and victims told PMI. The …

27-12-2021 Bureau Report SYDNEY/ MELBOURNE: Australia has reported its first confirmed death from the new Omicron variant of COVID-19 amid another surge in daily infections. The authorities, however, refrained from imposing new restrictions, saying hospital admission rates remained low. The death on Monday of a man in his 80s with …

27-12-2021 MOGADISHU: Somalia’s President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed says he has suspended Prime Minister Hussein Roble’s powers, sparking accusations of an “indirect coup” amid a protracted feud that has seen both leaders’ trade allegations over the holding up of parliamentary elections. “The president decided to suspend (the) prime minister … and …