International

15-12-2022 TEHRAN/ BRUSSELS: Iran has sentenced a Belgian aid worker to 28 years in prison on unknown charges, his family has said. Olivier Vandecasteele, 41, was arrested during a brief visit to Tehran in February and accused of espionage. On Wednesday, his family said they had been informed of his …

15-12-2022 Bureau Report + Agencies NEW DELHI: Ten years ago the brutal gang rape and murder of a young woman on a Delhi bus horrified the world and shone a spotlight on high rates of sexual violence in India. Jyoti Singh, 23, and a male friend boarded a bus on …

15-12-2022 Bureau Report MELBOURNE: Scientists have discovered that snakes do have clitorises, shattering a long-held assumption that the females didn’t have a sexual organ. Research published Wednesday provides the first proper anatomical descriptions of female snake genitalia. Snake penises, hemipenes have been studied for decades. They are forked and some …

15-12-2022 By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report PARIS/ ISLAMABAD: The number of journalists imprisoned around the world has hit a new record, according to an annual tally by press freedom watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontieres, or RSF). A total of 533 media professionals were imprisoned in 2022, up …

15-12-2022 NAYPYIDAW: Htu Seng has spent the past decade defending the land and environment of her native Kachin State but it was only after the military seized power in a coup in February 2021 that she began fearing for her life. Forcibly relocated from her village near the river confluence …

15-12-2022 BEIJING: China’s National Health Commission has scaled down its daily COVID-19 report in response to a sharp decline in PCR testing since the government eased antivirus measures after daily cases hit record highs. A notice on the commission’s website on Wednesday said it stopped publishing daily figures on the …

14-12-2022 Bureau Report + Agencies NEW DELHI: Indian troops prevented their Chinese counterparts from entering Indian Territory on Dec. 9 during a border scuffle that led to injuries on both sides, India’s defence minister, Rajnath Singh, told parliament on Tuesday. The latest face-off occurred in the Tawang sector of India’s …

14-12-2022 By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report SYDNEY/ MELBOURNE: Fight like wild and mad dogs has been started between Aussies after ethnic, religious, sectarian, social, cultural and criminals/ gang conflicts have already been become the routine in Australia just because either no-interest of Australian authorities, bureaucracy, politicians and other concerned …

14-12-2022 KYIV: Global economic powers pledged to beef up Kyiv’s military capabilities with a focus on air defence, as Russian missiles, artillery and drones hammered targets in Ukraine with no end in sight to Europe’s biggest conflict since World War Two. The Group of Seven promised to “meet Ukraine’s urgent …

14-12-2022 DHAKA: The leader of Jamat-e-Islami (JI/ Bangladesh Islamic Assembly), Bangladesh’s largest Muslim party, has been arrested days after he announced the party would join opposition-led protests demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. “Shafiqur Rahman was arrested from his residence at around 1 am on 13th December (19:00 …