Tel Aviv, June 20 (IANS): The Israeli Ministry of Health reported a Covid-19 outbreak in two schools in the town of Binyamina, 60 km north of Tel Aviv, which has infected 45 students. The outbreak concerns a primary school and a middle school, Xinhua news agency quoted the Ministry as saying on Saturday. An extensive testing operation, which began after one of the middle school students had been tested positive, revealed the outbreak. According to the Ministry, the source of t

Rio De Janiero, June 20 (AP): Anti-government protesters took to the streets in more than a score of cities across Brazil on Saturday as the nation's confirmed death toll from COVID-19 soared past half a million - a tragedy many critics blame on President Jair Bolsonaro's attempt to minimise the disease. Thousands gathered in downtown Rio de Janeiro waving flags with slogans such as Get out Bolsonaro. Government of hunger and unemployment. Brazil is experiencing a great s

Jerusalem, June 20 (AP): Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday opened his first Cabinet meeting since swearing in his new coalition government last week with a condemnation of the new Iranian president. He said Iran's presidential election was a sign for world powers to wake up before returning to a nuclear agreement with Tehran. Iran's hard-line judiciary chief, Ebrahim Raisi, was elected Saturday with 62% of the vote amid a historically low voter turnout. He is

Kabul, June 20 (AP): Afghanistan's former president said Sunday the US came to his country to fight extremism and bring stability to his war-tortured nation and is leaving nearly 20 years later having failed at both. In an interview with The Associated Press just weeks before the last US and NATO troops leave Afghanistan, ending their forever war, Hamid Karzai said extremism is at its highest point and the departing troops are leaving behind a disaster. The international comm

London, June 19 (PTI): Footprints from at least six different species of dinosaur the very last dinosaurs to walk on UK soil 110 million years ago have been found in Kent, a new report by researchers has claimed. The discovery of dinosaur footprints by a curator from Hastings Museum and Art Gallery and a scientist from the University of Portsmouth is the last record of dinosaurs in Britain. The footprints were discovered in the cliffs and on the foreshore in Folkestone, Kent, whe

Hong Kong, June 19 (AP): A Hong Kong court ordered the top editor of pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily and the head of its parent company held without bail Saturday in the first hearing since their arrest two days ago under the city's national security law. Ryan Law, the chief editor, and Cheung Kim-hung, the CEO of Next Digital, have been charged with collusion with a foreign country to endanger national security in a case widely seen as an attack on press freedom in the

Tehran, June 19 (IANS): Ebrahim Raisi, the incumbent Chief Justice of Iran, has won the country's presidential election by a landslide, according to preliminary results released on Saturday by the Interior Ministry. Deputy Interior Minister Jamal Orf said 28.6 million Iranians participated in Friday's election, and with around 90 per cent of the votes counted so far, Raisi has garnered over 17.8 million ballots, reports Press TV. In the second place was Mohsen Rezaei, a s

San Francisco, June 19 (IANS): California has launched a digital platform through which the state's residents can access their Covid-19 vaccination records. The online system, called Digital Covid-19 Vaccine Record portal, means a digital backup to the paper cards from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that Americans receive when they get inoculated, reports Xinhua news agency. "The portal provides only a digital copy of your vaccine record, myvacciner

Moscow, June 19 (IANS): Russia will officially withdraw from the Treaty on Open Skies, an arms control pact with the US that permitted unarmed surveillance flights over military facilities in both countries, on December 18, the Foreign Ministry said. In a statement on Friday, the Ministry announced that it notified all the related parties of Russia's pullout and the decision will enter into force in six months, reports Xinhua news agency. The Ministry recalled Russia'

United Nations, June 19 (PTI): India has abstained on a UN General Assembly resolution on Myanmar, saying its views have not been reflected in the draft resolution and a "consultative and constructive" approach involving Myanmar's neighbouring countries is important as the international community strives for the peaceful resolution of the issue. The UNGA adopted a resolution on Myanmar on Friday that called "upon the Myanmar armed forces to respect the people'

Seoul, June 19 (IANS): North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has vowed to break through all difficulties facing the country at the end of a plenary session of the ruling party, state media reported on Saturday. In its report, Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said that after the conclusion of the third plenary meeting of the 8th Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), Kim vowd that "WPK will surely break through head-on the difficulti

Moscow, June 19 (IANS): Seven people were killed after a plane made an emergency landing in Russia's Kemerovo Oblast in Siberia, an emergency services official said on Saturday. "According to the latest data, 17 people were injured, seven others were killed," TASS News Agency quoted the official as saying. The plane was carrying a total of 20 people. "There were 17 parachutists and two crew members on board," the official said. The plane was in

Geneva, June 18 (IANS): One in a hundred deaths globally can directly be attributed to suicide, the World Health Organization (WHO) said, arguing that the Covid-19 pandemic has increased factors for suicide worldwide. In 2019, more than 700,000 people died of suicide, one in 100 deaths, which was more than HIV, malaria, wars or homicide, the world body said in a statement issued on Thursday. The same year, prior to the global pandemic, the global suicide rate was decreasing every

Antalya (Turkey), June 18 (AP): The Afghan government's chief peace envoy expressed fears on Friday that the Taliban will have no interest in a political settlement with the US-supported administration in Kabul after the scheduled departure of American and NATO forces. Abdullah Abdullah, head of Afghanistan's National Reconciliation Council, said there were signs that the Taliban were seeking military advances ahead of the September 11 troop withdrawal. He warned however tha

Seoul, June 18 (IANS): South Korea's science ministry said on Friday it is investigating a potential hack into a state-run nuclear research institute after its internal network was breached last month. A Ministry of Science and ICT official said the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute's network was breached multiple times between May 14-31. The ministry said the institute has since taken security measures, such as halting its virtual private network and blocking the at

United Nations, June 18 (PTI): UN General Assembly on Friday appointed Antonio Guterres as the UN Secretary General for a second term beginning January 1, 2022, days after the powerful Security Council unanimously recommended his name to the 193-member body for re-election. President of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly Volkan Bozkir announced that Guterres has been appointed by acclamation as the Secretary General of the United Nations for the second term of office beginn

Jerusalem, June 18 (AP): Palestinians protested after Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem and briefly clashed with Israeli police, leaving three demonstrators wounded. A series of far more violent clashes at the site in April and May helped ignite last month's 11-day Gaza war. The site is the third holiest in Islam and the holiest for Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount because it was the location of the biblical temples. It has frequently been th

Dubai, June 18 (AP): Iran voted Friday in a presidential election tipped in the favour of a hard-line protege of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, fuelling public apathy and sparking calls for a boycott in the Islamic Republic. State-linked opinion polling and analysts put hard-line judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi as the dominant front-runner in a field of just four candidates. Former Central Bank chief, Abdolnasser Hemmati, is running as the race's moderate candidate but has

Wellington, June 18 (IANS): New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Friday received her first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine in Auckland. Ardern said the vaccine was "easier than getting the flu jab", reports Xinhua news agency. "I never wanted to be among the first, but I also wanted to be a role model," she said. "I'm choosing to be vaccinated at this point in order to play my role in demonstrating that I consider it to be absolutely safe, but a

United Nations, June 18 (AP): The UN General Assembly is expected to approve a resolution calling on Myanmar's junta to restore the country's democratic transition and for all countries to prevent the flow of arms into Myanmar, diplomats said. The draft resolution also condemns deadly violence by security forces and calls on the junta to unconditionally release the ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and all those who have been arbitrarily detained,