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27-12-2021 Bureau Report SYDNEY/ MELBOURNE: Australia has reported its first confirmed death from the new Omicron variant of COVID-19 amid another surge in daily infections. The authorities, however, refrained from imposing new restrictions, saying hospital admission rates remained low. The death on Monday of a man in his 80s with …

27-12-2021 MOGADISHU: Somalia’s President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed says he has suspended Prime Minister Hussein Roble’s powers, sparking accusations of an “indirect coup” amid a protracted feud that has seen both leaders’ trade allegations over the holding up of parliamentary elections. “The president decided to suspend (the) prime minister … and …

27-12-2021 SANA’A/ RIYADH: The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen says it struck a Houthi rebel camp in the capital Sanaa, as it intensified an aerial bombing campaign against the Iran-backed fighters. The coalition, which backs Yemen’s internationally recognized government against the Houthis in the civil war, said it destroyed weapons …

27-12-2021 OUAGADOUGOU: Dozens of people have been killed in an attack by armed groups linked with ISIS in Burkina Faso’s troubled north. The government announced that 41 people had died in the attack that took place on Thursday. In a statement released late on Saturday, the government said the dead …

27-12-2021 Bureau Report KABUL/ ISLAMABAD: Afghan Taliban said Sunday that women seeking to travel long distances should not be offered transport unless they are accompanied by a close male relative. The guidance, issued by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, also called on all vehicle …

27-12-2021 TEHRAN/ JERUSALEM/ NABLUS: Hundreds of Palestinians were injured in the village of Burqa, near Nablus, as Israeli forces clashed with protesters on Saturday night. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said in a statement that 247 Palestinian protestors were injured by Israeli soldiers in the village of Burqa, northwest of …

26-12-2021 Bureau Report KABUL/ ISLAMABAD: The Afghan Taliban scrapped the country’s election commission, a spokesman for the government said on Saturday, The panel supervised polls during the previous Western-backed administration. “There is no need for these commissions to exist and operate,” Taliban government spokesman Bilal Karimi said, referring to the …

26-12-2021 BENI/ KINSHASA: A suicide bomber has attacked a restaurant in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s eastern city of Beni, killing at least five people and himself. Officials blamed the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) for Saturday’s attack. The militia is one of the deadliest armed groups in the region …

26-12-2021 Bureau Report NEW DELHI: India will start administering COVID-19 booster shots as a precautionary measure to healthcare and other front-line workers from January 10, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said, as cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant rise across the country. In a TV address to the nation on …

26-12-2021 PAROS/ ATHENS: Greek coast guards scoured for survivors in the Aegean Sea on Saturday after the latest in a series of migrant boat accidents that have killed at least 30 people in just days. Late Friday, the coastguard found 16 bodies, including those of three women and a baby, …