Author: News Desk

Manama: The Indian School Bahrain (ISB) organized the Virtual Academic Award Ceremony on September 16, 2021 to felicitate the school toppers of the CBSE class X and XII examination 2021. Around 100 toppers and high achievers of X and XII were honoured virtually  with medals and certificates for their excellent performance in the academic year 2020-2021 at the ceremony held as per  the COVID-19 guidelines at the school auditorium in Isa Town campus. Around 250 prizes were also distributed. The programme began with the national anthem of Bahrain and India  and the lighting of the lamp. Indian Ambassador Piyush Srivastava  was…

An influential federal advisory panel has soundly rejected a plan to offer Pfizer booster shots against Covid-19 to most Americans. The vote Friday, 61-3, was a blow to the Biden administration’s effort to shore up people’s protection against the virus amid the highly contagious delta variant. Over several hours of discussion, members of the Food and Drug Administration panel of outside experts voiced frustration that Pfizer had provided little data on safety of extra doses. And they complained that data provided by Israeli researchers about their booster campaign might not be suitable for predicting the U.S. experience.

India : India saw a day of extravaganza for thousands of supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday, who lit 71,000 earthen lamps, cut a 71-feet-long cake and prepared a giant 71-kilogram traditional sweet to celebrate his 71st birthday. Mr Modi, a right-wing Hindu nationalist, is counted as independent India’s most powerful and popular leader, whose strongman image has won him hordes of friends and detractors in the culturally and religiously diverse country of 1.4 billion people. #Happy Bday Modiji –’Ji’ an honorific used to show respect — was trending on Twitter and Facebook, with the Prime Minister’s colleagues and supporters…

Top general Frank McKenzie admits US had made a “mistake” when it launched a drone strike against suspected Daesh militants in Afghan capital Kabul on August 29, confirming it killed 10 civilians instead. A US drone strike in Kabul last month killed as many as 10 civilians, including seven children, a senior US general has said. “It was a mistake and I offer my sincere apology,” US General Frank McKenzie, the head of US Central Command, told reporters on Friday. He added that he now believed that it unlikely that the vehicle hit or those who died were Daesh militants…

Prague : The Ambassador of the Kingdom of Bahrain to the Czech Republic residing in Berlin, Abdullah Abdullatif Abdullah, participated in the ceremony of the Bahraini-Czech Parliamentary Friendship Group, which was held in his honour, in Prague, in the presence of the Chairman of the Bahraini-Czech Parliamentary Friendship Group, Petr Bendl, and the President of the Czech Chamber of Commerce for the Gulf States, His Excellency Peter Zadovsky. Ambassador Abdullah Abdullatif Abdullah delivered a speech in which he praised the distinguished friendship between the Kingdom of Bahrain and the Czech Republic, stressing the importance of strengthening cooperation between the legislative…

Beirut : Lebanese Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, has stated that the importation of the Iranian fuel shipments by Hezbollah constitutes a “violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty,” according to comments posted by his office on Twitter. The Office said that Prime Minister Mikati had made his statements in an interview with CNN.

Tokyo :  The race is on for the next Japanese prime minister. Official election campaigning began Friday for the new head of Japan’s governing Liberal Democratic Party, who typically becomes the national leader because of the party’s control over parliament. Four candidates are competing in the Sept. 29 vote to replace outgoing Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who will quit when his term ends at the end of this month after serving only one year. He took over from predecessor Shinzo Abe. Their policies largely focus on the pandemic and its economic fallout, and on the increasingly assertive role China is…

Hamburg : Employees of Airbus Operations and Premium Aerotec went on strike on Friday in a dispute over the future restructuring of the companies, said dpa international. According to IG Metall, a major metalworkers’ union, the Airbus sites in Hamburg and Buxtehude and the Premium Aerotec site in Varel were among those affected. Work was also expected to stop at other sites in the morning. “We are not getting anywhere at the negotiating table,” said IG Metall district leader Daniel Friedrich. As a safety net for the approximately 13,000 employees, IG Metall is asking for a severance payment of three…

Wellington :  New Zealand announced Friday it will keep its border closed to Australia for at least another eight weeks, said dpa international. The so-called Trans-Tasman bubble began in April and allowed Australians and New Zealanders to travel between the two countries without the need to quarantine. However, New Zealand paused the bubble in July as its neighbour struggled to contain new Covid-19 outbreaks. When the bubble was established, both countries had “very few recent cases” of community transmission and a similar elimination strategy, Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said. Australia is battling several outbreaks. The state of New South…

Bahrain : Education Minister Dr. Majid bin Ali Al Nuaimi visited Al Nozha Girls’ Primary School, where he inspected mandatory precautionary measures and attended a lesson. Dr. Al Nuaimi also was briefed by School Principal Aisha Al Siddiqi about educational projects, including the “I Can” initiative, which aims at enhancing students’ level through synchronous and asynchronous learning activities. The minister praised the school’s efforts to improve students’ standard, stressing the positive impact of educational projects on the learning outcome.