Author: News Desk

Haiti President Assassinated: PM declares ‘State of Siege’ Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse has been killed and his wife injured in an attack on their home in the nation’s capital, Port-au-Prince. Unidentified gunmen stormed the property at 01:00 local time (05:00 GMT), interim PM Claude Joseph said. He has called for calm and declared a state of emergency nationwide. Mr Joseph called the shooting of the president a “heinous, inhuman and barbaric act”, saying the attackers were “foreigners who spoke English and Spanish”. Haiti’s official languages are Creole and French. Mr Moïse had led Haiti, one of the poorest nations in the…

Berlin: Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima visited Berlin’s Reichstag building housing the German parliament for a meeting with Bundestag President Wolfgang Schaeuble on Tuesday, said dpa international. The visit to the iconic building near the Brandenburg Gate kicked off the second day of the Dutch royals’ three-day state visit that focuses on Berlin. A meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel was scheduled for later in the day. They were also to attend a session of the Bundesrat, the upper house of the German parliament, where Willem-Alexander was to give an address. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was to escort the royals to a concert in…

Amsterdam:  The Dutch royal family has strongly condemned an attack on high-profile Dutch crime reporter Peter R de Vries, who is fighting for his life after being shot in central Amsterdam on Tuesday evening. The incident was “an attack on journalism,” King Willem-Alexander said on Wednesday in an interview broadcast by NOS. Journalism is “a cornerstone of our democracy. This is also an attack on our constitutional state,” the king said. Speaking in front of Dutch journalists, the king also expressed his compassion. “It must be horrible when this happens to a colleague.” De Vries was shot after leaving a television studio in Amsterdam…

London: North America just experienced its hottest June since records began and Europe its second hottest, the EU’s climate change monitoring service said.  Last month was especially warm in the western United States and Canada, as well as in Finland and western Russia, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said in London, dpa reported. In the Finnish capital Helsinki, where records go back to 1844, the average June temperature has never been as high as this year. Russia’s capital, Moscow, recorded its warmest June day on record. It was also warmer than average in Siberia, although not as much as in…

The Bahrain National Handball team will play Estonia on Wednesday, the last friendly match before the team’s departure to Japan, where they will participate in the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, due to start later this month. The national team beat Estonia in two previous friendlies, and the third match will provide an opportunity for Icelandic coach, Aron Kristjansson, to evaluate the level of the players and select the final list. The current list includes 20 players, namely Hussain Al-Sayyad, Mohammed Abdulhussain, Mohammed Mirza Salman, Ali Mirza Salman, Jassim Al-Salatna, Mohammed Habib, Hassan Shehab, Ahmed Al-Maqabi, Ali Eid, Hassan Al-Samahiji, Mahdi…

Most COVID rules set to end in England, says PM Face masks will no longer be legally required and distancing rules will be scrapped at the final stage of England’s Covid lockdown roadmap, Boris Johnson has confirmed. The rule of six inside private homes will be removed and work-from-home guidance abolished as 16 months of on-off restrictions on daily life end. The PM said he expected the final step would go ahead as planned on 19 July. This will be confirmed on 12 July after a review of the latest data. Further updates on school bubbles, travel and self-isolation will…

Face masks will no longer be legally required and distancing rules will be scrapped at the final stage of England’s Covid lockdown roadmap, Boris Johnson has confirmed. The rule of six inside private homes will be removed and work-from-home guidance abolished as 16 months of on-off restrictions on daily life end. The PM said he expected the final step would go ahead as planned on 19 July. This will be confirmed on 12 July after a review of the latest data. Further updates on school bubbles, travel and self-isolation will follow in the coming days, Mr Johnson told a Downing…

Gulf Air flight GF215 from Bahrain to Kuwait has been involved in a minor incident during landing at Kuwait International Airport. Gulf Air can confirm that all 62 passengers and 7 crew members have been safely evacuated and escorted into the airport terminal building. Gulf Air is currently working with the relevant authorities to identify the cause of the incident. https://youtu.be/VwE1-2MDeR0

South Korea is in talks with mRNA vaccine makers including Pfizer and Moderna to produce COVID-19 shots in the country and is ready to offer the capacity to make up to 1 billion doses immediately, a senior government official said. The plan, if agreed, would help ease tight global supply of COVID-19 vaccines, particularly in Asia which lags North America and Europe in vaccine rollouts, and put South Korea a step closer to its ambition to become a major vaccine manufacturing centre. South Korea already has deals to locally produce three coronavirus vaccines developed by AstraZeneca/Oxford University, Novavax, and Russia. It also…

Three more bodies were found in the debris of a partially collapsed Miami-area condominium on Monday, bringing the total confirmed dead to 27, after the remaining parts of the complex were demolished overnight. The bodies were found after suspended search-and-rescue efforts resumed following the managed demolition of the remaining part of Champlain Towers South complex in Surfside, where many remain missing, authorities told Reuters. At about 10:30 p.m. local time on Sunday, explosives brought down the rest of the partially collapsed 12-story building in Surfside that initially crumbled on June 24. Video footage of the managed implosion showed the structure…