International

NEW YORK: A New York court suspended Rudy Giuliani’s law licence on Thursday for claiming that Donald Trump lost last year’s presidential election because of fraud. A court ruled that Giuliani made “demonstrably false and misleading statements” as Trump’s lawyer during the ex-president’s attempt to overturn his defeat to Joe Biden. Giuliani, 77, helped the Trump campaign file numerous lawsuits …

ZURICH: Switzerland’s move to allow large public events with 10,000-plus people from Saturday comes as government data appears to show vaccines are helping control new infections that are mostly hitting people who remain unprotected. Only 209 of 180,000 new infections recorded in Switzerland between Jan 27 and June 21 were in people fully vaccinated with shots from Moderna or Pfizer …

NEW DELHI: An Indian court said on Thursday Twitter’s country head should face no “coercive action” in a case where police summoned him for failing to stop the spread of a video that allegedly incited religious discord. Last week, police in Uttar Pradesh state sent a written summons to Twitter India head Manish Maheshwari to appear before officials and answer …

ANKARA: Turkish and US military officials met in Ankara on Thursday to discuss plans for Turkish troops to continue securing Kabul’s airport after the withdrawal of US and other Nato troops from Afghanistan. Turkey, Nato’s only majority-Muslim member, has offered to protect and run the Hamid Karzai airport. the main gateway into Afghanistan after the alliance pulls out of the …

MIAMI: A 12-storey oceanfront apartment block in Florida partially collapsed on Thursday, killing an unspecified number of residents and leaving almost 100 unaccounted for as teams of rescuers combed the rubble for possible victims. Video footage posted online showed a large portion of the building in the town of Surfside — just north of Miami Beach — reduced to rubble, …

WASHINGTON: The United States is planning to evacuate a group of vulnerable Afghan interpreters before it completes its withdrawal so they can wrap up their visa applications from safety, officials said on Thursday. The decision by President Joe Biden’s administration risks creating a sense of crisis in Afghanistan, just a day before Biden meets Afghan President Ashraf Ghani for talks …

Antibodies triggered by two Chinese Covid-19 vaccines are less effective against the Delta variant compared with other strains, but the shots still offer protection, a Chinese disease control researcher has told state media. The Delta variant of the coronavirus, first detected in India, is becoming the globally dominant variant of the disease with its increased transmissibility, the World Health Organisation’s …

KUNDUZ: Fear stalked Kunduz on Thursday as residents prepared for a lengthy siege, with Afghan forces patrolling the streets and Taliban surrounding the northern city. The Taliban have held the city twice in recent years — both times briefly — but have now captured the surrounding districts and the main border crossing with Tajikistan. “The Taliban have besieged our city,” …

Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday said Brazil never paid for or received any doses of a coronavirus vaccine developed by Indian company Bharat Biotech, in response to allegations of irregularities in a deal that is under investigation. Federal prosecutors and a special Senate committee are investigating the deal for Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin shot, citing the fact that the government …

For two days the fighting was blistering. Rockets and heavy machine gun fire pounded Imam Sahib, a key district on Afghanistan’s northern border with Tajikistan. When the explosions died down and Syed Akram finally emerged from his home earlier this week, three of his neighbour’s children had been killed, and a tank was burning on a nearby street corner. Several …