International

11-03-2021 WASHINGTON: The US House of Representatives has given final approval to a $1.9 trillion emergency spending measure designed to mitigate the financial toll of the coronavirus pandemic, putting the United States economy on a path to recovery. The House voted largely along party lines, 220-211, to send the legislation, …

11-03-2021 MANAMA: Sheikh Isa Qassim, the spiritual leader of Bahrain’s Shiite majority, warned about the death of political dissidents in the Al Khalifa regime’s prisons and demanded their immediate release. Sheikh Qassim was quoted by the Arabic-language Bahrain Mirror news website as making the remarks in a series of tweets …

10-03-2021 By SJA Jafri + Agencies BEIJING/ ISLAMABAD: A US think-tank has accused the Chinese government of committing genocide against Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang, saying it has found “clear and convincing proof” that Beijing violated “each and every act” banned by the United Nations convention against genocide. In its Tuesday …

10-03-2021 WASHINGTON:  The US State Department on Monday announced that people whose US visa applications were rejected due to former president Donald Trump’s ‘Muslim ban’ can now reapply for it. Donald Trump had imposed a travel ban on 13 mostly Muslim-majority and African countries in 2017. President Joe Biden had …

10-03-2021 By SJA Jafri UNITED NATIONS/ KARACHI: One in three women worldwide have been subject to sexual or physical violence during their lifetime, according to a new report by the World Health Organization (WHO). The UN agency released the study on Tuesday urging governments to prevent violence, improve services for …

10-03-2021 Bureau Report NEW DELHI/ LONDON: India has rebuked UK MPs for criticizing its handling of long-running farmers’ protests in Delhi. Several Labour, Liberal Democrat and Scottish National Party MPs on Monday expressed concern over the safety of protesters and the status of press freedom in India. But India’s High …

10-03-2021 DHAKA: A news channel in Bangladesh has made history by hiring the first-ever transgender news anchor in the country. After 29-year-old Tashnuva Anan Shishir was given a chance to read the news for the first time, she got so emotional; she could not hold back her tears. Tashnuva said …

09-03-2021 Bureau Report NEW DELHI/ KARACHI: On the night of December 26, 2001, Mohammad Abdul Hai boarded a train from Jodhpur in northwestern India’s Rajasthan state to Surat city in neighboring Gujarat to attend a three-day seminar on Muslim education. The seminar was organized by the All India Minority Education …

09-03-2021 Bureau Report MELBOURNE: The Australian state of Victoria has announced an inquiry into the impact of colonization on Aboriginal people, the first probe of its kind nationally. Aboriginal Australians were dispossessed of their land after British settlement in 1788 and have since endured systemic injustices. Unlike some other Commonwealth …

09-03-2021 BEIJING: In a first, China on Monday launched a health certificate program, or a virus passport, for domestic travelers taking the lead in calls for such an initiative. The digital certificate, which shows a user’s vaccination status and virus test results, is available for Chinese citizens via a program …