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DUBAI — A Saudi court docket on Monday sentenced outstanding women’s legal rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul to practically 6 several years in prison, her spouse and children claimed, immediately after her conviction in a trial that has drawn global condemnation. The verdict and sentence pose a obstacle to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s romance with U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, who has criticized Riyadh’s human legal rights file.

LONDON — Britain’s federal government requirements to carry in tighter coronavirus lockdown procedures to avert a fresh new wave of fatalities from a new strain of the disorder, a top epidemiologist and federal government advisor warned on Tuesday. Britain documented 41,385 new COVID instances on Monday, the best number considering that tests turned widely readily available in the center of 2020, and English hospitals say they have more COVID individuals than during the initial wave of the pandemic in April.

AMSTERDAM — The European Medicines Authority (EMA) will most most likely not be in a position to approve the COVID-19 vaccine formulated by drug maker AstraZeneca and the College of Oxford in January, the watchdog’s Deputy Executive Director Noel Wathion reported. “They have not even filed an software with us nevertheless,” Wathion mentioned in an interview with Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad posted on Tuesday.

KATHMANDU, Nepal — Thousands of opponents of Nepal’s Primary Minister K.P. Sharma Oli marched through the streets of Kathmandu on Tuesday urging him to reverse his selection to dissolve parliament and connect with for early elections. The protesters, who say his decision on Dec. 20 was unconstitutional, rallied outside his office environment inspite of coronavirus curbs on gatherings.

LUCKNOW, India — Lawmakers in a central Indian condition managed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist occasion accepted legislation on Tuesday that would make pressuring a girl to transform to their husband’s faith a crime punishable with imprisonment. Although no faith is specified in the legislation, critics say it is aimed in opposition to the country’s Muslim minority. Hardline Hindu teams have accused Muslim males of waging a campaign, dubbed a “Love Jihad,” to lure Hindu females to Islam with promises of relationship.

BEIJING — Beijing sealed off 10 regions of its northeastern Shunyi district on Tuesday, the 1st lockdown in the Chinese cash because the final coronavirus outbreak in the months of June and July. The metropolis has described 16 infections and 3 asymptomatic conditions because Dec. 18, when the initially situations had been observed. Most of the conditions have been in Shunyi, which has banned couriers from getting into household compounds.

BHASAN CHAR, Bangladesh — Bangladesh moved a second team of Rohingya Muslim refugees to a minimal-lying island in the Bay of Bengal on Tuesday, even with opposition from rights groups fearful about the new site’s vulnerability to storms. The United Nations says it has not been concerned in the relocation but urged the government to guarantee no refugee is compelled to shift to Bhasan Char island, which only emerged from the sea 20 decades in the past.

BRUSSELS — The European Union on Tuesday criticized the jailing of a citizen-journalist in China who reported on the early outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic from Wuhan. A Chinese courtroom handed down a four-calendar year jail time period on Monday to Zhang Zhan, who described at the peak of the disaster in the town in which the coronavirus 1st emerged. Her attorney stated Zhang was jailed on the grounds of “selecting quarrels and provoking difficulty.”

GAZA — An array of Palestinian militant groups launched rockets into the Mediterranean Sea off the Gaza Strip on Tuesday at the start out of what they referred to as their first-ever joint physical exercise, which Israeli media explained as a present of force organized by Iran. Gaza is run by Hamas and also dwelling to other militant teams, like Islamic Jihad. The workout was announced on behalf of a joint command established up by the groups in 2018.

BUENOS AIRES — Argentina was on the cusp of legalizing abortion on Tuesday about the objections of its influential Roman Catholic Church, with the senate preparing to vote on a measure that has the backing of the ruling bash and has presently handed in the reduce property. If passed, the invoice would make Argentina the to start with significant region in predominantly Catholic Latin The us to allow abortion on demand. The vote is predicted to be near just after what is probably to be a marathon discussion, beginning at 4 pm (1900 GMT).

NAIROBI — A Reuters cameraman, Kumerra Gemechu, was arrested in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Thursday and will be kept in custody for at least two weeks, his relatives stated. He has not been billed. No explanation was offered to the household for Thursday’s arrest, and police did not reply to Reuters requests for remark.