Diplomatic 24

LONDON: British health minister Sajid Javid apologised for and deleted a tweet urging people to take a Covid-19 vaccine and not to “cower” from the virus, saying on Sunday he had made “a poor choice of word”. Javid, who replaced Matt Hancock as health minister last month after his predecessor stepped down for breaking Covid rules by kissing an aide in his office, had been criticised for using the word “cower” when tens of thousands in Britain have died from the virus and many are trying to keep safe. Britain, which has one of the highest official Covid death tolls, has shifted its strategy to fight coronavirus from using restrictions to limit its spread to opening up society in the hope vaccines will protect most people from serious illness. Cases are high, but so is uptake of Covid-19 vaccines, and officials argue the shift is needed to help businesses in sectors such as hospitality and the night-time economy. Writing on Twitter, Javid said on Sunday...

KABUL: The United States will continue air strikes in support of Afghan forces fighting the Taliban, a top US general said on Sunday, as the insurgents press on with offensives across the country.“The United States has increased air strikes in the support of Afghan forces over the last several days, and we are prepared to continue this heightened level of support in the coming weeks if the Taliban continue their attacks,” General Kenneth McKenzie, head of the US Army Central Command, told reporters in Kabul. McKenzie acknowledged that there were tough days ahead for the Afghan government, but insisted that the Taliban were nowhere close to victory. “The Taliban are attempting to create a sense of inevitability about their campaign. They are wrong,” he said. “Taliban victory is not inevitable.” McKenzie’s remarks came as Afghan officials in the southern province of Kandahar said fighting in the region had displaced about 22,000 families in the pa...

China blamed the United States on Monday for a "stalemate" in two-way ties, accusing it of creating an "imaginary enemy", and setting a confrontational tone during a meeting with US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman. Sherman, the second-ranked US diplomat, arrived on Sunday for the rare face-to-face talks in the northern city of Tianjin amid worsening relations between the world's two largest economies. "US-China relations are in a standstill and face serious difficulties," Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng was quoted as saying during the meeting by state television. "The United States wants to reignite the sense of national purpose by establishing China as an 'imaginary enemy'." Sherman, whose China visit was added late to an Asian itinerary that included stops in Japan, South Korea and Mongolia amid wrangling over protocol between Beijing and Washington, was due to meet later on Monday with Foreign Minister Wang Yi, a member of t...

BEIJING: A Chinese man has been reunited with his kidnapped son after a 24-year search that saw him travel half a million kilometres across China on a motorbike, chasing tipoffs on the boy’s whereabouts. Guo Gangtang’s son was just two years and five months old when he was abducted in 1997 from in front of the family home in eastern Shandong province, where he was playing unattended. Traffickers snatched the boy and sold him to a family in central China. After years of searching, police told Guo on Sunday that a DNA test had confirmed that a 26-year-old teacher living in central Henan province was really Guo’s long-lost son. Guo is seen sobbing into his palms while his wife hugs their son, Guo Zhen, during a reunion event in a photo released on Tuesday by the public security ministry. “Now that the child has been found, everything can only be happy from now on,” Guo said through tears in a video. After his son was abducted, then 27-year-old Guo quit his job...

Former United States president George W. Bush on Wednesday criticised the withdrawal of Nato troops from Afghanistan and said civilians were being left to be “slaughtered” by the Taliban. “Laura (Bush) and I spent a lot of time with Afghan women, and they're scared. And I think about all the interpreters and people that helped not only US troops but Nato troops, and it seems like they're just going to be left behind to be slaughtered by these very brutal people. And it breaks my heart,” Bush told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. Asked whether he thought the withdrawal was a mistake, Bush replied: “Yes, I think it is.” Read: 'No smoking, no shaving' — Taliban restore old rules in newly seized Afghan territory The former Republican president, who sent troops to Afghanistan in autumn 2001 after the September 11 attacks on New York's World Trade Centre, said he believed German Chancellor Angela Merkel “feels the same way”. Bush said Me...

Twitter Inc saw a surge in demands over the course of last year from governments around the world to take down content posted by journalists and news outlets, data to be released by the social media platform for the first time will show. In its transparency report to be published on Wednesday and a copy of which was seen by Reuters, Twitter said verified accounts of 199 journalists and news outlets on its platform globally were subject to 361 legal demands from governments to remove content in the second half of 2020, an increase of 26 per cent from the first half of the year. It declined to elaborate on which countries submitted the demands, or how many of the legal demands pertaining to journalists or news outlets the platform complied with. The new details in Twitter's biannual report on its enforcement of policy rules and the information and removal requests it receives come as Twitter and other social media companies including Facebook and Alphabet’s YouTube are facing scruti...

The United States will evacuate thousands of Afghan interpreters and others who helped US forces in the country starting in late July, a senior administration official said on Wednesday. “At President Biden's direction, the United States is launching Operation Allies Refuge to support relocation flights for interested and eligible Afghan nationals and their families who have supported the United States and our partners in Afghanistan,” the official said. The interpreters being readied for evacuation are those who have already filed applications under the State Department programme of Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) for Iraqi and Afghan translators and interpreters who have assisted US forces over the past two decades of war. Many of the Afghan interpreters who worked with US and Nato forces over the past two decades fear retaliation by the Taliban, who are seeking to regain control of the government in Kabul after the departure of US troops before the end of August. Some estim...

Indian government forces killed three Kashmiri men, whom they claimed to be fighters, in a shootout in occupied Kashmir on Wednesday, triggering anti-India protests and clashes between troops and residents. The Indian military said the fighters opened fire at soldiers and police as counter-insurgency troops surrounded a neighbourhood in the southern town of Pulwama on a tip that fighters were hiding there. Troops retaliated and trapped the fighters in a house, a statement by the military said. Three fighters were killed in an ensuing eight-hour long operation and two rifles and a pistol were recovered from the site, the statement said. Locals said troops set fire to one house and blasted another with explosives, a common 'anti-militancy' tactic employed by Indian troops in the Himalayan region. Read: Pakistan urges UNSC to act immediately to protect children in occupied Kashmir Authorities issued a curfew in Pulwama town and cut off internet on mobile phone services, a tactic a...

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Wednesday became the first Gulf state to open an embassy in Israel, as its envoy hailed the trade and investment opportunities that closer ties would bring at a flag-raising ceremony also attended by Israel's president. Brought together by shared unease about Iran, the UAE and Bahrain normalised relations with Israel last year under the "Abraham Accords" crafted by the administration of then-US president Donald Trump. Sudan and Morocco have since also moved to establish ties with Israel. The opening of the UAE embassy, which is situated in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, followed the inauguration of Israel's embassy in the UAE last month. "Since the normalisation of ties ... we have seen for the first time discussions on trade and investment opportunities," UAE ambassador Mohamed Al Khaja said, after raising his country's flag outside the building. "We signed major agreements across various fields, including economy, a...

PARIS: Scientists have used CRISPR gene-editing technology to successfully block the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in infected human cells, according to research released on Tuesday that could pave the way for Covid-19 treatments. Writing in the journal Nature Communications, researchers in Australia said the tool was effective against viral transmissions in lab tests, adding that they hoped to begin animal trials soon. CRISPR, which allows scientists to alter DNA sequences and modify gene function, has already shown promise in eliminating the genetic coding that drives the development of children’s cancer. The team in Tuesday’s study used an enzyme, CRISPR-Cas13b, that binds to relevant RNA sequences on the novel coronavirus and degrades the genome it needs to replicate inside human cells. Lead author Sharon Lewin from Australia’s Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity told AFP that the team had designed the CRISPR tool to recognise SARS-CoV-2, the ...