BOJO MISLED HOUSE OVER ‘PARTYGATE’, SAYS PROBE PANEL

Former British prime minister Boris Johnson deliberately misled the UK parliament over COVID-19 lockdown parties, a parliamentary committee said in a damning report on Thursday.

Mr Johnson said it was a lie to say he deliberately misled parliament, and called the report a charade.

"The committee now says that I deliberately misled the House, and at the moment I spoke I was consciously concealing from the House my knowledge of illicit events," he said in a statement.

"This is rubbish. It is a lie."

The findings of the report conclude a year-long investigation into allegations Mr Johnson knew gatherings held at Downing Street during the UK's COVID-19 lockdown were in breach of the rules.

A year ago, Johnson was talking about remaining PM into the 2030s. But the privileges committee — the main disciplinary body for lawmakers — said Thursday he should now be stripped of having automatic access to parliament. The committee also accused Johnson of being “complicit in a campaign of abuse and attempted intimidation” towards them.

Johnson, who in 2019 led the Conservatives to a landslide election victory, dismissed the report as “a lie” and “a charade”, and accused committee members of waging a vendetta against him. The stand-off will do little to heal the deep divisions in the Conservatives and can only pile pressure on PM Rishi Sunak, whose push to try to boost Britain’s flagging economy is being overshadowed by the ongoing Johnson drama.

N KOREA FIRES TWO MISSILES AFTER WARNING RESPONSE TO ALLIED DRILLS

Seoul : North Korea fired two short-range missiles off its east coast on Thursday, the South Korean military said, less than an hour after Pyongyang warned of an “inevitable” response to military drills staged earlier in the day by South Korean and US troops. The latest action by North Korea came as US President Joe Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, was in Tokyo for meetings with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts.

In a meeting with South Korea’s national security adviser, Cho Tae-yong, and Japan’s NSA Takeo Akiba on Thursday, the three discussed North Korea’s missile programme and confirmed that they would work closely together to get Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons, according to a readout of the meeting released by Japan.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol watched as several thousand South Korean and US troops took part in joint live-fire exercises on Thursday, in the latest show of force that the allies say is necessary to deter North Korea. A spokesperson for North Korea’s ministry of national defence said the drills were escalating the military tension in the region and its forces would sternly respond to “any kind of protests or provocations by enemies”.

AUSTRALIAN SENATOR CLAIMS SEXUAL ASSAULT IN PARLIAMENT

Sydney : In a tearful address, an Australian senator on Thursday said she was followed, aggressively propositioned and inappropriately touched by another senator in parliament house, and called on the government to make the building safer for women.

“I experienced sexual comments and was inappropriately propositioned by powerful men,” Independent senator Lidia Thorpe told the Senate, where her comments are protected by parliamentary privilege. She said one man had followed her into a stairwell, where there were no witnesses or security cameras. “There are different understandings of what amounts to sexual assault. What I experienced was being followed, aggressivelypropositioned and inappropriately touched,” Thorpe said.

Parliament, she said, “is not a safe place for women”.

Thorpe said she would not complain to police or sue in court but had complained to theindependent Parliamentary Workplace Support Service.

Thorpe made the comments on Thursday, after the previous day accusing Liberal Party senator David Van of harassing and sexually assaulting her during the previous parliamentary term. Van strenuously denied the claims, describing them as “scandalous”.

But Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton suspended Van, stating that “further allegations” had been raised against him. Van remains a senator, but no longer represents the Liberal Party. Following Thorpe’s accusation, a former Liberal Party senator accused Van of “squeezing my bottom twice” in 2020. Amanda Stoker said Van had apologised. “I would’ve preferred that the matter be resolved privately and finally — as I thought it was. However, following Senator Thorpe’s allegations, it is now clear that is no longer tenable. ”

Thorpe’s claims follow numerous reports of sexual abuse and misconduct in parliament, which led to an independent inquiry into parliamentary workplace culture which found one in three people working there had experienced sexual harassment. In 2021, former political aide Brittany Higgins alleged that a fellow conservative staffer raped her on a couch in a cabinet minister’s parliamentary office following a night of heavy drinking in 2019. The Higgins case sparked national protests and a high-profile court case that ended in a mistrial.

AUSTRALIA SCRAPS LEASE FOR NEW RUSSIA EMBASSY CITING NATIONAL SECURITY

Sydney : Australia said on Thursday it would introduce legislation to parliament to cancel Russia’s lease to build anew embassy in the national capital of Canberra, citing national security, a move that was criticised by the Kremlin. The move follows the conclusion of a long-running litigation regarding the leased site after the federal court ruled last month that an eviction order made by the National Capital Authority —a government body tasked with the planning of the national capital — was invalid.

“The government has received very clear security advice as to the risk presented by a new Russian presence so close to parliament house,” PM Anthony Albanese said. “To be clear, today’s decision is one taken in the national security interests of Australia. ”The termination of the lease would have no impact on Russia’s existing embassy in Canberra. The Kremlin called the Australian move a hostile. “Australia is continuing to move forward as one of the authors of antiRussian hysteria rippling across the West,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Russia bought the lease in 2008 and had plans approved in 2011 but the National Capital Authority blamed the embassy for leaving the site unused. Home affairs minister Clare O’Neil said the “principal problem” with the proposed second Russian embassy was its location, as the site sits directly adjacent to the parliament house.

GREECE SCOURS SHIPWRECK SITE, 400-750 PEOPLE ON BOAT LIKELY

Kalamata : Rescuers scoured the seas off Greece on Thursday following a shipwreck that killed at least 79 migrants, as hopes of survivors dwindled and fears grew that hundreds more, including children, may have drowned trapped inside the crowded vessel’s hold. Reports suggested between 400 and 750 people had packed the fishing boat that capsized and sank early on Wednesday morning in deep waters about 50 miles (80 km) from the southern coastal town of Pylos. Greek authorities said 104 survivors had been brought ashore. As it began to flounder late on Tuesday night, people on the vessel’s crowded outer deck repeatedly turned down attempted assistance from a Greek coast guard boat that was shadowing it, saying they wanted to reach Italy, according to Greek authorities. As Greece declared three days of mourning, authorities said it was unclear how many had been aboard.

CYCLONE BIPARJOY: 82,000 PEOPLE EVACUATED IN PAK

Islamabad/Karachi : The coastal regions of Pakistan were on high alert on Thursday with over 82,000 people being evacuated to safer places in the southern Sindh province as Cyclone Biparjoy, currently classified as a “very severe cyclonic storm”, was expected to make landfall later tonight or after midnight.

Biparjoy, meaning disaster or calamity in Bengali, is inching closer to Pakistan, prompting authorities to take preventive measures.

In its latest updates, the Pakistan Meteorological Department Thursday evening said that the cyclone has moved further east-northeastward and now lies at a distance of about 245km south of Karachi, 200km south Thatta and 150km south of Keti Bandar. Climate change and environmental coordination minister Sherry Rehman said that cyclone Biparjoy had “slowed down” and will not make landfall before night.

However, she stressed that while the cyclone had "slowed down", its core was still "intense", and the areas identified earlier as vulnerable still needed to stay alert.

CANADA SUSPENDS TIES WITH CHINA BANK OVER CPC LINK

Beijing : Canada’s finance minister says it is suspending activity with a Chinese-founded development bank while it investigates complaints by a Canadian who resigned from the lender that it is dominated by “Communist Party hacks” and his country shouldn’t be a member. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank confirmed Wednesday that Bob Pickard resigned as its director general of global communications and rejected his criticism asunfounded.

The AIIB was founded in 2016 to finance railways and other infrastructure. It has 106 member governments including most Asian countries and Australia, Canada, Russia, France and Britain. Japan and the US aren’tmembers. “The government of Canada will immediately halt all government-led activity at the bank,” Chrystia Freeland, who also isdeputy PM, said in Ottawa.

Pickard said on Twitter that resigning was his only course as a “patriotic Canadian”. The resignation comes at atime when Communist Party leader Xi Jinping is tightening control over China’s government and pushing private sector companies to align with the party’s development plans. The Chinese embassy in Ottawa in a statement rejected Pickard’s comments as “pure sensationalism and a lie. ”

PAK ALLOWS WOMEN HAJ WITHOUT MALE GUARDIAN

Islamabad : Pakistan has given women conditional permission for Haj without being accompanied by a close male relative, known as mehram, making it easier for those who could not do so due to strict social conditions. Saudi Arabia had last year allowed women of all ages to make the annual Mecca pilgrimage without a mehram on the condition that they go in a group. Since there were diverse opinions on the issue among various Islamic schools of thought, Pakistan’s religious affairs ministry had sought opinion of the Council of Islamic Ideology. The council is the constitutional body tasked with giving legal advice on religious matters to the government and parliament.

The council explained that the Jafri, Maliki, and Shafi’i schools of thought permit Hajfor women without a mehram but the Hanafi and Hanbali schools insist on a male relative — husband, son or father. The council proposed that a woman could go for Haj without a mehram if allowed by her parents or husband. “A woman who enjoyed the company of reliable women and the one who did not feel insecure while travelling or during the pilgrimage could perform Haj without a mehram,” it noted.