WISMAR, Germany – The unfinished “Global Dream” rests quietly in a dock as the Covid-19 pandemic has turned the cruise ship into a nightmare for the shipyard in Wismar along Germany’s windswept Baltic coast. Destined to have become one of the world’s largest liners, the “Global Dream” will be lucky to ever set sail after … Read more
JUBA – The UN mine clearance worker gingerly sifts through a patch of dirt with a trowel in scrubland on the outskirts of a village near South Sudan’s capital Juba. A colleague, also clad in safety gear of a see-through face shield and pale blue protective vest, scans for mines using a metal detector that … Read more
TEHRAN – Two Iranian ex-prisoners have opened a successful “jail restaurant” to help raise funds to free convicts languishing behind bars for unpaid debts. A storefront picture of their “Cell 16” diner in eastern Tehran shows a frustrated prisoner holding a chicken leg in one hand and trying with the other to bend the bars … Read more
Prime Minister Imran Khan started his four-day visit to China on February 3, a day before the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, which a number of world leaders were attending. Prior to this visit, the premier had ordered removal of red tape, hindering Chinese investment in Pakistan. The PM concluded his visit with a … Read more
Since its inception, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) – the federal regulator of higher education – has had a largely confrontational relationship with degree awarding institutions in the country, particularly the public sector universities. When President Gen Pervez Musharraf upgraded the University Grants Commission (UGC) to the HEC, he selected prominent scientist, Dr Attaur Rehman, … Read more
A Sri Lankan court on February 7 ordered the release of a lawyer arrested over his alleged ties to the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings and held for nearly two years on charges rights groups say lacked evidence. Hejaaz Hizbullah was arrested in April 2020 on suspicion of being linked to the devastating series of attacks … Read more
CAIRO – Chinese President Xi Jinping’s meetings with leaders from Egypt, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are constructive in advancing relations, said media and political analysts from these Mideast countries. On the sidelines of the Beijing Winter Olympics, President Xi met separately with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad … Read more
Kuala lumpur – Region’s internet economy on track to hit $1t as e-commerce, logistics boom Southeast Asia is embracing its “digital decade” with the region’s internet economy expected to soar on the back of a fast-growing base of digital consumers and merchants. A report released by Google, Temasek and Bain & Company said Southeast Asia … Read more
The border towns of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces are again experiencing an alarming spike in terrorist attacks by groups of two different mindsets – the fringe sub-nationalists and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Their terror activities halted for a few months following the Afghan Taliban’s takeover of Kabul, but now these elements appear to … Read more
The country’s opposition parties are flexing their muscles to bring down the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government, but the chances of tabling a successful no-trust motion against Prime Minister Imran Khan appears bleak since the coalition partners of the ruling party appear reluctant to extend support to any such move. Much turbulence has been witnessed during … Read more
BEIJING – China vowed to take countermeasures after the US announced a plan to sell $100 million worth of Patriot missile upgrades to the island of Taiwan, which would be the first US arms sale to the island in 2022 and the second under the Biden administration. The arms sale, again leeching money from Taiwan, … Read more
Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed is a seasoned politician and a former general secretary of the PPP Punjab. A highly respected person who is known to call a spade a spade, Manzoor is a key member of the PPP’s Central Executive Committee and is very aware of the developments taking place in Pakistani politics. Even his rivals … Read more
P. K. Madhavan stood proudly next to a young, sturdy mahogany tree, one of 100 he planted three years ago on his farm in Wayanad district in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Madhavan’s two acres (0.8 hectares) of land in Meenangadi village used to be lush with cash crops — coffee, black pepper and … Read more
WASHINGTON – Is Joe Biden “weak” in the face of Russia, Iran or North Korea? This is the accusation leveled by opponents of the US president, who is trying to balance a firm hand with pragmatism to overcome multiple international crises and focus on a rising China. “Is it any surprise that Chinese planes are … Read more
BEIJING – While Nato and the Western countries send more troops to the borders of Russia and rumours of war proliferate in the Western media, reminding one of the gladiatorial nature of the ancient Roman Empire, in Beijing the humanist spirit of the ancient Greeks is being revived, in the Beijing Winter Olympics, that successor … Read more
DIVJAKA, Albania – Thousands of migratory birds have failed to make their annual visit to Albania’s western coast this winter, experts say, pointing to climate change, overfishing and urbanisation as likely factors. The number of waterbirds recorded in January 2022 in the Divjaka-Karavasta wetlands, an internationally important wintering site along the European migratory flyway, was … Read more
On the eve of the Chinese New Year, President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin met in Beijing as Moscow’s deteriorating relations with the West take centre stage ahead of the official opening of the Winter Olympics in the Chinese capital. During his visit, Putin hailed his country’s “unprecedented” ties with China at … Read more
GAZA – Jihan Al-Adgham, a Palestinian woman from the besieged coastal enclave, spends most of her time placing pots under the holes in the roof of her house to protect her children from getting wet from rainwater in the cold winter nights. The 46-year-old mother of seven lives in a 60-square-meter dilapidated house with cracked … Read more
Chief Justice Islamabad High Court (IHC), Justice Athar Minallah, has set new benchmarks by giving unprecedented judgments against some of the country’s powerful elite and ensuring the rule of law at every cost. Whether it is his judgement against the allotment of expensive plots to civil servants and judges by the government in its various … Read more
TOKYO – In 2017, Michel Roccati was in a motorbike accident that left his lower body completely paralysed. In 2020, he walked again, thanks to a breakthrough new spinal cord implant. The implant sends electrical pulses to his muscles, mimicking the action of the brain, and could one day help people with severe spinal injuries … Read more
MACAO – A “dancing golden dragon” of over 200 meters long meandered through Macao’s zigzagging narrow alleys. Dazzling floats and passionate performances entertained audiences lining up along a 2-km-long main road. Glittering fireworks lit up the night sky above the sea. Two years since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, festivity has returned to China’s … Read more
Indonesian leaders joined members of the ethnic Chinese community at a Chinese New Year event on February 5 that blended celebrations with a call for greater solidarity among Indonesians in the fight against Covid-19. Speaking by video, President Joko Widodo urged his compatriots to “make the pandemic a bridge for building solidarity that provides an … Read more
MUSCAT – A wave of foreign imitations and alternative styles has prompted Oman to take tough action to preserve its unique national dress, threatening thousands of dollars in fines for men who wear the wrong sort of dishdasha. Dishdashas, the long, elegant robes that are a hallmark of the Gulf sultanate, have fallen prey to … Read more
KYIV – When he arrived at the front line as a volunteer to fight Russian-backed separatists in 2014, Pavlo Dolynskiy found Ukraine’s army in a desperate state. Kyiv had just lost the Crimean peninsula to Moscow without a shot being fired and its regular forces — eaten away by years of neglect and corruption, couldn’t … Read more
Muskan Khan, a girl student from Karnataka’s Mandya Pre-University college, has become the poster girl of pro-Hijab protests across India. Last month several government-run educational institutions in Karnataka have put a ban on wearing a hijab, or headscarf by the Muslim girl students. The students were asked to remove their headscarves before attending classes, as … Read more
LONDON – Britain’s trade with the European Union has been dented by Brexit, with businesses facing greater costs, paperwork and border delays since the UK’s full withdrawal, a watchdog panel of MPs said Wednesday. A report by the cross-party Public Accounts Committee found that although it was difficult to disentangle the effects of the pandemic … Read more
BOGOTA – Using a machete, Norma Souza Matapi slices a pineapple from its roots and places it into a woven bag slung across her forehead as she tends a family food plot deep in Colombia’s Amazon rain forest. Indigenous communities in this remote corner of southeastern Amazonas province have preserved largely pristine tracts of forest … Read more
The head of the World Health Organisation said on February 9 he had met with the Taliban’s health minister for talks on the “dire” health and humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus revealed that he met Qalander Ebad for talks. Ebad is part of a Taliban delegation visiting Geneva for a week … Read more
