International

05-12-2020 RIYADH/ DOHA: Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister has expressed optimism that the three-year boycott of Qatar by four Arab nations, including the kingdom, may be nearing an end. “We’ve made significant progress in the last few days,” Prince Faisal bin Farhan said, speaking to Italy’s annual Mediterranean Dialogues on Friday. …

04-12-2020 NEW DELHI: India on Friday termed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s recent comments over protests by farmers near New Delhi as “unacceptable interference” and warned that such things could harm bilateral ties. It also summoned Canada’s ambassador to formally lodge a protest. Trudeau, speaking to the Indian community in …

04-12-2020 DOHA/ RIYADH: Qatar’s foreign minister has said there has been movement on resolving the diplomatic dispute that has pitted the Gulf neighbors against each other but he could not predict whether a breakthrough was imminent or would fully resolve the matter. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt imposed …

04-12-2020 NEW YORK/ LONDON: The coronavirus pandemic has claimed over 1.5 million lives with one death being reported every nine seconds on a weekly average. Half a million COVID-19 deaths were reported in just the last two months, indicating that the severity of the pandemic is far from over as …

04-12-2020 BEIJING: Lawmakers in the United States are fabricating news of forced labour in the northwestern Xinjiang region, China said on Thursday. The development comes after Washington banned imports of cotton produced by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) alleged to use the forced labour of detained Uighur Muslims …

04-12-2020 By SJA Jafri + Agencies CAIRO/ SANA’A/ UNITED NATIONS: The window to prevent a famine in war-torn Yemen is narrowing, with a new study showing that millions of people in the country will face some form of food crisis next year, according to United Nations agencies. More than half …

03-12-2020 By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report + Agencies PARIS/ MELBOURNE: The French government has launched a “massive and unprecedented” wave of measures to combat what it calls religious “extremism”, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has said, adding that 76 mosques are suspected of “separatism”. Darmanin on Thursday tweeted his interview …

03-12-2020 TEHRAN: Iran has moved to stop UN inspections of its nuclear sites and step up uranium enrichment under a new law approved by its parliament. The bill would require the government to resume enriching uranium to 20% – well above the 3.67% agreed under a 2015 nuclear deal – …

02-12-2020 LONDON: British officials authorized a COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use on Wednesday, green-lighting the world’s first shot against the virus that’s backed by rigorous science and taking a major step toward eventually ending the pandemic. The go-ahead for the vaccine developed by American drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech comes …

02-12-2020 By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report NEW DELHI/ OTTAWA: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s remarks on the continuing farmers’ protests in India have not gone down well with the Hindu nationalist government, which dubbed his comments as “unwarranted”. “We have seen some ill-informed comments by Canadian leaders relating to …