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29 March, 2020 BAMAKO/ KATI: Polls have opened in Mali’s long-delayed parliamentary elections despite concerns about security and the coronavirus pandemic. Sunday’s vote came hours after the violence-hit West African country announced its first coronavirus death and days after main opposition leader Soumaila Cisse was kidnapped by unidentified gunmen. The …

29 March, 2020 By SJA Jafri + Agencies RIYADH/ JIZAN/ DUBAI: Ballistic missiles were intercepted on Saturday in the sky above Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh and the southern city of Jizan, state media reported, citing its own sources and the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen. Residents in Riyadh reported at …

28 March, 2020 By SJA Jafri + Agencies NEW DELHI: The Indian government has defended its handling of the coronavirus outbreak after a strict lockdown – introduced with little warning – left millions stranded and without food. The country’s response had been “pre-emptive, pro-active and graded”, it said in a …

28 March, 2020 By SJA Jafri + Agencies VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis delivered a message of hope to the world amid the coronavirus pandemic. He did so in a hauntingly empty St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican, as Italy is completely locked down to stop the virus spreading. “Like the …

28 March, 2020 ROME/ GENEVA: Italy has recorded 919 new coronavirus deaths, its highest daily figure in the outbreak so far. It means 9,134 people have now died from the virus in the country. Earlier World Health Organization chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said a “chronic global shortage” of protective …

27 March, 2020 SANA’A/ TEHRAN/ RIYADH: The leader of Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement Abdul-Malik Badreddin al-Houthi said that he promises the Arab and Saudi alliances will witness new “advanced military capabilities” that they never expected. “The military capabilities and operations took an upward path, culminating in major field achievements and …

27 March, 2020 By SJA Jafri + Int’l Monitoring Desk + Agencies GENEVA/ WASHINGTON: The United States now has more coronavirus cases than any other country with close to 86,000 infections, according to Johns Hopkins University, pushing the total numbers worldwide to more than 531,000, as the global death toll …

27 March, 2020 BEIJING/ NEW YORK: The US now has more confirmed cases of coronavirus than any other country with more than 83,500 positive tests. According to the latest figures collated by Johns Hopkins University, the US has overtaken China (81,782 cases) and Italy (80,589) but with 1,200 Covid-19-related fatalities, …

26 March, 2020 By SJA Jafri + Agencies NEW YORK/ WASHINGTON: The number of Americans filing for unemployment has surged to a record high as the economy goes into lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly 3.3 million people registered to claim jobless benefits for the week ended 21 March, …

26 March, 2020 NEW YORK: Poorer countries need $2bn of international humanitarian aid to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, United Nations Organization (UNO) Chief Antonio Guterres said in launching a major donation appeal today. “COVID-19 is threatening the whole of humanity – and the whole of humanity must fight back,” Guterres said in …