HONG KONG: Hong Kong has overcome its challenges and “risen from the ashes”, China’s President Xi Jinping said on Thursday, as he arrived in the former British colony to celebrate 25 years since its return to Chinese rule. Xi will swear in the global financial hub’s new leader, John Lee, on Friday during his first […]
DOHA: Iran said it was “serious” about nuclear talks with the United States but that negotiations could end after just two days on Wednesday, as they try to revive a landmark deal. The indirect negotiations in Qatar are an attempt to reboot long-running European Union-mediated talks on a return to the 2015 nuclear agreement between […]
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden’s administration added five companies in China to a trade blacklist on Tuesday for allegedly supporting Russia’s military and defence industrial base, flexing its muscle to enforce sanctions against Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. The Commerce Department, which oversees the trade blacklist, said the targeted companies had supplied items to Russian […]
At least 46 migrants were found dead on Monday in and around a truck that was abandoned on the roadside on the outskirts of the Texas city of San Antonio. The grim discovery was one of the worst disasters involving migrants in the United States in recent years — and came five years after a […]
KYIV: Russian missiles hit an apartment block and kindergarten in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Sunday, in strikes US President Joe Biden condemned as “barbarism” as world leaders gathered in Europe to discuss further sanctions against Moscow. Up to four explosions shook central Kyiv in the early hours, in the first such attack on the […]
Beijing on Saturday said it would allow primary and secondary schools to resume in-person classes and Shanghai’s top party boss declared victory over Covid after the city reported zero new local cases for the first time in two months. The two major cities were among several places in China that implemented curbs to stop the […]
A bipartisan package of modest gun safety measures passed the US Senate late on Thursday even as the Supreme Court broadly expanded gun rights by ruling Americans have a constitutional right to carry handguns in public for self-defense. The landmark court ruling and Senate action on gun safety illustrate the deep divide over firearms in […]
• Over 1,000 said to be killed, hundreds injured by tremor with epicentre around Paktika, Khost provinces • Many remote areas cut off, hospitals packed with injured • Pakistan sends first batch of relief supplies, urges world not to ‘link help with politics’ • US and UN considering aid options KABUL: A deadly 6.1 magnitude […]
An earthquake of magnitude 6.1 that rocked Afghanistan has killed at least 280 people in the country’s east, officials of the interior ministry said on Wednesday, adding that hundreds of people were injured and the toll was likely to rise as information trickled in from remote mountain villages. Most of the confirmed deaths were in […]
JERUSALEM: Israel is building a US-sponsored regional air defence alliance, the Israeli defence minister said on Monday, adding that the apparatus has already foiled attempted Iranian attacks and could be boosted by President Joe Biden’s visit next month. Drawing closer in recent years to US-aligned Arab states which share its Iran concerns, Israel has offered […]