World

DUBAI: Kuwait has banned until further notice commercial flights to 31 countries it regards as high risk due to the spread of the coronavirus, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said on Saturday (Aug 1). The countries include India, Pakistan, Egypt, the Philippines, Lebanon and Sri Lanka, which all have large numbers of expatriates in Kuwait. The list also includes China, Iran, Brazil, Mexico, Italy and Iraq. The ban was announced the same day that Kuwait began a partial resumption of commercial flights. The authorities have said Kuwait International Airport would run at about 30 per cent capacity from Saturday, gradually increasing in coming months. The health ministry also advised against all non-essential travel at the present time, government spokesman Tariq al-Muzaram sa...

BANGKOK: Thailand's top anti-trafficking cop has vowed to boost training for police nationwide to better respond to a rising number of cases of sexual exploitation and forced labour outside Bangkok. Police lieutenant general Jaruvat Vaisaya, director of the Anti-Human Trafficking Centre under the Royal Thai Police, said Thailand had a shortage of officers based outside the capital with expertise in investigating cases of human trafficking. "We have found an increase in cases in provincial areas where we couldn't send our staff (from Bangkok) in time," Jaruvat told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview ahead of World Day Against Trafficking in Persons on Jul 30. About three-quarters of 283 trafficking cases nationwide last year were investigated outside Bangkok – up from two...

WASHINGTON: New orders for key US-made capital goods increased in July, though the pace slowed from June's robust gain, suggesting the rebound in business investment would be gradual amid uncertainty about the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report from the Commerce Department on Wednesday showed an uneven recovery in investment as the coronavirus crisis shifts spending away from equipment used in the services industries such as restaurants and bars to purchases of goods like home electronics. "While orders are nearly back to their pre-pandemic levels, the slowing pace of gains suggests it will take a while for activity to fully recover," said Lydia Boussour, a senior US economist at Oxford Economics in New York. "We do not expect business investment to reach its pre-pandemic l...

President Donald Trump on Thursday moved to reimpose 10per cent tariffs on some Canadian aluminum products to protect U.S. industry from a "surge" in imports, angering Ottawa and some U.S. business groups. CLYDE, Ohio/OTTAWA: President Donald Trump on Thursday moved to reimpose 10per cent tariffs on some Canadian aluminum products to protect U.S. industry from a "surge" in imports, angering Ottawa and some U.S. business groups. Canada pledged retaliation as tensions heightened between the close allies just weeks after a new continental trade deal between the United States, Mexico and Canada came into effect. During a speech at a Whirlpool Corp washing machine factory in Ohio to tout his "America First" trade agenda, Trump said he signed a proclamation reimposing the "Section 232" na...

DHAKA: Rohingya Muslim refugees in Bangladesh held a "silent protest" on Tuesday (Aug 25) to mark the third anniversary of clashes between Rohingya insurgents and Myanmar security forces that set off a huge movement into Bangladesh of people seeking safety. More than a million Rohingya live in the world's largest refugee settlement in southern Bangladesh, with little prospect of returning to Myanmar, where they are mostly denied citizenship and other rights. The refugees had said that because of the novel coronavirus they would not hold a mass gathering to mark what they call "Remembrance Day". Authorities say 88 cases of the virus have been found in the camps and six people have died. Three years ago, Rohingya insurgents raided 30 police posts and an army base in Myanmar's Rakhin...