LONDON: A British Labour MP has criticised the UK government’s decision to curtail travel from Pakistan in view of Covid-19 cases, dubbing the move “consciously and knowingly discriminatory”. Bradford West MP Naz Shah wrote a letter to UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, asking for an explanation about why Pakistan was added to the ‘red list’ when it has “substantially lower …

LONDON: The UK medical regulator said on Saturday that out of 30 people who suffered rare blood clots after receiving the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, seven have died. The British acknowledgement of deaths comes as several European countries have paused the use of the AstraZeneca jab over a potential link to blood clots. The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) …

YANGON: Myanmar security forces opened fire on pro-democracy protests on Saturday killing five people, a protester and media said, as the military reinforced its bid to end dissent with arrest warrants for online critics and internet blocks. Despite the killing of more than 550 people by the security forces since the Feb 1 coup, protesters are coming out every day, …

Opponents of military rule in Myanmar inscribed messages of protest on Easter eggs on Sunday, while others were back on the streets, facing off with security forces after a night of candle-lit vigils for hundreds killed since a Feb. 1 coup. In the latest in a series of impromptu shows of defiance, messages including “We must win”, “Spring Revolution” and “Get …

A team of scientists is calling for further research into how sunlight inactivates SARS-CoV-2 after noticing a glaring inconsistency between the most recent theoretical and experimental results. UC Santa Barbara mechanical engineer Paolo Luzzatto-Fegiz and colleagues noticed the virus was inactivated as much as eight times faster in experiments than the most recent theoretical model predicted “The theory assumes that …

MOGADISHU: At least 10 people were killed on Saturday when a suicide bomber struck makeshift kiosks in the Somali capital, hitting hours after al Shabaab Islamist militants attacked two National Army bases outside the city, the government said. “A suicide bomber blew up himself under trees where poor mothers sold tea, milk and (narcotic leaf) khat,” Information Ministry spokesman Ismail …

Canada has crossed the one million mark of coronavirus cases across the country, ramping up restrictions. With 2,000 new cases of Covid-19 announced in British Columbia on Saturday evening, Canada topped one million cases since the start of the pandemic, according to figures reported by Canadian broadcasters. Just over 23,000 people have died so far. Canada is grappling with a …

 Taiwan’s transport minister said on Sunday he would not shirk his responsibility for a deadly train crash even as his resignation offer was rejected amid growing questions over safety lapses that could have contributed to the disaster. In the island’s worst rail accident in seven decades, 51 people have been confirmed dead after a packed express train slammed into a …

ISLAMABAD: The novel coronavirus has claimed 81 more lives in Pakistan during the past 24 hours, taking the overall death toll to 14,778. The latest statistics of the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) showed the COVID-19 has claimed 81 more lives and 5,020 fresh infections were reported during the period. During the period of a day, the total count …

TOKYO: Around 70% of coronavirus patients tested at a Tokyo hospital last month carried a mutation known for reducing vaccine protection, Japanese public broadcaster NHK said on Sunday. The E484K mutation, nicknamed “Eek” by some scientists, was found in 10 of 14 people who tested positive for the virus at Tokyo Medical and Dental University Medical Hospital in March, the …