Trump says WHO Failed

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday halted funding to the World Health Organisation (WHO) over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, drawing condemnation from infectious disease experts as the global death toll continued to mount. Trump, who has reacted angrily to criticism of his administration's response to the worst epidemic in a century, has become increasingly hostile towards the WHO. The Geneva-based organisation had promoted China's “disinformation” about the virus that likely led to a wider outbreak than otherwise would...

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Muslim vote gains significance as race for White House tightens

WASHINGTON: Muslim voters may play a larger than size role in the US elections next week as the race for the White House shapes into a close competition between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The competition, which clearly favoured Clinton until this week, tightened after investigators revisited her email issue and media reports claimed that they discovered thousands of new emails that were not reported before. A summary of the opinion surveys...

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Four officers likely to be called back from India

ISLAMABAD: The government is considering pulling out from India four of its officers posted in Pakistan’s High Commission in New Delhi, days after Indian authorities declared one official persona non grata. “This is under consideration. A final decision would be taken shortly,” a source at the Foreign Office said on Monday. The names of the officers — commercial counsellor Syed Furrukh Habib and first secretaries Khadim Huss­ain, Mudassir...

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Yemen rebel missile shot down near Makkah

RIYADH: Yemeni rebels have launched one of their longest-range strikes against Saudi Arabia, firing a ballistic missile that was shot down near Makkah, the Saudi-led coalition fighting them said on Friday. But the rebels insisted that the missile had targeted Jeddah, the Red Sea city in the region, and not Makkah. The coalition has been carrying out a bombing campaign against the rebels since March last year and there have been rebel strikes towards...

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Information Minister Pervaiz Rasheed asked to step down amid Dawn story probe

Information Minister Parvaiz Rasheed has resigned from his position as Minister for Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage, DawnNews reported Saturday. A statement issued by the Prime Minister's office said: "Evidence available so far pints to a lapse on part of the information minister, who has been directed to step down from the office to enable holding of an independent and detailed inquiry.” The development comes after the publication...

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Pakistan to expel Indian diplomat in tit-for-tat move

The Foreign Secretary on Thursday summoned the Indian High Commissioner today and conveyed the decision of the Government of Pakistan to declare Surjeet Singh, an official of the Indian High Commission, as persona non grata, said a statement released by the Foreign Office. The statement added that the Foreign Secretary expressed deep concern over the activities of the Indian official that were in violation of the Vienna Convention and established...

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China’s Communist Party declares Xi Jinping ‘core’ leader

BEIJING: China’s ruling Communist Party declared its General Secretary Xi Jinping the “core” of its leadership on Thursday, elevating his already powerful status. A communique issued by top party leaders after a four-day meeting in Beijing called on all its members to “closely unite around the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core”, said the People’s Daily, the party’s official mouthpiece. The announcement followed a gathering...

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Twitter's video-sharing mobile app Vine to close

Twitter Inc announced Thursday that it would discontinue the video-sharing mobile app Vine, as it moves to cut 9 per cent of its workforce worldwide to keep costs down after beating Wall Street quarterly earnings expectations. The decision comes on the heels of a failed attempt to sell Twitter as it fights against stagnant user growth and mounting competition from other social media platforms. In a post published jointly by Twitter and Vine to...

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US cracks down on India-based call centre fraud racket

WASHINGTON: US justice authorities announced action on Thursday to shut down a group of Indian call centres that had cheated victims in the United States of hundreds of millions of dollars. The Justice Department said tens of thousands of victims, most of them from South Asia, were extorted by callers pretending to be US tax or immigration officials threatening them with arrest and deportation if they did not remit money to the government. But...

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US official warns over 9/11 law during Saudi visit

RIYADH: A United States law allowing victims of the Sept 11, 2001 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia could have “serious implications” for shared US-Gulf interests, a top Obama administration official said on Thursday. US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew made the comments at the opening of a meeting with finance ministers from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, whose most powerful member is Saudi Arabia. The US Congress voted overwhelmingly in September...

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