International

PARIS: The head of French President Emmanuel Macron’s political party has threatened to withdraw support for one of their own candidates in regional elections after she wore a headscarf for a campaign poster. The warning from Stanislas Guerini, who helped found Macron’s centrist movement in 2016, caused a rift in the governing Republic on the Move (LREM) party, with some …

NEW YORK: The United States is delaying United Nations Security Council efforts to issue a public statement on escalating tensions between Israel and the Palestinians because it could be harmful to behind-the-scenes efforts to end the violence, according to diplomats and a source familiar with the US strategy. The source said Washington was “actively engaged in diplomacy behind the scenes …

JAKARTA: China’s Sinovac Biotech COVID-19 vaccine was 98% effective at preventing death and 96% effective at preventing hospitalisation among a group of inoculated Indonesian medical staff, a study conducted by the country’s health ministry has found. The findings were based on data from 120,000 healthcare workers in Jakarta who had received the vaccine between January and March this year, lead …

BEIJING: China’s population has grown at its slowest pace in decades, reaching 1.41 billion, census results showed on Tuesday, highlighting fears of a looming crisis over an ageing society. The growth of 5.4 per cent over the past decade was the slowest since the 1960s, and comes alongside a sharp drop in the number of working-age people. China remains the …

Hostilities between Israel and Hamas escalated on Wednesday, with at least 35 killed in Gaza and five in Israel in the most intensive aerial exchanges for years. Israel carried out hundreds of air strikes in Gaza into Wednesday morning, as Hamas and other Palestinian militants fired multiple rocket barrages at Tel Aviv and Beersheba. One multi-story residential building in Gaza …

LONDON: Fears were growing in London on Monday for the fate of an infant whale that was rescued from the banks of the River Thames, only to swim upstream instead of out to sea. The young minke whale, measuring three to four metres (10-13 feet), was first spotted in southwest London on Sunday and was washed ashore at a set …

ANKARA: Turkey’s foreign minister arrived in Saudi Arabia on Monday for talks aimed at overcoming a rift over the 2018 killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul that led to bitter recriminations and a Saudi boycott of Turkish goods. Mevlut Cavusoglu was due to hold talks in the kingdom after years of tensions between the two regional powers, which …

BRUSSELS: The European Union’s top economy official said on Monday that the recovery measures the EU and its 27 member states have in the works to emerge from the pandemic total around $5.85 trillion. EU Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni told a European Parliament committee that if comparisons are made with US President Joe Biden’s pandemic stimulus relief package, the EU …

BEIJING: China will set up a “separation line” on the peak of Mount Everest to avoid possible Covid-19 infections by climbers from virus-hit Nepal, state media reported, after dozens were taken ill from the summit’s base camp. While the virus first emerged in China in late 2019, it has largely been brought under control in the country through a series …

BENGALURU: The Indian government has told doctors to look out for signs of mucormycosis or “black fungus” in Covid-19 patients as hospitals report a rise in cases of the rare but potentially fatal infection. The state-run Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said at the weekend that doctors treating Covid-19 patients, diabetics and those with compromised immune systems should watch …