Author: News Desk

Wellington :  When the coronavirus began spreading around the world, the remote Pacific archipelago of Kiribati closed its borders, ensuring the disease didn’t reach its shores for nearly two full years. Kiribati finally began reopening this month, allowing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to charter a plane to bring home 54 of the island nation’s citizens. Officials tested each returning passenger three times in nearby Fiji, required that they be vaccinated, and put them in quarantine with additional testing when they arrived home. It wasn’t enough. More than half the passengers tested positive for the virus, which…

New Delhi : Google will invest up to $1 billion in partnership with India’s Airtel to provide affordable access to smartphones to over a billion Indians and speed up use of cloud-based computing for business, the two companies said on Friday. The investment will help India’s small businesses adopt digital tools as India works to adopt digital education, payments and e-commerce amid the pandemic, Google said in a blog post. As part of the “Google for India Digitization Fund” launched in 2020, Google will pay $700 million to acquire a 1.28% stake in Airtel. It is also committing up to…

Washington : Lagging growth in China and the US is likely to weigh on the global economy this year, warned the International Monetary Fund in its new economic report on Tuesday, as it lopped several percentage points off of economic expectations. The latest World Economic Outlook (WEO) now predicts that global economic growth will hit 4.4 percent in 2022, 0.5 percentage points down from the 4.9 percent it predicted in October, partly due to the Omicron coronavirus variant. US economic growth is now expected to hit 4 percent, down 1.2 percentage points from the last forecast. A lot of the…

Abu Dhabi : A quartet summit was held in Abu Dhabi today between His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the UAE Vice President, Prime Minister, Dubai Ruler Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces Shaikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. Discussions focused on cooperation and coordinating stances regarding issues of common concern. Regional and international developments and common challenges facing the Arab region were also spotlighted. During their meeting at Qaṣr Al-Waṭan in Abu Dhabi, the leaders discussed the terrorist attacks…

Kerala minister Ahammad Devarkovil hoisted the national flag upside down during Republic Day celebrations in Kasargod district on Wednesday. It triggered a political controversy as Opposition BJP demanded his resignation for showing disrespect to the tricolour. The incident occurred when minister Ahammad Devarkovil, who holds the Port and Archaeology portfolios in the LDF government, unfurled the flag at the Municipal Stadium this morning.

Two spectators were injured after a drone, which was part of the tableau of the Madhya Pradesh agriculture department, fell on them in the Republic Day function held at a stadium in Jabalpur on Wednesday, police said. The duo had come to Jabalpur to perform a tribal dance in the function when the incident occurred at Pandit Ravi Shankar Shukla stadium, a police officer said.

On the third day of a Bihar-based agitation against alleged anomalies in the tests conducted by the Railway Recruitment Board for the Non-Technical Popular Categories (RRB NTPC), a train was set on fire at Gaya Junction. Fortunately, there were no casualties. Following the incident, Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw urged job aspirants not to destroy public property and assured them that their grievances would be addressed. The ministry has suspended the RRB NTPC and Level 1 exams for the time-being. Meanwhile, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra took to Twitter to condemn the ‘repression’ of protesting candidates and asked the government…

LONDON: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday rejected opposition calls to resign for attending lockdown parties but accepted that a rule that ministers should lose their jobs if they had knowlingly misled parliament applied to him. Johnson, who in 2019 won the biggest Conservative majority in more than 30 years, is braced for the publication of an official investigation into claims that there were multiple boozy Downing Street parties during lockdowns. He told parliament no rules were broken.

Bahrain :  Tamkeen’s annual 2022 Consultation Forum was held virtually today, under the chairmanship of Husain Mohammed Rajab, the Chief Executive of Labour Fund (Tamkeen). Rajab stressed the importance of Tamkeen’s strategic approach, which comes as a response to the current economic reality and the rapidly changing global economic climate. This new approach is underpinned by Tamkeen’s commitment to achieving tangible impact and driving sustainable growth in the national economy, ensuring that Bahrainis are the employees of choice in the labour market. He also highlighted the importance of Tamkeen’s strategic partnerships with various market segments and groups of individuals and…

Bahrain :  His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, today issued Edict (6) of 2022, restructuring the Government Service Centre Evaluation Committee (Taqyeem). Chaired by the Chief Executive Officer of the Information and e-Government Authority (iGA), the committee will comprise the following members, who will serve for a renewable four-year term: 1-  Dr. Raed Mohammed bin Shams 2-  Yousif Mohammed Al-Binkhalil 3-  Dr. Hamad Ebrahim Abdulla 4-  Osama Saleh Hashem Al-Alawi 5-  Shaikh Muath bin Duaij Al Khalifa 6-  Dr. Mohammed Abdulla Baqer 7-  Nada Abdulmajeed Al-Qassab 8-  Hussain Ali Al-Shehab 9- …