WASHINGTON: The US on Friday expressed “deep concern” over a Pakistani court’s order to release British-born al-Qaeda leader Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and his three aides, who were convicted and sentenced in the abduction and murder case of American journalist Daniel Pearl. In a surprise move, a two-judge bench of the Sindh High Court on […]
BEIJING: China said on Friday that there was no “link” between the situation of Indian crew on two stranded ships at Chinese ports and its strained relations with India and Australia. The external affairs ministry on Thursday said in New Delhi that two cargo vessels with a total of 39 Indians on board have been […]
KABUL: A roadside bomb tore through a vehicle in the Afghan capital of Kabul Tuesday, killing at least five people, four of them doctors, police said. The doctors worked at the Puli Charkhi prison, Kabul’s main penitentiary, and were killed as they were on the way to their office in the city’s Doghabad neighbourhood. It […]
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan government has cancelled the licences of 50 pilots for flying with fake credentials and authorities will probe how they obtained the certificates through unfair means, the country’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has informed a top court here. The issue of fake licences surfaced in the wake of the tragic crash of a […]
WASHINGTON: Urging the international community to demand transparency from China about the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, the US has accused Beijing of “obstructing” a WHO probe into the origin of the deadly virus in the central Chinese city of Wuhan and “peddling” questionable vaccines one year after the disease broke out. The US leads […]
WASHINGTON: The top US military officer pressed the Taliban to reduce violence in a rare meeting on Thursday as outgoing President Donald Trump seeks to hasten the end of the nearly 20-year war. Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met Taliban representatives in Qatar and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul. […]
TEHRAN: Iran has begun construction on a site at its underground nuclear facility at Fordo amid tensions with the US over its atomic program, satellite photos obtained Friday by The Associated Press show. Iran has not publicly acknowledged any new construction at Fordo, whose discovery by the West in 2009 came in an earlier round […]
KABUL: The top US general held unannounced talks with Taliban peace negotiators in the Persian Gulf to urge a reduction in violence across Afghanistan, even as senior American officials in Kabul warned that stepped-up Taliban attacks endanger the militant group’s nascent peace negotiations with the Afghan government. Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the […]
BEIJING: China’s Chang’e-5 probe successfully touched down on Earth in the early hours of Thursday, bringing home the first samples of the moon in over 40 years. The spacecraft landed in Siziwang Banner in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region at 1:59 AM (local time), according to the China National Space Administration (CNSA). Zhang Kejian, […]
BRUSSELS: The global scheme to deliver Covid-19 vaccines to poorer countries faces a “very high” risk of failure, potentially leaving nations home to billions of people with no access to vaccines until as late as 2024, internal documents say. The World Health Organization’s COVAX programme is the main global scheme to vaccinate people in poor […]