International

30-12-2021 JAKARTA: A powerful 7.3 magnitude quake struck off the coast of Indonesia’s Maluku province in the early hours of Thursday, the United States Geological Survey said in a statement. There were no immediate reports of tsunami warnings, nor casualties or damage. The offshore quake took place around 3:25 am …

30-12-2021 By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report + Al Jazeera NEW DELHI/ BENGALURE: Netizens have reacted vehemently to the Indian government’s decision to change the name of great Muslim poet Akbar Allahabadi, Indian media reported on Wednesday. According to the Uttar Pradesh Higher Education Services Commission (UPHESC), an autonomous authority …

30-12-2021 A mother whose 14-year-old girl was accidentally killed by a stray police bullet in Los Angeles says her daughter “died in my arms”. Valentina Orellana-Peralta was with her mother in a clothes shop on 23 December when an officer opened fire on a suspect. The bullet pierced a wall …

30-12-2021 JAKARTA: Indonesia has announced it will allow a boat packed with Rohingya refugees, which had become stranded off its coast, to dock after calls from aid organizations to allow the vessel to seek refuge. Local officials in Aceh, a province on the western island of Sumatra, had said on …

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 …