SMALL groups of Right-wing protesters — some of them carrying rifles — gathered outside heavily fortified Statehouses around the country, outnumbered by National Guard troops and police brought in to prevent a repeat of the violence that erupted at the US Capitol. As darkness fell, there were no reports of any clashes. Security was stepped up in recent days after the FBI warned of the potential for armed protests in Washington and at all 50 State Capitol buildings ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s ..

AFTER the news broke that 23 elderly patients died in Norway following their immunisation with the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine against COVID-19, the country has launched a detailed investigation into the reported fatalities that has shocked the world. Doctors in Norway have been asked to conduct more thorough evaluations of very frail elderly patients in line to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, following the reported deaths, the prestigious British Medical Journal (BMJ) reported late Friday...

THE US Government has blacklisted Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp and China’s third-largest national oil company for alleged military links, heaping pressure on Beijing in President Donald Trump’s last week in office. ..

WHEN the NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover lands on the Red Planet on February 18, it will not only collect stunning images and rock samples, the data it returns may also include some recorded sounds from Mars which will the first-ever sound clips from any planet, NASA has revealed. The rover carries a pair of microphones which -- if all goes as planned -- will provide interesting and historic audio of the arrival and landing at Mars, along with sounds of the rover at work and of wind and other ambient ..

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has been impeached for a historic second time, just days before leaving office by the House of Representatives for inciting last week’s deadly Capitol Hill riot. The House on Wednesday impeached Trump by 232 to 197 votes. Ten Republican Congressmen also joined the Democrats to vote in favour of an article of impeachment that charged Trump with a count of “incitement of insurrection” for his actions on January 6, when he delivered a speech inciting his supporters to storm ..

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has declared a state of emergency in Washington DC ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, the White House said on Monday. The declaration of emergency comes after riots broke out at the US Capitol where pro-Trump supporters wreaked havoc on January 6...

IN AN unprecedented assault on democracy in the US, thousands of supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol building here and clashed with police, resulting in four deaths and interrupting a constitutional process by Congress to affirm the victory of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris in the election...

PAKISTAN’S Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the Evacuee Property Trust Board (EPTB) to start reconstruction of a century-old Hindu temple that was vandalised and set on fire by a mob in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province last week, saying the attack has caused “international embarrassment” to the country...

CHINESE billionaire and Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma is suspected to be missing following his mysterious disappearance from the public eye for over two months after Beijing’s aggressive crackdown on his business empire. The country’s third-richest man was slated to appear as a star judge on the season finale of Africa’s Business Heroes, a reality TV show created by his own philanthropic organisation. However, he dropped out of the appearance and the show’s broadcast was postponed, reported Hollywood ..

US President Donald Trump has extended the freeze on the most sought-after H-1B visas by Indian IT professionals, along with other types of foreign work visas and green cards through March 31 to protect American workers, saying that the reasons for which he had imposed such restrictions amidst the pandemic has not changed. The freeze on various categories of work visas was ordered by Trump through two proclamations on April 22 and June 22 last year. Hours before the freeze was set to expire on December ..

OVER 30 people, mostly members of a radical Islamist party, were arrested after a Hindu temple was vandalised and set on fire by a mob protesting against its expansion work in north-west Pakistan, officials said on Thursday. The attack on the temple in Terri village in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s (KP) Karak district on Wednesday drew strong condemnation from human rights activists and Hindu community leaders. On Thursday, the provincial Government ordered authorities to reconstruct the damaged temple as ..

IF EVER a year’s end seemed like cause for celebration, 2020 might be it. Yet the coronavirus scourge that dominated the year is also looming over New Year’s festivities and forcing officials worldwide to tone them down. From New York’s Times Square to Sydney Harbour, big public blowouts are being turned into TV-only shows and digital events. Fireworks displays have been cancelled from the Las Vegas Strip to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Even private parties in some places are restricted...

PIERRE Cardin, the French designer whose famous name embossed everything from wristwatches to bedsheets after his iconic Space Age styles shot him into the fashion stratosphere in the 1960s, has died, the French Academy of Fine Arts said Tuesday. He was 98. A licensing maverick, Cardins name went on thousands of products and in the brands heyday in the 1970s and 80s, while goods bearing his fancy cursive signature were sold at some 1,00,000 outlets worldwide. That number dwindled dramatically in later ..

THAILAND and Malaysia, among the top emerging markets in Southeast Asia, are likely to outperform expectations among 17 developing markets surveyed by Bloomberg. This according to a report published in December by Bloomberg investment strategist Simon Flint and co-authored by Michelle Jamrisko. The report, which is not intended as investment advice, studied a total of 17 emerging markets and forecasts their potential for 2021 based on 11 indicators of economic and financial performance. The study ..

IN A surprise move, a Pakistani court on Thursday ordered the release of British-born Al-Qaeda leader Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and his three aides, who were convicted and sentenced in the abduction and murder case of US journalist Daniel Pearl. A two-judge bench of the Sindh High Court, presided over by Justice K K Agha, directed security agencies not to keep Sheikh and other accused under “any sort of detention” and declared all notifications of the Sindh Government related to their detention “null ..

AN ASTRONOMER has spotted a little tiny speck flying past the Sun which is a recently discovered rare comet, as the world witnessed the total solar eclipse this month. This comet was first spotted in satellite data by Thai amateur astronomer Worachate Boonplod on the NASA-funded Sungrazer Project, as Chile and Argentina witnessed the total solar eclipse on December 14, reports NASA. Around the time the eclipse image was taken, the comet was travelling at roughly 7,24,205 kms per hour, about 4.3 million ..

RUSSIA has successfully launched its Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket, delivering 36 satellites from the UK-based OneWeb company into space. The rocket blasted off from the Vostochny cosmodrome in the country’s Far East at 3.26 p.m. on Friday, Xinhua news agency quoted the Russian state space corporation Roscosmos as saying in a statement. The upper stage, which houses the satellites, separated from the third stage of the rocket normally, it said...

NASA has selected an initial team of 18 astronauts, including Indian-American astronaut Raja Chari, to form the Artemis Team and help pave the way for the next lunar missions, including sending the first woman and next man to walk on the lunar surface in 2024. Vice President of the US Mike Pence introduced the members of the Artemis Team on Wednesday during the eighth National Space Council meeting at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. “I give you the heroes who will carry us to the Moon and ..

THE UK kicked off its biggest-ever vaccine campaign in history on Tuesday, as 90-year-old grandmother Margaret Keenan became the first person in the world to receive the Pfizer/BioNTech jab against COVID-19. At 6:31 am GMT early riser Maggie was given the life-saving jab by nurse May Parsons at her local hospital in Coventry to mark what the National Health Service (NHS) has dubbed a “landmark moment” on V-Day or Vaccine Day in the fight against the deadly virus. “I feel so privileged to be the first ..

CHINESE scientists claim to have created the world’s first light-based quantum computer which can solve problems far faster than a classical supercomputer, an advance hailed by experts as a “major achievement” that provides a fundamentally different approach to designing such powerful machines, the official media reported on Saturday. Jiuzhang, the quantum computer, can reliably demonstrate “quantum computational advantage”, a milestone in computing, state-run ‘China Daily’ quoted a study published ..

DAWOODI Bohra community members across the world are celebrating the 77th birthday of their leader, the 53rd al-Dai al-Mutlaq, His Holiness Dr Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin. Syedna Saifuddin has chosen to have his birthday celebrated on the same day as the birthday of his respected father and predecessor, Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin. ..

A CHINESE spacecraft landed on the Moon to bring back lunar rocks to Earth for the first time since the 1970s, the Government announced. The China National Space Administration said that Chang’e 5 “successfully landed” at its designated site shortly after 11 pm. (1500 GMT) on Tuesday after making a powered descent from its orbiter. It published images of the barren scene at the landing site, including where the lander’s shadow can be seen. The lander was launched on November 24 from the tropical southern ..

AFGHAN officials said on Sunday at least 34 people were killed in two separate suicide bombings that targeted a military base and a provincial chief. In eastern Ghazni province, officials said 31 soldiers were killed and 24 others wounded when the attacker drove a military humvee full of explosives onto an Army commando base before detonating the car bomb...

RUSSIA on Tuesday said that the efficacy of its Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine is over 95 per cent and the cost of one dose of the shot for international markets will be less than USD 10 (around Rs 740). Preliminary data from volunteers obtained 42 days after the first dose (corresponds with 21 days after the second dose) indicates the efficacy of the vaccine above 95 per cent, the Gamelya National Centre and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) said in a joint statement...

THE COVID-19 pandemic is the biggest challenge the world is facing since World War-II and is an important turning point in the history of humanity, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the G-20 summit on Saturday, as he offered India’s IT prowess for efficient functioning of the grouping. Modi also said that “Work from Anywhere” is a new normal in the post-COVID world and suggested creation of a virtual G-20 Secretariat. The Prime Minister also ..

AFTER studying the mysterious Blue Ring Nebula with multiple Earth- and space-based telescopes for 16 years, scientists may have finally discovered what led to its formation...

PRIME Minister Narendra Modi spoke with US President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday, as the two leaders discussed the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, while reiterating firm commitment to strategic bilateral partnership. This was the first interaction between the two leaders after Democrat Biden defeated incumbent President Donald Trump in the US presidential election. “Spoke to US President-elect Joe Biden on phone to congratulate him...

ACTOR Michael B Jordan has been crowned as 2020’s Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine. Jordan, known for his critically-acclaimed performances in “Fruitvale Station,” “Creed” and “Black Panther,” was revealed as this year’s winner Tuesday night on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” The actor tells the magazine in an issue out Friday that the honour is a “cool feeling.”..

ASSERTING that terrorism is the “biggest problem” facing the world, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said there was a need to ensure that countries supporting and assisting terrorists are held guilty, in an oblique reference to Pakistan. Addressing the summit of five-nation grouping BRICS via video conferencing, the Prime Minister also said there was a need to tackle the problem of terrorism in an organised manner. The 12th BR..

WITH votes still being counted, turnout in the 2020 presidential election has hit a 50-year high, exceeding the record set by the 2008 presidential election of Barack Obama — an extraordinary engagement in what amounted to a referendum on President Donald Trump’s leadership. As of Sunday, the tallied votes accounted for 62 per cent of the eligible voting-age population in the US. That’s a 0.4 percentage point increase so far over the rate hit in ..

DEMOCRAT Joe Biden on Saturday defeated incumbent Republican US President Donald Trump in the closely-fought presidential election, according to American media projections. The 77-year-old former US Vice President will become the 46th President of the United States, CNN reported, after a victory in Pennsylvania, the State where he was born put him over the 270 electoral votes needed to win. With Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes, Biden now has a total of 273 electoral votes. Before becoming the Democratic ..

PHASE I of the 24th edition of the four-nation naval exercise Malabar 2020 in the Bay of Bengal concluded on Friday. Indian Navy, United States Navy, Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force, and Royal Australian Navy are participating in the naval exercise that started on November 3. The 24th edition of the Malabar naval exercise is scheduled in two phases this month. ..

PROBLEMS between Nepal and India would be resolved through dialogue, Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli said on Friday during a meeting with Indian Army chief General M M Naravane who paid a courtesy call on him. General Naravane’s three-day visit to Nepal was largely aimed at resetting bilateral ties that came under severe strain following a bitter border row between the two countries. ..

WEARY Americans will have to wait for some more time to know the clear winner of the closely-fought election between Republican President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden, as the final outcome hinged on a few States on Thursday where a flood of mail-in ballots triggered by the coronavirus pandemic were still being counted. Two days after the presidential election, Biden is nearing the magical figure of 270 electoral votes to win the race to the White House, with the former US Vice President ..

THE Union Cabinet has approved the signing of an MoU between India and Israel for cooperation in the field of health and medicine, according to an official statement issued on Wednesday. The MoU covers areas of cooperation such as exchange and training of medical doctors and other health professionals, assistance in development of human resources and setting up of health care facilities and exchange of information regarding regulation of pharmaceutical, medical devices and cosmetics, the statement ..

THE closely-fought US presidential election appeared to be headed into an uncertain phase with Republican incumbent Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden fighting it out in the key battleground States. When reports last came in, Biden had earned 220 electoral college votes, with Trump following closely with 213 votes. As per Fox News, Biden has 238 of the 538 electoral college seats, while Trump has 213. On the other hand, CNN has projected 220 electoral college votes to Biden and 213 ..

AS MILLIONS of US citizens queue up to vote for their next President and his Deputy, the people of Thulasenthirapuram in Tamil Nadu on Tuesday prayed for the success of Kamala Harris, Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee, who has a connect to this small village...

Just before the US election on Tuesday, the nation is bracing itself for possible unrest that could arise from the country’s sharp political polarization. With just a day left for the much-anticipated US presidential election, security measures have been heightened all across the country in the wake of poll-related violence...

SCIENTISTS have discovered in the Milky Way an Earth-sized free-floating rogue planet which does not orbit any star. Rogue planets are a bit uncommon as although many of the known exoplanets discovered so far do not resemble those in our solar system, they have one thing in common -- they all orbit a star. However, theories of planet formation and evolution predict the existence of free-floating (rogue) planets, gravitationally unattached to any star...

NASA on Friday said that its OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has completed the most challenging phases of its mission after it successfully stowed samples of asteroid Bennu. The mission team sent commands to the spacecraft on Wednesday, instructing it to close the Sample Return Capsule (SRC)...

JEWELS that once belonged to Maharani Jindan Kaur, the last wife of Sikh Empire ruler Maharaja Ranjit Singh, and which were later inherited by her granddaughter, Princess Bamba Sutherland, were among the highlights of an auction in London. ..

SAUDI Arabia has removed Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan from Pakistan’s map, said PoK activist Amjad Ayub Mirza on Wednesday. “Saudi Arab removes Pakistani occupied Jammu Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan from Pakistan’s map!!!!,” he tweeted. He also tweeted a picture that was captioned, “Saudi Arabia’s Diwali gift to India-- removes Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir from Pakistan’s map,” the picture’s text read. According to the media reports, Saudi Arabia released a 20 Riyal banknote to commemorate ..

SCIENTISTS have confirmed, for the first time, the presence of water on the sunlit surface of the Moon, a discovery which indicates that water molecules may be distributed across the lunar surface, and not limited to the cold, shadowed places as previously thought. Using NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), the researchers, including those from the University of Hawaii in the US, detected water molecules (H2O) in Clavius Crater -- one of the largest craters visible from ..

IN A MAJOR show of open defiance against Pakistan Army, police officers in Karachi have threatened to go on mass leave after the Sindh Police chief was allegedly kidnapped and coerced to act against PML(N) Vice President Marayam Nawaz Sharif. Sources in Islamabad said that Pakistan is rapidly slipping into a civil war-like situation with the ongoing tussle between the Opposition parties and the Army. In Karachi in Sindh province, headed by Chief Minister Syed M..

A BRONZE statue of Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol will be unveiled in London’s Leicester Square in 2021 to celebrate the silver jubilee of one of Hindi cinema’s most iconic love stories, “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge” (“DDLJ”). “DDLJ”, starring Khan and Kajoj as lovers Raj and Simran, released on October 20, 1995. The film, which marked Aditya Chopra’s foray into direction, was produced by Yash Raj Films. In an announcement shared on Monday, Heart of London Business All..

IN THE wake of heat waves, global warming, forest fires, storms, droughts and a rising number of hurricanes, the UN weather agency is warning that the number of people who need international humanitarian help could rise 50 per cent by 2030 compared to the 108 million who needed it worldwide in 2018. In a new report released with partners on Tuesday, the World Meteorological Agency says more disasters attributed to weather are taking place each year...

AMERICANS Paul R Milgrom and Robert B Wilson have won the Nobel Prize in Economics for “improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats.” The winners were announced on Monday in Stockholm by Goran Hansson, secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The award caps a week of Nobel Prizes at a time when much of the world is experiencing the worst recession since World War II because of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic...

NORTH Korea displayed a new Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) and other weapons during a massive military parade to mark the 75th founding anniversary of the ruling Workers’ Party, state-media reported on Sunday. Besides the night-time parade on Saturday, there was also fireworks display, a car parade and other celebratory events to mark the occassion, Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency said. The new ICBM was carried on a transporter erector launcher (TEL) with 22 wheels, indicating that ..

AMERICAN poet Louise Glück won the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday for her “candid and uncompromising” work, becoming the first US winner since Bob Dylan in 2016. The Nobel Committee praised the writer “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.”..

TWO scientists won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for developing a method of genome editing likened to “molecular scissors” that offer promise of one day curing inherited diseases and even cancer. Working on opposite sides of the Atlantic, Frenchwoman Emmanuelle Charpentier and American Jennifer A Doudna developed a method known as CRISPR/Cas9 that can be used to change the DNA of animals, plants and micr..