GENEVA: UN human rights boss Michelle Bachelet was given a mandate on Tuesday to collect and preserve information and evidence of crimes related to Sri Lanka’s long civil war, which ended in 2009 with the defeat of the separatist Tamil Tigers. The Human Rights Council adopted a resolution, brought by Britain on behalf of a group of countries, boosting her …

BERLIN: Germany will enter a strict shutdown for five days over Easter amid surging virus rates, Chancellor Angela Merkel and regional leaders agreed on Tuesday as criticism mounted over the government’s handling of the pandemic. As well as extending existing measures including keeping cultural, leisure and sporting facilities shut through to April 18, Merkel and Germany’s 16 state premiers ordered …

BEIJING: The foreign ministers of China and Russia affirmed their countries’ close ties at a meeting on Tuesday, amid intense criticism and new Western sanctions against them over human rights. Wang Yi and Sergei Lavrov rejected outside sniping at their authoritarian political systems and said they were working to further global progress on issues from climate change to the coronavirus …

Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid al-Maktoum, Dubai’s deputy ruler and the United Arab Emirates’ long-serving finance minister, has died, Dubai’s ruler said on Wednesday. Sheikh Hamdan, 75, was the brother of the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. He had been unwell for some months and had surgery abroad in October. Dubai’s ruler bid farewell to “my brother, my …

The Ministry of National Health Services (NHS), responding to letter by Transparency International Pakistan (TIP), on Wednesday said the federal government’s decision to allow private imports of Covid-19 vaccines was a “deliberate policy tool”. NHS Secretary Aamir Ashraf Khawaja, in the letter, said the government allowed private imports so those population segments which were not part of the government’s priority …

LAHORE: PML-N Secretary General Ahsan Iqbal has asked the PPP to respect the decision taken by the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) regarding nomination of opposition leader in the Senate. “In the PDM it had been decided that the opposition leader in the Senate would be from PML-N. Now the PPP should respect this decision,” Mr Iqbal said while talking to …

ISLAMABAD: While Covid-19 vaccination card is going to become a travel document, over 29,000 people so far vaccinated in the federal capital have not been issued the cards. District Health Officer (DHO) Dr Zaeem Zia agreed that the vaccination card would be a travel document in the near future and claimed that the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) would …

RAWALPINDI: Police on Tuesday claimed to have also killed the second suspect in the murder case of Racecourse SHO Inspector Mian Imran Abbas during an ‘encounter’ at a checkpoint in Westridge. Now both the suspects in the murder case have been killed in police encounters. A police spokesman said the suspect was identified as Chaudhry Zahid who along with his …

ISLAMABAD: Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir Shehryar Khan Afridi has said that regional peace is linked to right to self-determination of the people of Kashmir and they will soon get freedom from illegal occupation of Indian state. Mr Afridi expressed these views while speaking on Tuesday at a seminar held under the aegis of the Ittehad-i-Islami and Pakistan …

KARACHI: Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said his government was ready to hold local government elections in the province, but constituencies were to be delimited after the approval of 2017 census. “The Council of Common Interests (CCI) has to decide about Census 2017, but I have heard that the PTI government, on the demand of their coalition partners [MQM], …