WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden on Thursday defended his decision to pull US forces out of Afghanistan, saying the Afghan people must decide their own future, rather than sacrificing another generation of Americans in an unwinnable war. Speaking in the White House, Biden said the Afghan military has the ability to repel the Taliban, whose major […]
TEHRAN: Iran on Wednesday hosted the first significant talks in months between Taliban and Afghan government representatives, a surprise meeting that comes as the US completes its withdrawal from Afghanistan and districts fall to the Taliban across the country. The high-level peace talks between the warring sides follow months-old discussions in Qatar that have been […]
MOSCOW: Russia on Sunday counted more than 25,000 new daily infections after a week of record death tolls as the highly contagious Delta variant propels a global resurgence of the pandemic. The coronavirus has killed nearly four million people worldwide, forcing numerous nations to reimpose restrictions well over a year after the outbreak of the […]
Turkey’s foreign ministry has slammed a United States report on human trafficking that criticised Ankara for providing “operational, equipment, and financial support” to an armed militia in Syria that recruits child soldiers. In a statement late on Friday, the Turkish foreign ministry said it “completely rejects” the claim and its record is clean. The statement also accuses […]
Israeli fighter jets struck Gaza overnight in response to incendiary balloons launched over the frontier into Israel, the military said early on Friday. There were no immediate reports of casualties from the strike, which the Israeli military said targeted a facility used by Hamas fighters to research and develop weapons. It was the third time […]
GENEVA: China was certified as malaria-free on Wednesday by the World Health Organisation, following a 70-year effort to eradicate the mosquito-borne disease. The country reported 30 million cases of the infectious disease annually in the 1940s but has now gone four consecutive years without an indigenous case. “We congratulate the people of China on ridding […]
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appealed to US President Joe Biden’s administration to lift or waive all sanctions on Iran as agreed under a 2015 deal aimed at stopping Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon. In a report to the UN Security Council, Guterres also urged the United States to “extend the waivers with regard to the […]
DUBAI: Iran said on Monday it has yet to decide whether to extend a monitoring deal with the UN nuclear watchdog which lapsed last week, amid Washington’s warning that Tehran’s failure to renew it would complicate talks to revive its 2015 nuclear accord. “No decision has been made yet, either negative or positive, about extending […]
MOSCOW: Moscow on Sunday recorded its worst daily coronavirus death toll and Indonesia saw more than 21,000 infections in a day, also a record, as countries across the Asia-Pacific region extended or reimposed restrictions to tackle fresh waves of cases. The pandemic has now killed close to four million people across the world but vaccination […]
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden met Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his former political foe, Abdullah Abdullah, on Friday to discuss Washington’s support for Afghanistan as the last US troops pack up after 20 years of war and government forces struggle to repel Taliban advances. Biden, seated beside Ghani and Abdullah in the Oval Office, […]