Category: World

NEW DELHI: Indian lawyers have been told to smarten up their act after some appeared in virtual hearings in colourful shirts, just a vest or even while riding a scooter. The Allahabad High Court in Uttar Pradesh state said Wednesday that cyberspace was like an extended courtroom and the casual attire and behaviour were unacceptable. Most courts in India have been functioning virtually since last March when the country imposed a months-long pandemic lockdown to contain the spread of Covid-19. “Advocates should understand that their appearance for hearing of cases through virtual mode from their house or office or chamber is like an extended court room and it is as serious as attending a proceeding inside a court,” news channel NDTV quoted the court order as saying. It ordered advocates to adhere to the dress code that includes a white shirt for men and white saris for women. The court said that in recent times it had encountered “a lady advocate with face pack on”, a lawyer “while driving scooter”, and one advocate “wearing a vest” and warned that it will not “ignore any more casual appearances”. Yogendra Swaroop, former chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Bar council, said the order was necessary to maintain the sanctity of the courtroom. “There are certain norms to be followed in a court and dressing is one of them,” Swaroop told AFP. India”s virtual court hearings like elsewhere — like the viral Zoom video of a US lawyer stuck with a cat filter — has too witnessed several faux pas. Last year, a lawyer was seen smoking a water pipe during a hearing and another gobbling down his lunch while a third advocate told a Supreme Court judge, “who are you, brother?”

LONDON: More than six million EU citizens have applied to stay in the UK after Brexit, the government said Friday, nearly twice the number thought be living in Britain before it left the bloc. There was a late flurry of applications ahead of a June 30 deadline for the settlement scheme, designed to allow EU citizens residing in the UK to retain the same rights as they enjoyed before Brexit. But since the end of the Brexit transition period on January 1, EU citizens wishing to settle or stay have faced tougher tests to secure residency and employment. The final figure of 6.02 million applications, with 5.1 million grants of status, is far higher than the 3.7 million EU nationals originally estimated to be in the country when the scheme launched in March 2019. More than 400,000 applications were made in the final month before the scheme ended, the Home Office said, adding that those who had missed the deadline on “reasonable grounds” could still make a late application. “When we left the EU we promised to protect the rights of EU citizens who have made their life in the UK, and developed the hugely successful EU Settlement Scheme to ensure they could call the UK home in the years to come,” Home Secretary Priti Patel said. The government has touted the settlement scheme as the successful delivery of promises made to EU nationals in the UK after Britain”s withdrawal from the bloc in December and the end of free movement. However immigration rights campaigners have complained that the most vulnerable — including children placed in care, young adults previously in care, the homeless and the elderly — have been allowed to slip through the scheme”s net. Minister for Future Borders and Immigration Kevin Foster said the government had built “safeguards” into the scheme “to protect those who have not yet applied, but who may still be eligible” and “everybody will be able to get the status they deserve”.

LONDON: Princes William and Harry set aside their differences on Thursday to unveil a new statue of their mother, Princess Diana, on what would have been her 60th birthday. The brothers took the wraps off the tribute in the garden of Diana´s former London home at Kensington Palace, in a stripped-back ceremony due to the coronavirus pandemic. When the project was announced in 2017, William, 39, and Harry, 36, said they hoped it would help visitors reflect on their mother´s “life and her legacy”. Diana, who died aged 36 in 1997 in a high-speed Paris car crash, remains an enduring source of fascination. On Tuesday, her 1981 Ford Escort — an engagement present from Prince Charles — was sold at auction to a South American museum for over £50,000 ($69,200, 58,100 euros). But despite royal aides describing Thursday´s ceremony as a “very personal” family event, all eyes will be on her sons for any signs of visible tension. As young boys, the brothers provided the enduring image from Diana´s funeral, as they walked, heads bowed, behind her coffin past hushed crowds in central London. When they assumed more royal duties as adults, they shared household staff and frequently appeared together to promote mutual causes, many of which were championed by their mother. For a time, the brothers and their wives were dubbed “The Fab Four”, seen as modernising the royal family and making it more appealing to a younger generation. But their once-close relationship has visibly soured. Royal biographer Robert Lacey has even called the bad blood the most serious royal conflict for generations. There have always been tensions between the so-called “heir and the spare”, he said in publicity for his new book “Battle of Brothers”, “but nothing so profound as this”.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan”s consulate general in Dubai launched a new application to streamline consular and welfare services for members of the Pakistani community in the United Arab Emirates. The smartphone app, PakInDubai, will be available for Pakistanis in Dubai and the northern emirates of Sharjah, Ras Al-Khaimah, Umm Al-Quwain and Ajman, giving access to the consulate”s services such as document attestation, issuance of identity documents, transportation of the deceased, information on services for foreign remittance card holders and legal advice, Arab news reported . “Community can now take appointments for consular services via this application, check documents requirements and fees etc. , without physically visiting consulate general of Pakistan. Applicants can also check the status of their documents through this application,” said Consul General Ahmed Amjad Ali during the launch event at the consulate. Another key component of the app, he added, is to help in the verification of job letters and other documents. “Many Pakistanis were facing trouble because of fake job letters and have traveled on fake UAE visas and upon arrival in the UAE, have found themselves stranded. We take this responsibility and within seven days, we will offer a verification,” Ali said. More than 1.2 million Pakistanis live and work in the UAE. With the app, they no longer will have to travel from other emirates to visit the Dubai consulate for basic services. “This facility will save their time and money and provide all services from the comfort of their homes,” Ali said, adding that the app also allows members of the Pakistani diaspora to file complaints over the work of consulate staff or other departments.

NEW DELHI: Two brothers pulled off a sweet escape from a leopard in India by throwing a birthday cake at the animal as it chased them while they rode a motorbike, officials said Thursday. “Your first instinct when you sense danger is to do whatever you can to save yourself. That”s what they did,” a forest official told media. “They had a cake with them and they threw it at the leopard. “According to the Times of India, Firoz and Sabir Mansuri were heading at dusk to a birthday party for Firoz”s son in Madhya Pradesh state when the leopard burst out of a sugarcane field. They accelerated but the big cat gained on them on the muddy path, leaving Sabir, riding pillion, no other option than to lob the box containing the cake at the predator. Hit by the “weapon of sweet distraction”, the flummoxed feline gave up its chase and darted back into the fields — and without even trying the cake, the paper said. “The leopard followed us for over 500 metres (yards). We narrowly escaped death,” it quoted Sabir as saying. Leopard numbers in India grew more than 60 percent between 2014 and 2018 to almost 13,000, according to the government, with the highest numbers in Madhya Pradesh.

BRUSSELS: A Belgian F-16 jet collided with a building at Leeuwarden Air Base in the Netherlands on Thursday morning, injuring two people, the Dutch and Belgian authorities said. “On Thursday morning an incident took place with an F-16 fighter aircraft at Leeuwarden Air Base,” the Dutch Air Force confirmed. “The pilot sustained a leg injury and was transferred to hospital for treatment. A member of the Belgian technical staff who was present during the incident was also taken to hospital as a precaution”, the Belgian Defense said in a statement. A team from the Ministry of Defense”s Aviation Safety Investigation Board (ASIB) will travel to Leeuwarden to conduct a flight safety investigation, the Belgian Defense said on Twitter. The pilot was participating in the Weapons Instructor Course (WIC) at Leeuwarden Air Base, according to the Belgian Defense.

STRASBOURG, France: The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday dismissed a case brought by the widow and daughter of Yasser Arafat, who have claimed the iconic Palestinian leader”s death was the result of poisoning. Suha El Kodwa Arafat and Zahwa El Kodwa Arafat, who are French citizens, filed their case with the Strasbourg-based European court in 2017 after French courts dismissed their claims. Arafat died at the Percy military hospital near Paris aged 75 in November 2004 after developing stomach pains while at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Many Palestinians accuse Israel of poisoning Arafat, a charge flatly denied by the Jewish state. But in 2012 his widow, Suha El Kodwa Arafat, said traces of the radioactive isotope polonium 210 had been found on his clothes, prompting a French lawsuit alleging his murder. After a series of analyses and witness interviews, a court in Nanterre, west of Paris, dismissed the case, a ruling upheld on appeal. Lawyers for Arafat”s widow said the investigation had been “fundamentally biased” and accused the judges of closing the probe too quickly. Arafat”s wife and daughter turned to the European court in 2017, saying they had been refused their right to a fair hearing, in particular a refusal of their request for an additional expert report on his death. In a unanimous decision, three judges said that after reviewing the case, “at all stages of the proceedings the applicants, assisted by their lawyers, had been able to exercise their rights effectively”.

OTTAWA: At least 233 people have died amid sweltering heat in British Columbia province of Canada since a record-breaking heat wave began to hit western Canada last Friday, local media reported Wednesday. To have a heat wave last this long and be this hot in Canada is completely unprecedented in history. The heat wave saw stores in British Columbia sell out of air conditioners and fans. Hotels in Vancouver were fully booked on Monday, drawing locals desperate for escape. Police in Metro Vancouver said Tuesday they had responded to more than 100 sudden deaths since the heat wave took hold. Cities in British Columbia in western Canada broke at least 59 previous temperature records, including Lytton, where Canada-wide records have been set and broken in rapid succession.