Category: Global Politics

Stay safe and watch the famous New Year’s Eve fireworks from home, Sydney tells people

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COURTESY BY: https://images.dawn.com/ Stay home, stay safe — that’s the message from Sydney, one of the world’s first major cities to welcome each New Year with a public countdown featuring a fireworks display over its well-known Opera House, to people. The city has banned large gatherings that night amid an outbreak of the coronavirus. Because of swift border closures, lockdowns, widespread testing, social distancing and a high rate of public compliance with anti-virus measures, Australia has recorded just over 28,300 infections and 908 deaths related to the coronavirus. A mid-December…

Saudi Arabia extends entry ban amid coronavirus variant fears

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COURTESY BY: https://www.dawn.com/ Saudi Arabia’s interior ministry on Monday extended a ban on entry to the kingdom by air, land and sea for another week amid concerns over a fast-spreading variant of the new coronavirus, the state news agency SPA reported. Saudi Arabia shut its borders on Monday Dec 21 and suspended international commercial flights on a rolling weekly basis although foreign flights already in the country were allowed to leave. The ministry said it is evaluating the situation while allowing non-citizens to leave the kingdom and allowing entry for exceptional cases, SPA reported. The measures do not…

Apple targets car production by 2024 and eyes ‘next level’ battery technology: report

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COURTESY BY: https://www.dawn.com/ Apple Inc is moving forward with self-driving car technology and is targeting 2024 to produce a passenger vehicle that could include its own breakthrough battery technology, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The iPhone maker’s automotive efforts, known as Project Titan, have proceeded unevenly since 2014 when it first started to design its own vehicle from scratch. At one point, Apple drew back the effort to focus on software and reassessed its goals. Doug Field, an Apple veteran who had worked at Tesla Inc, returned to oversee the project…

Dubai to begin inoculations with Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine from today

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COURTESY BY: https://www.dawn.com/ Dubai will start inoculating people with the Covid-19 vaccine produced by Pfizer and BioNTech for free from Wednesday, the emirate’s government said, joining Saudi Arabia which last week became the first Arab country to begin using this vaccine. The move comes after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain earlier this month rolled out a vaccine developed by China National Pharmaceutical Group, Sinopharm, to the general public. The UAE was the first country to roll out the Chinese vaccines for its population, saying earlier this month it has 86…

Indian farmers step up pressure against Modi govt with hunger strike against reforms

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COURTESY BY: https://www.dawn.com/ Leaders of protesting Indian farmers began a one-day hunger strike on Monday against agricultural reforms they say threaten their livelihoods, stepping up pressure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to withdraw the legislation. Farmers have been demonstrating for nearly three weeks against deregulation of the agriculture sector that will allow them to sell produce to buyers beyond government-regulated wholesale markets, where growers are assured a minimum price. “We want them to repeal the laws,” said Gurbax Singh, a protest leader from the northern state of Punjab, which is at…

Biden picks first black general as Pentagon chief

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COURTESY BY: https://www.dawn.com/ WASHINGTON: President-elect Joe Biden has chosen Lloyd Austin, who led US troops into Baghdad in 2003 and rose to head the US Central Command, as the first African-American secretary of defence, US media reported on Monday. A veteran of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the retired four-star army general, 67, beat out the favourite for the job, former under-secretary of defence Michele Flournoy, amid pressure on Biden to nominate more minority members for positions in his cabinet. CNN, Politico and The New York Times cited unnamed sources familiar with the decision,…

New Zealand’s Ardern vows accountability ahead of Christchurch attack report

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COURTESY BY: https://www.dawn.com/ New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday vowed accountability for the families of last year’s Christchurch mosque attack victims, ahead of the public release of a major report into the country’s worst massacre. Australian white supremacist Brenton Tarrant was sentenced to life in prison without parole in August for killing 51 Muslim worshippers and injuring dozens of others at two mosques in the South Island city on Mar 15, 2019. The findings of a royal commission inquiry into the attack will be made public in parliament on Tuesday. The inquiry was formed…

Israel urges citizens to avoid Gulf, cites Iran threat

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COURTESY BY: https://www.dawn.com/ The Israeli government on Thursday urged its citizens to avoid travel to the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, citing threats of Iranian attacks. Iran has been threatening to attack Israeli targets since its chief nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was assassinated last Friday near Tehran. It accuses Israel, which has been suspected in previous killings of Iranian nuclear scientists, of being behind the shooting. Israel has not commented on the killing. But Fakhrizadeh has long been on Israel’s radar screen, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying at a 2018…

Facebook reviews ‘race-blind’ hate speech policy

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COURTESY BY: https://www.dawn.com/ NEW YORK: Facebook has decided to revise its hate speech algorithms to prioritise blocking slurs against blacks, Muslims and others that have historically faced discrimination, the Washington Post reported on Thursday. The change is set to alter the social network’s “so-called race-blind” system that has removed anti-white comments and excised innocuous comments by people of colour, the Post said. The reform is at an early stage and aims to target speech deemed “the worst of the worst”, including slurs against blacks, Muslims, people of more than one race, the LGBTQ community…

Japan Nike ad on bullying, racism sparks hot online response

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COURTESY BY: https://images.dawn.com/ A video ad from Nike Japan against bullying and racism that features biracial athletes and other minorities, such as those of Korean descent, has prompted a sharp online response including calls to boycott the company. Japan has traditionally prided itself on being racially homogeneous, although successful mixed-race athletes such as tennis star Naomi Osaka are challenging that image. The commercial, “Keep Moving: Yourself, the Future,” released on Nov 30, shows several teen girls bullied in school over their race or other differences, but who ultimately find confidence…