WORLD
Pakistan hosts OIC meet on Afghanistan
The session was convened at the insistence of Saudi Arabia as the OIC Summit Chair.
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan will deliver the keynote address at the special moot taking place at Parliament House. The chair of the OIC summit, Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia Prince Faisal Bin Farhan Al-Saud, will then speak to the delegates.
North Korea slams G7 statement urging abandonment of nuke weapons
In an article uploaded onto its website on Saturday, the North's Foreign Ministry said such "remarks constitute an aggressive violation of sovereignty, which tries to deny the exercise of its rights by a sovereign nation, as well as foreign interference and an intolerable act of provocation", reports Yonhap News Agency.
Russia officially withdraws from Open Skies Treaty
"Decades of fruitful implementation of the treaty showed that it has served well as a tool for strengthening confidence and security, creating additional opportunities for an objective and unbiased assessment of the military potential and military activities of the participating states," Xinhua news agency quoted the statement issued on Saturday as saying.
Bangladesh community in Washington D.C. protests for recognition of 1971 genocide
The members on Saturday were led by US-based Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities (HRCBM) Executive Director Priya Saha and HRCBM Washington D.C. Metro Area Coordinator Pranesh Haldar. Demonstrators carried placards and raised slogans demanding US Congress should hold Pakistan responsible for the 'Bengali genocide'.
British Brexit minister resigns: media
'The Mail on Sunday' said in an exclusive that "Frost has sensationally resigned from Boris Johnson's government," due to his "disillusionment" with Johnson's government, including the imposition of tax rises and additional Covid-19 restrictions, as well as the staggering cost of "net zero" environmental policies. Frost quit in a letter to the prime minister last week, but won't officially leave until January, Xinhua news reported, citing the newspaper.
Netherlands to go into lockdown due to 'fifth wave with Omicron'
"I stand here with a gloomy mind," Prime Minister Mark Rutte said at a press conference on Saturday in the Hague. "The Netherlands is going into lockdown again." "That is inevitable. Omicron is spreading even faster than we feared. That is the complicated story we have to tell tonight," Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying.
More than 10,000 new Omicron cases confirmed in UK
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) confirmed on Saturday that an additional 10,059 cases of the new variant, three times as many as Friday and taking the total number detected to 24,968, Xinhua news agency reported. The country registered 90,418 coronavirus cases in the latest 24-hour period, the second time cases have been higher than 90,000, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 11,279,428, according to official figures released Saturday.
Pak humiliated by failed efforts to get phone call from Biden
After Biden was sworn-in in January this year, no contact was established between him and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, as is the diplomatic tradition. Pakistani officials made attempts at the diplomatic level to establish this contact, but the efforts remained futile. The US reportedly was conveyed the message that Imran Khan was ready to initiate the phone call, but American officials still remained unmoved.
Omicron variant spread to 89 countries, cases doubling in 3 days: WHO
Omicron is a highly divergent variant with a high number of mutations, including 26-32 in the spike protein, some of which are concerning and may be associated with immune escape potential and higher transmissibility. "As of December 16, 2021, the Omicron variant has been identified in 89 countries across all six WHO regions," the WHO said in its latest update.
Amrullah Saleh colluded with envoy in Tajikistan to withdraw govt money
Nearly $786,000 had been dispatched mistakenly to Afghanistan's Embassy in Tajikistan, according to officials, while some sources claim the amount was intentionally sent and withdrawn from the embassy account, Pajhwok News reported. Some sources claimed the amount was dispatched to meet the expenses of embassy and withdrawn by the envoy from the account in collaboration with Saleh, the report said.
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