AFP: China’s Communist Party has sacked a dozen provincial and local officials and vowed to punish a pharmaceutical firm over a vaccine scandal that inflamed public fears over the safety of domestically produced drugs. The government has been struggling to shore up public confidence in the pharmaceutical sector following the revelation last month that a…
AFP: A year after jihadist attacks in Barcelona and a nearby seaside resort killed 16 people, Spain’s King Felipe VI on Friday presided over a ceremony in memory of the victims. Fourteen people died — including two young children aged three and seven — and over 100 were injured in the Barcelona van attack on…
Kabir Humayun: Four members of a Bangladeshi family were killed and two others injured in a road accident in Jeddah of Saudi Arabia on Thursday afternoon (local time). The deceased are Moshiur Rahman Selim and his three daughters — Sayma Selim, 16, Sinthia Selim, 14, and Sabiha Selim, 10. Selim’s wife Kabita and son Siam…
Reuters: President Ashraf Ghani congratulated Afghanistan’s armed forces in Ghazni on Friday for their victory over Taliban insurgents in the strategically important city after clashes that killed at least 150 soldiers and 95 civilians. The Taliban’s five-day siege of Ghazni eased on Wednesday after Afghan officials declared that they had regained complete control of the…
AP: More than a thousand Google employees have signed a letter protesting the company’s secretive plan to build a search engine that would comply with Chinese censorship. The letter calls on executives to review ethics and transparency at the company. The letter’s contents were confirmed by a Google employee who helped organize it but who…
Desk Report: Malaysia considers allowing all the licensed agents to help Bangladeshi workers get jobs in the Southeast Asian country. Reports the daily star The plan comes after the new Malaysian government in late June suspended a syndicate of 10 Bangladeshi agents, all authorised in 2016, for alleged irregularities in manpower recruitment process. Malaysian Prime…
The Guardian: A child who appeared in a photograph that went viral last year saluting the Indian flag in chest-deep flood water has been declared a foreigner and could be deported as part of a government drive to root out illegal immigrants. Haider Ali Khan appeared in a photograph with his teacher and two others…
Kabir Humayun: More than 300 US newspapers have pledged to run editorials on Thursday defending freedom of the press in response to President Donald Trump calling some media organisations enemies of the American people, reports Reuters. The Boston Globe organized the editorial push, which was joined by the New York Times and a number of…
Reuters: Pacific island nations are holding talks which could lead to a coordinated request that China forgive mounting debts in the region amid concerns Beijing may start seizing strategic assets, Tonga’s Prime Minister ‘Akilisi Pōhiva said on Thursday. Tonga, one of eight island nations in the South Pacific carrying significant debt to China, is due…
Reuters: The Zimbabwean opposition’s challenge against President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s election victory will be heard in the constitutional court on August 22, the opposition leader’s spokesman said on his Twitter account on Thursday. Opposition leader Nelson Chamisa says the July 30 presidential vote, the first since the removal of Robert Mugabe last year, was rigged by…