WORLD

Raza Rabbani, a former Chairman of Pakistan Senate and a Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader, on Friday questioned the government's haste to extend support to the Afghan Taliban, when the latter did "not even recognise the border", Dawn news reported.

Addressing a Senate session, Rabbani asked Foreign Minister Shah Mahmoud Qureshi to take Parliament into confidence about a recent incident in which the new rulers in Afghanistan had reportedly barred Pakistan's security forces from fencing the border.

Pakistani officials have not commented on the incident so far.

As cases of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus are being reported in the US and Europe and rising in India, reports about “Delmicron” have emerged over the last few days.

A member of the Covid-19 task force in Maharashtra has said there is a possibility that the West is caught between twin spikes of the Delta and the Omicron variants of the coronavirus.

"Delmicron, the twin spikes of Delta and Omicron, in Europe and US has led to a mini tsunami of cases," Dr Shashank Joshi was quoted as saying by a leading newspaper.

The Sri Lankan Navy arrested 14 more fishermen from Pudukkottai, Tamil Nadu, who were fishing in maritime waters. The Lankan Navy also seized two boats, alleging that the fishermen crossed the border.

In addition to the two other such incidents that have happened in the last week, this takes the tally of fishermen and boats to 69 and 10 respectively.

As a result, fishermen in Pudukkottai announced a strike for the day. Fishermen from Rameswaram are already on an indefinite strike.

Germany came out strongly against Russia on Sunday and said that Moscow could not 'dictate' to Russia. German Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht's statement came even as tensions are high between Russia and the West over conflict in Ukraine.

"We have to resolve the tense situation we are in now both diplomatically and with credible deterrence," Lambrecht told reporters.

"We have to talk with each other, which means discussing the proposals that Russia has put forward. That is right and important," she added at Lithuania's Rukla military base.

The risk of reinfection with the Omicron coronavirus variant is more than five times higher and it has shown no sign of being milder than Delta, a study by Imperial College London showed, as cases soar across Europe and threaten year-end festivities.

The results were based on UK Health Security Agency and National Health Service data on people who tested positive for COVID-19 in a PCR test in England between Nov. 29 and Dec. 11.

"We find no evidence (for both risk of hospitalisation attendance and symptom status) of Omicron having different severity from Delta," the study said, although it noted that data on hospitalisations remains very limited.