LONDON: First came the Brexit trade deal. Now comes the red tape and the institutional nitty gritty. Four days after sealing a free trade agreement with the European Union, the British government warned businesses to get ready for disruptions and bumpy moments when the new rules take effect on Thursday night. Businesses were scrambling on Monday to digest the details …

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has signed a law that authorises US sanctions on Chinese officials if they interfere in Tibetan Buddhists’ selection of the next Dalai Lama. Congress overwhelmingly approved the Tibetan Policy and Support Act amid growing concern that Beijing will seek to handpick a successor to the 85-year-old spiritual leader, hoping the movement for greater freedoms in the …

NEW DELHI: Authorities in India’s northern state of Punjab are investigating whether protesting farmers were disrupting power supply to hundreds of telecom towers, a state official said on Monday, amid protests over new farm laws. “We have told the police to track all those involved in sabotaging the infrastructure,” a senior official in the Punjab state government said. A senior …

SHANGHAI: A Chinese citizen journalist was jailed for four years on Monday for her reporting from Wuhan as the Covid-19 outbreak began, her lawyer said, almost a year after details of an “unknown viral pneumonia” surfaced in the central China city. Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer who arrived at court in a wheelchair, was sentenced at a brief hearing in …

Pakistan on Tuesday reiterated its call for an independent inquiry under international scrutiny into the extra-judicial killings of three labourers in occupied Kashmir in July. In a statement, Foreign Office spokesman Zahid Hafeez Chaudri said: “The revelations that weapons were planted on the bodies of the labourers martyred in occupied Kashmir — to make it look as though they were …

KABUL: At least four people were killed in separate attacks across Afghanistan on Monday, officials said, raising further concerns about the fate of peace talks that have been suspended until at least next month. No one claimed responsibility for the attacks. A local militant Islamic State (IS) group affiliate opposed to the peace process has continued to regularly target civilians …

ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi on Monday appointed Babar Sattar and Tariq Mehmood Jahangiri as additional judges of the Islamabad High Court. According to a Ministry of Law and Justice notification, the president appointed the two additional judges in exercise of powers conferred by Article 197 of the constitution for a period of one year with effect from the date …

TANK: Pakistan Democratic Movement president Maulana Fazlur Rehman has said the government has launched a malicious propaganda campaign against him after getting frustrated with the rising popularity of PDM. Talking to media persons at the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl district secretariat here on Monday, Mr Rehman denied receiving any notice from NAB, saying: “The federal ministers are busy in his character assassination …

LAHORE: The second wave of Covid-19 is getting lethal as Punjab’s death rate has reached 5.5 per cent, which is higher from other provinces and regions of the country. An official update on the Covid-19 showed Punjab’s highest deaths in the first spike of the virus was 2.51 per cent.Since the beginning of the second wave in October, Punjab witnessed …

PESHAWAR: The police department has terminated the services of its four officials, including two station house officers, on the recommendation of a judicial commission’s probe into the stripping and torture of an Afghan national in custody. A video showing the stripping of Radiullah alias Amir Tehkalay on the Tehkal police station premises in Peshawar had caused a social media uproar …