China approves first homegrown vaccine said to be 79.3pc effective on December 31, 2020Chinese health regulators said on Thursday that they have given conditional approval to a coronavirus vaccine developed by state-owned Sinopharm. The two-dose vaccine is the first approved for general use in China. The go-ahead comes as the country has begun to vaccinate 50 million people before the Lunar New Year holiday in February. “Conditional approval […]
New Zealand win nail-biting first Test against Pakistan, become top ranked side on December 30, 2020New Zealand beat Pakistan by 101 runs in the first cricket Test which ended very late on the fifth day on Wednesday, achieving their third straight win in three home Tests this summer and taking a 1-0 lead in the two-Test series. At the same time New Zealand overtook Australia to claim the No 1 […]
Iran builds at underground nuclear facility amid US tensions on December 18, 2020Iran has begun construction on a site at its underground nuclear facility at Fordo amid tensions with the US over its atomic program, satellite photos obtained Friday by The Associated Press show. Iran has not publicly acknowledged any new construction at Fordo, whose discovery by the West in 2009 came in an earlier round of brinkmanship before […]
Israel urges citizens to avoid Gulf, cites Iran threat on December 4, 2020The 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 […]
William Barr rejects Trump’s claims of “widespread election fraud” on December 2, 2020Disputing President Donald Trump’s persistent, baseless claims, Attorney General William Barr declared Tuesday the U.S. Justice Department has uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election. Barr’s comments, in an interview with the The Associated Press, contradict the concerted effort by Trump, his boss, to subvert the […]
Dave Prowse, British actor who played Darth Vader, dies at 85 on November 29, 2020Dave Prowse, the British weightlifter-turned-actor who was the body, though not the voice, of arch-villain Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy, has died. He was 85. Prowse died on Saturday after a short illness, his agent Thomas Bowington said today. Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars films, tweeted that […]
PCB invites Afghanistan on first official tour on November 25, 2020KARACHI: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has invited Afghanistan’s national team on a full-fledged tour for the first time, a senior board official said on Tuesday, following a visit to Kabul by Prime Minister Imran Khan — one of the game’s greatest players. “We’ll try to look for a possible window for this tour — […]
Indian state outlaws religious conversion by marriage on November 25, 2020India’s ruling Hindu nationalist party has approved legislation in the country’s most populous state that lays out a prison term of up to 10 years for anyone found guilty of using marriage to force someone to change religion. The decree for the state of Uttar Pradesh was passed on Tuesday and follows a campaign by […]
China launches mission to bring back material from moon on November 24, 2020China launched an ambitious mission on Tuesday to bring back rocks and debris from the moon’s surface for the first time in more than 40 years — an undertaking that could boost human understanding of the moon and of the solar system more generally. Chang’e 5 — named for the Chinese moon goddess — is […]
CTD officials foil suicide attack on Lahore police station on November 24, 2020Officials from the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) on Tuesday said they foiled a possible militant attack by killing a suspected would-be suicide bomber when he tried to sneak into a police station near Lahore. According to a statement released by police, the suspected militant was killed in an exchange of fire early on Tuesday when he […]