WASHINGTON: The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station on Saturday (Aug 1) with two US astronauts on board, beginning their journey back to Earth despite a storm threatening Florida. NASA footage showed the capsule drifting slowly away from the ISS in the darkness of space, closing […]
MIAMI: Isaias weakened slightly to a tropical storm on Saturday (Aug 1) after lashing the Bahamas, but forecasters warned it would likely grow into a hurricane again as it approaches coronavirus-stricken eastern Florida overnight. Isaias, which was moving northwest off the Bahamas’ Andros Island with maximum sustained winds of 110kmh […]
MELBOURNE: Australia’s government expressed support on Sunday (Aug 2) for the strictest social-distancing measures yet by the state of Victoria in an effort to contain COVID-19. The government in the country’s second-most populous state is expected to announce that movement and businesses will be severely restricted in the state’s capital […]
JOHANNESBURG: South Africa’s confirmed cases of COVID-19 have crossed half a million, its health ministry said on Saturday (Aug 1), while cases in Africa as a whole approached a million. Africa’s most industrialised nation recorded 10,107 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus, pushing […]
GENEVA: The World Health Organization on Saturday (Aug 1) warned the coronavirus pandemic was likely to be “lengthy” after its emergency committee met to evaluate the crisis six months after sounding the international alarm. The committee “highlighted the anticipated lengthy duration of this COVID-19 pandemic”, the WHO said in a […]
TEHRAN: Iran said on Saturday (Aug 1) it has arrested the head of a US-based “terrorist group” accused of being behind a deadly 2008 bombing in the southern city of Shiraz and of other, abortive attacks. “Jamshid Sharmahd, who was leading armed and sabotage operations inside Iran, is now in […]
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON: China’s ByteDance has agreed to divest the US operations of TikTok completely in a bid to save a deal with the White House, after President Donald Trump said on Friday he had decided to ban the popular short-video app, two people familiar with the matter said on Saturday […]
The US wants to shift away from the Middle East to focus on China but that move will not be so easy to achieve, say observers. WASHINGTON: Earlier this month, Iran announced that it is negotiating a 25-year agreement with China encompassing trade, energy, infrastructure, telecommunications, and even military cooperation. […]
The two NASA astronauts who rode to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX’s new Crew Dragon are due to return on Sunday (Aug 2) after a two-month voyage that marked NASA’s first crewed mission from home soil in nine years. WASHINGTON: The two NASA astronauts who rode to the International […]
ABU DHABI: The oil-rich United Arab Emirates on Saturday (Aug 1) announced the startup of its Barakah nuclear power plant, a first for the Arab world. “UAE first nuclear reactor at the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant has achieved first criticality and successfully started up,” tweeted Hamad Alkaabi, the country’s representative […]