Author: News Desk

MANAMA: Two restaurants located in the Capital Governorate have been shut down for one week for violating the Covid-19 precautionary measures. Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority (BTEA) announced the closure of the restaurants, in coordination with the Health Ministry’s Public Health Directorate and the Inspection Directorate at the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism. “The restaurants have been shut down for one week following the visit of the Health Ministry’s Food Control inspectors who reported the violations”, said a BTEA statement, adding that legal measures would be taken against both outlets for violating the ministerial edict 51 of 2020 which…

TikTok, the widely popular video app, and its Chinese parent ByteDance could face a damages claim worth billions of pounds (dollars) in London’s High Court over allegations they illegally harvested the private data of millions of European children. Anne Longfield, the former Children’s Commissioner for England and so-called “litigation friend”, or public face, of an anoynmous 12-year-old girl leading the class action, said on Wednesday that affected children could receive thousands of pounds each if the claim is successful. Longfield alleged that every child that has used TikTok since May 25, 2018, may have had private personal information illegally collected…

Manama: For the first time in its history as Bahrain’s national carrier, Gulf Air has successfully completed a 100% virtual business continuity management drill.The Business Continuity Management System (BCMS) is the advanced planning and preparation of an organization to maintain business functions or quickly resuming work in/after the event of a major disaster has occurred. It also involves defining potential risks including fire, flood, cyber-attacks, pandemic …The exercise was planned for the most critical business functions to assess the airline’s readiness to continue operations in the event of unforeseen situations or emergencies. The exercise was conducted on the actual airline…

LONDON: Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, the world’s oldest monarch, turns 95 on Wednesday, but there will be no public celebrations just days after she bade farewell to her husband of seven decades at his funeral. Prince Philip, whom Elizabeth married in 1947, died on April 9 at the age of 99. The royals paid their final respects to the family’s patriarch at his funeral on Saturday at Windsor Castle. Because of COVID-19 restrictions, the queen sat alone during the sombre service for Philip, who she had described as her “strength and stay”. Elizabeth, who is also the world’s longest-reigning monarch, will…

MANILA: The Philippines is beefing up its presence in the South China Sea and deploying more ships and an aircraft to protect its maritime territory and resources, a government task force said on Wednesday. The Philippines has ramped up its rhetoric in recent weeks in defiance of what it says is threatening behaviour by Chinese vessels in its 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), despite four years of rapprochement with historic rival China. “We are exhausting all means possible to protect our territory and EEZ,” the Philippines’ South China Sea task force said in a statement. The deployment is the latest…

KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait’s Ministry of Communications has issued a stamp “Kuwait Fights Coronavirus Pandemic,” in collaboration with the ministry’s Postal Sector and Kuwait Philatelic Society. In a press statement on Wednesday, the ministry said that the stamp features a picture of the late Amir of Kuwait Shaikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah, as well as a picture of a Kuwait Airways plane with citizens returning to the country during the repatriation campaign to bring them home. The stamp includes a picture of the Kuwait gates, symbolizing the protection of the nation from external dangers, Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)…

TOKYO: Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has cancelled plans to visit India and the Philippines during his country’s extended holiday starting in late April amid a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases, a senior government spokesman said on Wednesday. Japan’s government is considering a state of emergency for Tokyo and several other prefectures, while Indian data showed on Wednesday there had been 295,041 new infections nationwide overnight and 2,023 deaths, India’s highest in the pandemic. Asked about media reports that Suga’s trip to the two countries has been cancelled, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said: “In order to take all possible…

Indonesia’s navy is searching for 53 people on board a missing submarine and is seeking help from Australia and Singapore, the country’s military chief told Reuters on Wednesday. The German-made submarine, KRI Nanggala-402, was conducting a torpedo drill in waters north of the island of Bali on Wednesday but failed to relay the results as expected, a navy spokesman said. (Reuters)

MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday he wanted Russia to reach collective COVID-19 immunity by the autumn and called on Russians to get vaccinated against the new coronavirus. Russia has vaccinated more than 8 million citizens out of around 144 million, a senior official said last week. It is not clear how many of those have received both shots. The Kremlin has said demand to get vaccinated in Russia is disappointing. Putin, who himself received the second of two vaccine shots last week, used his annual state-of-the-nation speech on Wednesday to top officials and both houses of parliament to…

Over 65 percent of those eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in the United Arab Emirates have been fully immunized, the government announced on Wednesday. With a population of nearly 10 million, the UAE has administered a total of 9.5 million vaccine doses as of April 20 with over 5 million people having received their first dose and nearly 4 million received a second dose. Vaccines are currently available to residents and nationals over the age of 16. According to the National Emergency Crisis and Disasters Management Authority (NCEMA), close to 75 percent of the elderly above the age of 60…