01-08-2021 LONDON: Young people will be offered discounted takeaways and taxi rides to get their COVID jabs in a bid to boost vaccine uptake, the government has said. Food delivery and taxi-hailing firms including Uber, Bolt, Deliveroo and Pizza Pilgrims will offer incentives to people to get vaccinated. The Department …

01-08-2021 PARIS: Thousands of people have protested in Paris and other French cities against a mandatory coronavirus health pass for entry to a wide array of public venues, introduced by the government as it battles the fourth wave of infections. Some 3,000 security forces deployed around the French capital on …

01-08-2021 ANKARA: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared parts of southern Turkey ravaged by wildfires as “disaster areas”, with the death toll from the fires rising to six after two forest workers were killed. Fires across Turkey since Wednesday have burned down forests, encroaching on villages and tourist destinations and …

31-07-2021 By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report + Agencies KABUL/ ISLAMABAD: Fighting is raging around three major cities in southern and western Afghanistan as Taliban militants seek to seize them from government forces. Taliban fighters have entered parts of Herat, Lashkar Gah and Kandahar. They have made rapid gains in …

31-07-2021 NEW DELHI: Former international cricketers are being threatened and warned by the Indian cricket board against taking part in the inaugural Kashmir Premier League (KPL) cricket tournament, organizers and players have said. The KPL is scheduled to start from August 6 in Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and will be …

31-07-2021 Bureau Report WASHINGTON/ ISLAMABAD: US President Joe Biden has appointed Pakistani-American lawyer Khizr Khan also a critic of ex-president Donald Trump and the father of a soldier slain in Baghdad as the commissioner for the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, according to a statement released from the White House. …

31-07-2021 By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report + Agencies KABUL/ ISLAMABAD: An Afghan security guard was killed on Friday when a United Nations compound came under attack in Herat, officials said, as fighting raged between government forces and the Taliban on the outskirts of the city in western Afghanistan. Violence …

  31-07-2021 JERUSALEM/ TEHRAN: Israel has accused Iran of being behind an attack on an oil tanker in which two crew members – a British national and a Romanian citizen – were killed. The MV Mercer Street, operated by the London-based company Zodiac Maritime, was off Oman’s coast in the …

31-07-2021 NEW YORK: The Delta variant of the coronavirus is as contagious as chickenpox and could cause severe illness, according to an internal document at the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), The New York Times reported on Friday. The variant has be blamed for the explosion …

30-07-2021 Bureau Report CANBERRA/ MELBOURNE/ NEW DELHI: The National Gallery of Australia is to return 14 works of art to India that are suspected of having been stolen, looted or exported illegally. The religious and cultural artifacts include sculptures, photos and a scroll and are worth around $2.2m (£1.57m). Gallery …