WORLD

As China braces for a new phase in its battle against Covid after Beijing dropped pandemic border controls in the latest easing of curbs, it has asked doctors to avoid listing the infection as the cause of death. 

Meanwhile, Serum Institute of India's Chief Executive Officer Adar Poonawalla has said their Covovax vaccine will get approval as a booster against Covid in the next 10 to 15 days. However, several nations, including India and the US, are continuing with their travel curbs for international flyers. 

Snowpiercer, the lone remaining scripted series on TNT, is now the latest show to be scrapped in Warner Bros. Discovery’s ongoing content write-offs.

The show’s fourth and final season will not air on TNT despite production having been completed.

“TNT will not air season four of Snowpiercer,” a network spokesperson said in a statement. “This was a difficult decision, but our admiration for the talented writers, actors and crew who brought Snowpiercer’s extraordinary post-apocalyptic world to life remains strong. We have been working collaboratively with the producers since last year to help the series find a new home where fans can continue to enjoy the compelling story and exceptional visual experience. We look forward to working with them on future projects.”

The Salinas River in California began to overflow its banks on Friday morning, flooding highways leading to surrounding settlements where more than 24,000 people were ordered to evacuate as yet another storm battered the state.

Farmers worked quickly to build berms to defend their fields in Monterey County, right off California's central coast, while people piled sandbags or fled before rising water shut off access to their homes.

After a UK media report claimed that bombs from the Myanmarese military were dropped on the Indian side of the border, sources in the Indian defence establishment denied the attack. No operation or action took place on Indian territory, the defence establishment sources told news agency PTI. Reports claimed that the Myanmar military launched an air strike on a training camp for pro-democracy forces, which resulted in two bombs falling on the Indian side.

The Guardian, quoting eyewitnesses, reported that the Myanmar military launched an airstrike on a prominent training camp for pro-democracy forces close to the Indian border, with jets dropping at least two bombs inside Indian territory. Two locals on the Indian side in Farkawan village, located in the state of Mizoram, said that two bombs were dropped on the Indian side of the border but no one was hurt, the report further added. 

Ishaq Dar, Pakistan's finance minister, stated on Wednesday that about 90% of the international community's promises for the flood-affected nation were project loans that will be disbursed over the following three years. His comments come two days after the international world promised around $10 billion at a donors' summit in Geneva to assist the cash-strapped nation in rebuilding after last year's devastating floods in a climate-resilient way.

The summit, which lasted the entire day and was co-hosted by Pakistan and the UN in Geneva on Monday, brought together representatives from almost 40 nations as well as private donors and international financial organisations.