ISLAMABAD: US Defence Secretary Lloyd J. Austin on Monday praised Pakistan’s cooperation for peace in Afghanistan. Austin, in telephone conversation with Army Chief Gen Qamar Bajwa, according to a readout of the conversation issued by Pentagon, “expressed gratitude for Islamabad’s continued support for the Afghan peace process”. The defence secretary called Gen Bajwa while returning from Afghanistan, where he paid …

GENEVA: The World Health Organisation on Monday blasted the growing gap between the number of coronavirus vaccines administered in rich and poor countries, branding the inequity a global “moral outrage”. The WHO tore into wealthy nations now vaccinating younger people at low risk of developing Covid-19 disease, bluntly saying they were costing vulnerable people’s lives in low-income countries. WHO director …

LONDON: A protest in the English city of Bristol against new policing legislation turned into violent clashes that left at least 20 officers injured, two of them seriously, widespread damage to a police station and police vehicles torched, police said on Monday. Seven people were arrested during the protest, which started on Sunday afternoon and ran through to the early …

DHAKA: A huge fire swept through a Rohingya refugee camp in southern Bangladesh on Monday, destroying thousands of homes and killing several people, officials and witnesses said, in the worst blaze to hit the settlement in recent years. Video and photographs showed a blaze ripping through the Balukhali camp in Cox’s Bazar. Black smoke billowed over burning shanties and tents …

PARIS: At least one in three patients hospitalised with Covid-19 suffer long-term health issues including multiple organ problems and deteriorated mental health, according to a review of studies looking at the lasting impact of the disease. Published in the journal Nature Medicine on Monday, the review looked at the frequency of symptoms among Covid “long-haulers”, the most common of which …

Israelis began voting on Tuesday in the country’s fourth parliamentary election in two years — a highly charged referendum on the divisive rule of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Public opinion polls forecast a tight race between those who support Israel’s longest-serving premier and those who want “anyone but Bibi”, as he is widely known. Facing an electorate worn down by …

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia on Monday offered Yemen’s Houthi rebels a “comprehensive” UN-supervised ceasefire, as part of a series of new initiatives aimed at ending a catastrophic six-year conflict. But the Iran-backed Houthis, who have recently stepped up attacks on the kingdom, including its oil facilities, dismissed Riyadh’s initiatives as “nothing new”. The insurgents have also been pushing to seize the …

BRUSSELS: The Euro­pean Union, Britain, Can­a­da and the United States on Monday launched coordinated sanctions against officials in China over alleged human rights abuses in the far western Xinjiang region, provoking swift retaliation from Beijing. The EU targeted four senior officials in Xinjiang. The sanctions involve a freeze on the officials assets and a ban on them traveling in the …

SYDNEY: Torrential downpours lashed Australia’s east on Monday, forcing thousands to flee the worst flooding in decades and pushing communities already battling drought, bushfires, and the coronavirus pandemic to “breaking point”. Around 18,000 residents were told to evacuate their homes, as days of relentless rainfall caused rivers in Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales, to their highest levels in …

A gunman opened fire at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado, on Monday, killing 10 people, including the first police officer to arrive on the scene, before the bloodied suspect was arrested in the second deadly US mass shooting in a week. Police gave few immediate details of the latest shooting and no known motive for the violence, which unfolded at …