Pakistan's PM Khan to visit Sri Lanka; Muslim minority hopes for better rights.
Why Sri Lanka's Muslim community hope a visit by Pakistan's Prime Minister could help them.
Lindell equates getting coronavirus vaccine to receiving ‘mark of the beast’ pledging allegiance to the devil
Exactly a year after New Zealand recorded its first coronavirus case, the biggest city of Auckland woke on Sunday to a second lockdown this month, as authorities try to rein in a cluster of the more contagious UK variant. The seven-day lockdown of a population of nearly 2 million, announced late on Saturday by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, was prompted by the case of a person who had been infectious for a week but not in isolation. "It is more than likely there will be additional cases in the community," Ardern told a televised news conference, although no new cases were recorded on Sunday.
More than 850 cows that have spent months on a ship in the Mediterranean are no longer fit for transport and should be killed, Spain's Agriculure Ministry said on Saturday, confirming an earlier Reuters report. The cows were kept in what an animal rights activist called "hellish" conditions on the Karim Allah, which docked in the southeastern Spanish port of Cartagena on Thursday after struggling to find a buyer for the cattle during the past two months. The animals were rejected by several countries over fears they had bovine bluetongue virus.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may have been spared direct punishment after a U.S. intelligence report implicated him in the killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but he has not emerged unscathed. The declassified report, based on CIA intelligence, concludes that the prince approved an operation to "capture or kill" Khashoggi, who was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. President Joe Biden's decision to publish a report that his predecessor Donald Trump had set aside brings with it a broad refocusing of Washington's stance on dealing with the kingdom, on its human rights record, and on its lucrative arms purchases.
Jackson became Nasa’s first Black female engineer in 1958
A man was killed by a rooster with a blade tied to its leg during an illegal cockfight in southern India, police said, bringing focus on a practice that continues in some Indian states despite a decades-old ban. The rooster, with a 3-inch knife tied to its leg, fluttered in panic and slashed its owner, 45-year-old Thangulla Satish, in his groin last week, police inspector B. Jeevan said Sunday. According to Jeevan, Satish was injured while he prepared the rooster for a fight.
United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Friday that China is restricting basic civil and political freedoms in the name of national security and COVID-19 measures, adding to a wave of criticism of the country's rights record. "Activists, lawyers and human rights defenders – as well as some foreign nationals – face arbitrary criminal charges, detention or unfair trials," Bachelet told the Human Rights Council. More than 600 people in Hong Kong are being investigated for taking part in protests, some under the new national security law imposed by mainland China on the former British colony, she said.
The White House has not made a final decision on whether the United States will take part in the 2022 Winter Olympics in China, President Joe Biden's spokeswoman said on Thursday, even as some Republicans call for a boycott. Republicans who have called either for a boycott or for the Olympics to be moved out of Beijing have cited a U.S. designation made under former President Donald Trump that the Chinese government was perpetrating genocide against Uighur Muslims in its Xinjiang region.
Four major Indian states are set to go for polls in the next two months in a test of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity amid a raging months-long protest by farmers against three new agricultural laws that have sparked outcry at home and abroad. The eastern states of Assam and West Bengal and the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala will hold state assembly polls between late March and April, India's Election Commission said in a statement on Friday. Modi is battling his biggest political challenge in years as tens of thousands of farmers have camped out on the outskirts of New Delhi since late last year, blocking highways and demanding the government repeal the laws they say will harm farmers and benefit large corporate buyers.
At least two political rights groups advocating democracy have quietly quit Hong Kong and moved overseas, unnerved by a national security law that has fanned fears over the erosion of freedoms under China’s rule, sources told Reuters. In the past, China-focused rights groups had valued the wide-ranging autonomy, including freedom of speech and assembly, guaranteed for Hong Kong when control over the former British colony was returned to Beijing in 1997. But some non-government organisations (NGOs) say the new legislation means they face a choice of either having to leave Hong Kong or work with the same kind of fears and constraints they would encounter in mainland China.
Iran is threatening to end a deal struck with the U.N. nuclear watchdog last weekend temporarily salvaging much monitoring of its activities if the agency's board endorses a U.S.-led push to criticise Tehran next week, an Iranian position paper shows. Tehran this week scaled back cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, ending extra inspection measures introduced by its 2015 nuclear accord with major powers. Iran and U.S. President Joe Biden's administration are now locked in a standoff over who should move first to save the unravelling 2015 deal.
Some 317 girls remain missing in Zamfara state, but 42 people abducted in Niger state are freed.
Thousands of delegates from across the country will gather in Beijing next week for the annual meeting of parliament, where China will announce goals for 2021 as well as its next five-year plan for economic development. The annual meetings of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's rubber-stamp parliament, and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), are known as the "two sessions." The events typically draw a combined 5,000 delegates and will be held under strict COVID-19 controls.
Outspoken GOP congressman complains ‘the left and the media’ were less concerned about ‘caravans going through Mexico’ than Texas senator visiting
CEO of energy supplier said ‘I don’t believe I would’ do anything differently, despite deaths
‘I'm not going to worry about people that their only worry in life is to be re-elected,’ says Enrique Tarrio
Americans want the U.S. to be No. 1, but 'don't appreciate going into endless costly wars.' Where does that leave the Biden administration?
Biden nominated three people to open positions on the agency's governing board, who, if confirmed by the Senate, would create a Democratic advantage.
The president returned to some of his favourite debunked theories about the election, and much more
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