Author: News Desk

ANTANANARIVO:  The death toll from Cyclone Batsirai in Madagascar rose to 80 from a previously reported 29, the state disaster relief agency said on Wednesday as information continued to filter in from areas of the country that were badly affected. The cyclone slammed into the large Indian Ocean island late on Saturday, knocking down houses and electricity lines as it battered the south-eastern coast until it moved away late on Sunday, leaving 91,000 people with destroyed or damaged homes. The state disaster relief agency said on Wednesday that 60 of the deaths had occurred in the Ikongo district in south-east Madagascar.…

NEW YORK : Stealing cryptocurrencies is relatively easy. The hard part is turning the proceeds into cash. That’s the lesson from the arrest on Tuesday of Ilya “Dutch” Lichtenstein and his wife Heather Morgan, an artist and rapper also known as Razzlekahn. The pair face charges of conspiring to launder bitcoin stolen from a virtual exchange in 2016. Yet six years later the U.S. Justice Department was still able to seize unspent tokens worth $3.6 billion.

LONDON :  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Wednesday that laws requiring people in England with COVID-19 to self-isolate could be lifted by the end of the month, bringing an end to all domestic coronavirus restrictions. “Provided the current encouraging trends in the data continue, it is my expectation that we will be able to end the last domestic restrictions — including the legal requirement to self-isolate if you test positive — a full month early,” Johnson told Parliament. People who test positive now have to isolate for five full days. That rule is to expire on March 24.

Washington:  Jane Campion’s gothic western “The Power of the Dog” led nominations to the 94th Academy Awards, where streaming services more than ever before swept over Hollywood’s top honors. In nominations announced Tuesday, Campion’s film landed a leading 12 nominations, including nods for best picture, best director and all of its top actors: Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Campion, a nominee for 1993′s “The Piano,” became the first woman to ever be nominated twice for best director. Last year, Chloé Zhao became just the second woman to ever win the award. Campion’s director of photography, Ari…

Seven Indian soldiers have died after being hit by an avalanche on the Chinese border in the remote north-eastern Himalayan state of Arunachal Pradesh. They were on a routine foot patrol in the high-altitude Kameng sector along the Line of Actual Control — the disputed border between India and China — when the avalanche struck on Sunday, the Indian Army said. The soldiers were reported missing after the incident on Sunday and rescue attempts were made. But the army said on Tuesday that they had been killed and their bodies had been recovered from the avalanche site. Several emergency teams were flow in to…

Thousands of people took to the streets of cities across Turkey in recent days to protest against electricity prices that shot up by as much as 125 per cent at the start of the year. From the Mediterranean resorts of Fethiye and Marmaris to Agri on the mountainous eastern border, people rebelled against crippling bills that were raised in January. Under the nationwide changes, electricity companies boosted prices by 50 per cent for low-level users, rising to 125 per cent for large-scale business consumers. In the southern city of Mardin, police used tear gas and arrested several protesters on Sunday after the crowd called for the…

BCCI secretary Jay Shah has said that the board aims to begin a full-fledged Women’s Indian Premier League (IPL) as early as next year onwards and the work on it is in full swing. This comes after calls from various corners including former cricketers, both male and female raised for a women’s T20 tournament in India at par with Women’s BBL and the Women’s Hundred. A three-team Women’s T20 Challenge is staged alongside the men’s IPL, but many believe women deserve their own expanded tournament with more teams and players. The Women’s T20 Challenge will continue this year, but BCCI…

JERUSALEM :  Israel says security forces killed three Palestinian militants in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus on Tuesday who had been responsible for recent shooting attacks. The Shin Bet internal security agency initially said they were killed in a “clash,” but police later acknowledged that while the men had two assault rifles on them they did not fire them. “During the arrest, they tried to open fire and were neutralized,” the police said. Photos of the three men circulating online show them posing with assault rifles, with one wearing a headband of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an armed…

ROME :  Retired Pope Benedict XVI asked forgiveness Tuesday for any “grievous faults” in his handling of clergy sex abuse cases, but denied any personal or specific wrongdoing after an independent report criticized his actions in four cases while he was archbishop of Munich, Germany. Benedict’s lack of a personal apology or admission of guilt immediately riled sex abuse survivors, who said his response reflected the Catholic hierarchy’s “permanent” refusal to accept responsibility for the rape and sodomy of children by priests. Benedict, 94, was responding to a Jan. 20 report from a German law firm that had been commissioned…

Bahrain :  Based on the directives of Representative of HM the King for Humanitarian Work and Youth Affairs HH Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa to assist families affected by the heavy rains, the Royal Humanitarian Foundation has presented the financial support to the affected families. HH Shaikh Nasser expressed his thanks and gratitude to HM King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the Honorary President of the Royal Humanitarian Foundation and to HRH Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, for their great support to Bahraini families. HH Shaikh Nasser stressing that the RHF is…