HONOLULU: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met his Japanese and South Korean counterparts on Saturday in Hawaii to discuss the threat posed by nuclear-armed North Korea after Pyongyang began the year with a series of missile tests. Blinken said at a news conference after the meeting that North Korea was in a phase of provocation and the three countries condemned the recent missile launches. We are absolutely united in our approach, in our determination, Blinken said after his talks with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong. The three released a joint statement calling…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
DOHA: A Taliban delegation arrived in Doha on Sunday in a new bid to convince governments to provide humanitarian aid, six months after the hardline Islamists toppled Afghanistan’s Western-backed regime, officials said. The delegation, led by Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, will meet with the EU delegation in Doha, diplomatic missions and officials from Gulf countries, the Taliban’s foreign ministry said on Twitter. Their arrival in Doha was confirmed by international sources including a spokesman for the British government, and the trip comes as Afghanistan’s aid-starved economy sinks deeper into an unprecedented crisis. The latest bid to unlock aid follows meetings…
JERUSALEM: Israeli police clashed with Palestinians in the flashpoint east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah on Sunday, during a visit by a controversial far-right Jewish lawmaker that inflamed tensions. Police said they arrested eight people during the day for suspected involvement in “public riots and violence,” in the area of annexed east Jerusalem that has emerged as a symbol of Palestinian resistance against Israeli control of the city. Scuffles broke out as Itamar Ben Gvir of the far-right Religious Zionism alliance opened a parliamentary office in Sheikh Jarrah, in what he described as an effort to show support for its…
WASHINGTON: Russia could invade Ukraine at any time and might create a surprise pretext for an attack, the United States said on Sunday, as it reaffirmed a pledge to defend “every inch” of Nato territory. Russia has more than 100,000 troops massed near Ukraine, which is not part of the Atlantic military alliance, and Washington — while keeping open the diplomatic channels that have so far failed to ease the crisis — has repeatedly said an invasion is imminent. Moscow denies any such plans and has accused the West of “hysteria”. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, on the eve of a…
A state in southern India reopened some schools on Monday that had been closed following protests last week over female students not being allowed to wear hijabs in class. The issue, widely seen by India’s Muslim minority community as a bid to sideline it by authorities in a Hindu-dominated nation, comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) prepares for elections in key states. Police stood guard as students in pink uniforms, about a dozen wearing hijabs, entered a government girl’s school where the issue first flared in Karnataka state’s district of Udupi, about 400 kilometres from the tech hub…
Israeli forces have shot dead a 17-year-old Palestinian in West Bank clashes during what Israel on Monday described as an operation to demolish the home of a ‘terrorist’ suspected of a recent attack. The Palestinian health ministry said Mohammad Abu Salah was killed in the village of Silat al-Harithiya near the flashpoint town of Jenin in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israel’s army in a statement said its troops along with border police had entered the village “to demolish the floor of the residence in which the terrorist Mohammad Jaradat resided”. It claimed Jaradat and others had carried out the recent…
ISLAMABAD: The provision of official security protocol to recently retired chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) Gulzar Ahmed has been challenged in the Islamabad High Court (IHC), which is likely to take up the petition this week. The petition contended that the government had granted Mr Ahmed heavy security on taxpayers’ money even though the number of pending cases increased by 10,000 during his tenure and Pakistan had been downgraded in the global rule of law index, falling to 130th rank out of 139 countries. The petition also cited a previous IHC order as a legal precedent in which the court declared official…
HYDERABAD: Grieving members of Bhand community, supported by various political and nationalist parties, on Sunday refused to bury their dead until members of the Zardari clan who had allegedly killed them in an armed attack a day earlier in riverine area of Qazi Ahmed were brought to justice. Their protest sit-in on the National Highway led by Syed Zain Shah, Sindh United Party (SUP) secretary general, had been continuing for around 40 hours near Nawab Wali Mohammad town, 15 kilometres from Qazi Ahmed till late in the evening. The aggrieved relatives had kept bodies of their dead loved ones on…
LAHORE: Former President Asif Ali Zardari fell ill here on Sunday and cancelled all his political engagements for the day. The PPP co-chairperson was taken to a private hospital in Bahria Town where he stayed for some time and returned to Bilawal House after his medical check-up and some tests. Mr Zardari along with a delegation of the party was to meet Jamaat-i-Islami emir Sirajul Haq in Mansoora in the evening. However, the meeting was cancelled and both sides agreed to fix a new date for the meeting when Mr Zardari would recover. The PPP leader has been meeting various…
KARACHI: Hundreds of workers of Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) led by its chief Manzoor Pashteen staged a rally from Sohrab Goth to the Sindh Assembly on Sunday demanding release of MNA Ali Wazir. The participants in the rally staged a sit-in outside the Sindh Assembly building later in the evening. Police placed barricades and containers in ‘red zone’, but allowed the rally to proceed towards the assembly building where it was turned into a sit-in. Adjoining roads including Sarwar Shaheed Road, Club Road and Dr Ziauddin Ahmed Road were closed to traffic due to security reasons. The rally started from…
