IRAQ: Eight rockets were fired at the US embassy in Baghdad on Sunday night.

One Iraqi security guard was injured and there was damage to a building and some cars, Iraqi authorities said.

The US embassy said it had deployed its C-Ram defence system to take out the rockets.

It has reduced personnel ahead of the first anniversary of the illegal US killing of Iranian General Qassim Soleimani, as it fears Shi’ite organisations may seek vengeance.

EUROPEAN UNION: The European Medicines Agency recommended conditional approval for a coronavirus vaccine developed by BioNTech and Pfizer today, following its earlier authorisation in Britain and the US.

The regulator is recommending the shot be licensed for use in over-16s.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen tweeted that the EU would soon “deliver safe and effective vaccines to Europeans.”

PAKISTAN: The government warned India today against carrying out “false flag” attacks in Kashmir following an attack on a UN vehicle on Friday.

Pakistan says India staged the attack to discredit its neighbour with the United Nations.

The Foreign Ministry said it has “credible information that India was planning to stage a ‘false flag’ attack to divert attention from its domestic difficulties, and create justification for another misadventure against Pakistan.”

SOUTH AMERICA: The parliament of the Mercosur trade bloc has announced an investigation into Organisation of American States (OAS) chief Luis Almagro over his role in last year’s military coup in Bolivia.

Parlasur president Oscar Laborde said the OAS’s bogus claims of electoral irregularities that cast doubt on the overwhelming victory of Evo Morales in the 2019 election were “a brazen thing.”

Mr Morales’s overthrow led to a year-long dictatorship by the far-right and the massacre of scores of indigenous Bolivians.