Author: News Desk

Bahrain ranked 1st globally in multiple subindices within Metas’ (Facebook) Inclusive Internet Index conducted by Economist Impact, including national female e-inclusion policies, female digital skills training & STEM education, open data policies, and privacy regulations. The Inclusive Internet Index 2022 measures whether the internet is accessible and affordable in each country and how much it enables social and economic mobility. It assesses the performance of 100 countries in four indicators of inclusion: availability (usage, infrastructure and quality), readiness (literacy, safety and policy), affordability (price and competitive environment), and relevance (local and relevant content). Dalal Buhejji, Executive Director of Investment Origination…

NATO invited Sweden and Finland on Wednesday to join the military alliance in one of the biggest shifts in European security in decades after Helsinki and Stockholm dropped their traditional neutrality. “Today, we have decided to invite Finland and Sweden to become members of NATO,” NATO leaders said in their declaration, after Turkey lifted a veto on Finland and Sweden joining. Ratification in allied parliaments is likely to take up to a year, but once it is done, Finland and Sweden will be covered by NATO’s Article 5 collective defence clause, putting them under the United States’ protective nuclear umbrella.…

A missile strike killed at least three people in a residential building in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv on Wednesday as Russian forces intensified their attacks on multiple fronts. In the east, the governor of Luhansk province said there was “fighting everywhere” in the battle around the city of Lysychansk, which Russian troops were trying to encircle. The governor of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine said Russian shelling had increased there too in the past few days. “Several villages have been wiped from the face of the earth,” Oleksander Vilkul said. The stepped-up attacks took place as Russian President…

Donald Trump tried to grab the steering wheel of his presidential limousine on Jan. 6, 2021, when his security detail declined to take him to the U.S. Capitol where his supporters were rioting, a former aide testified on Tuesday. The then-president dismissed concerns that some supporters gathered for his fiery speech outside the White House that day carried AR-15-style rifles, instead asking security to stop screening attendees with metal-detecting magnetometers so the crowd would look larger, the aide testified. “Take the effing mags away; they’re not here to hurt me,” Cassidy Hutchinson, who was a top aide to Trump’s then-White…

The nosedive in cryptocurrency markets has wiped out millions of dollars in funds stolen by North Korean hackers, four digital investigators say, threatening a key source of funding for the sanctions-stricken country and its weapons programmes. North Korea has poured resources into stealing cryptocurrencies in recent years, making it a potent hacking threat and leading to one of the largest cryptocurrency heists on record in March, in which almost $615 million was stolen, according to the U.S. Treasury. The sudden plunge in crypto values, which started in May amid a broader economic slowdown, complicates Pyongyang’s ability to cash in on…

Sweden and Finland on Wednesday looked set for fast-track membership of NATO after Turkey lifted a veto on them joining, at a summit where the U.S.-led alliance is due to adopt a broad strategy focused on Russian and China for the next decade. After talks in Madrid, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday agreed with his Finnish and Swedish counterparts a series of security measures to allow the two Nordic countries to progress in their bid to join the U.S.-led alliance. “We will make a decision at the summit to invite Sweden and Finland to become members,” NATO Secretary-General Jens…

NATO allies will continue to supply Ukraine with weapons in its war against Russia for as long as necessary, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in Madrid on Wednesday. “It is good that the countries that are gathered here but many others, too, make their contributions so Ukraine can defend itself – by providing financial means, humanitarian aid but also by providing the weapons that Ukraine urgently needs,” Scholz told reporters as he arrived for the second day of a NATO summit. “The message is: We will continue to do so – and to do this intensively – for as long…

The 19th meeting of the Bahraini-Egyptian Joint Military Cooperation Committee concluded. The meeting was co-chaired by BDF’s Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations Major General Ghanim Ibrahim Al Fadala and Egypt’s Assistant Minister of Defense for Operations Major General Staff Mohammed Abdellah Abdulmawla. Ways to strengthen defence cooperation between Bahrain Defence Force and the Egyptian Armed Forces were reviewed at the meeting.

Social Development Ministry Acting Undersecretary Khalid Abdulrahman Ishaq Al Kooheji announced the launch of children and youth clubs, the annual summer programs. He explained that the programs will be presented during the morning and evening shifts from 10 am to 1 pm and from 4 pm to 6 pm, with Sunday and Tuesday allocated for girls and Monday and Wednesday for boys. Al Kooheji said that the clubs will present 27 programs and workshops during the summer, in line with the various desires of children and youth, which include several programs and purposeful activities in the fields of technology, cooking,…

The National Bureau for Revenue (NBR), in cooperation with the Customs Affairs, has announced the arrival of the first shipment of cigarette packs with digital stamps at Bahrain’s customs clearance ports. The Digital Stamps Scheme aims to track excise goods from the manufacturing stage up to the point of consumption through digital stamps and intends to limit the smuggling of excise goods into the Kingdom, protecting consumers against the circulation of counterfeit or illegal products and ensuring the effectiveness of government revenue collection. The first implementation phase of the scheme has gone into effect since March 11, 2022, when the…