Cape Canaveral: NASA on Monday released the first high-quality video of a spacecraft landing on Mars, a three-minute trailer showing an enormous orange and white parachute hurtling open and red dust kicking up as rocket engines lowered the rover to the surface. The footage was so good and the images so breathtaking that members of […]
GENEVA: The World Health Organisation on Monday blasted wealthy countries for not only hogging Covid vaccines but in doing so, hindering the pathway for poorer nations to get them too. WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said some rich countries’ direct deals with manufacturers had meant that previously-agreed vaccine allocations for poorer countries, via the […]
TEHRAN: The head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog met Sunday with Iranian officials in a bid to preserve his inspectors’ ability to monitor Tehran’s atomic program, even as authorities said they planned to cut off their surveillance cameras at those sites. Rafael Grossi’s arrival in Tehran comes as Iran tries to pressure Europe and […]
UNITED NATIONS: UN chief Antonio Guterres has voiced appreciation for India’s leadership in the global fight against the coronavirus pandemic and its efforts to bring a “much-needed supply” of the COVID-19 vaccines to the world market. India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador T S Tirumurti tweeted on Saturday that Guterres, in a letter dated […]
SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook has started blocking sensitive health information that third-party apps had been sharing with the social network in violation of its own rules, said New York officials who investigated the situation. Data fed into a Facebook analytics tool by app makers included medical diagnoses and whether users were pregnant, according to a report […]
Washington: Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has said that the US will not undertake a hasty or disorderly withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan, stressing that violence must decrease now in the war-torn country and more progress is needed in the Afghan-led negotiations. The US and the Taliban reached an agreement in February 2020 that called […]
MOSCOW: Russia has registered the first case of a strain of bird flu virus named A(H5N8) being passed to humans from birds and has reported the matter to the World Health Organization (WHO), Anna Popova, head of consumer health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor, said on Saturday. Outbreaks of the H5N8 strain have been reported in Russia, Europe, […]
WASHINGTON: Pentagon officials said Wednesday that about one-third of the US military are declining to receive the Covid-19 vaccine, despitesignificant coronavirus infection levels in the forces. Major General Jeff Taliaferro revealed the high refusal rate in Congressional hearing, as the US Defense Department continues to classify covid vaccines as optional because they have yet to […]
WELLINGTON: A lockdown in the New Zealand city of Auckland will end at midnight, the government announced Wednesday after concluding a coronavirus outbreak had been contained. “This is good news,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. The nation’s largest city was put into lockdown on Sunday after three unexplained cases were found in the community. It […]
GAZA CITY: Israel has allowed the Palestinian Authority to deliver the first shipment of vaccines to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. An Associated Press photographer saw the shipment arrive at the Kerem Shalom crossing on Wednesday. The PA said it sent 2,000 doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine to Gaza. The move comes two days […]