LONDON: Muhammad Khurram Khan, a senior Pakistani politician and scion of a well-known political family from Mansehra, Abbotabad, has gone on trial in the UK after being charged with child sex offences. Details have emerged of how Muhammad Khurram Khan, aged 60, arrived in the UK earlier this year to attend his son’s law graduation ceremony but engaged allegedly with a child for sexual purposes – and got caught by the detectives. The prosecution at the Kingston Crown Court told the judge that Khurram has been charged with two counts: “attempted sexual communications with a child” and “arranging or facilitating…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
For Ukrainian gun commander Oleksandr Kozachenko, the long-awaited US ammunition can’t come fast enough as he and his comrades struggle to hold off relentless Russian attacks. His unit’s US-supplied M777 howitzer, which once hurled 100 shells a day at the encroaching enemy, is now often reduced to fewer than 10. “It’s a luxury if we can fire 30 shells.” America says it’s rushing ammunition and weapons to Ukraine following the delayed approval of a $61 billion aid package by Congress last month. As of early May, though, two artillery units visited by Reuters on the eastern frontline said they were…
At least 50 people are dead following a fresh bout of heavy rain and flooding in central Afghanistan, an official said on Saturday. Mawlawi Abdul Hai Zaeem, the head of the information department for the central Ghor province, told Reuters that there was no information about how many people were injured in the rain spell that began on Friday, which had also cut off many key roads to the area. Zaeem added that 2,000 houses were completely destroyed, 4,000 partially damaged, and more than 2,000 shops were under water in the province’s capital, Feroz-Koh. Last week, flash floods caused by…
TORONTO: Some Canadian provinces have logged a jump in unclaimed dead bodies in recent years, with next of kin citing funeral costs as a growing reason for not collecting loved ones’ remains. The phenomenon has prompted at least one province to build a new storage facility. Demand for memorial fundraisers has surged. The overall cost of a funeral in Canada at the top end has increased to about $8,800 from about $6,000 in 1998, according to industry trade group estimates. In Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, the number of unclaimed dead bodies rose to 1,183 in 2023 from 242 in…
KATHMANDU: Rescuers found the body of a second Mongolian climber who went missing on Mount Everest, expedition organisers said Sunday, confirming the second fatality on the world’s highest peak this mountaineering season. Usukhjargal Tsedendamba, 53, and Purevsuren Lkhagvajav, 31, were last in contact Sunday evening from Camp 4, which is situated less than a kilometre (0.6 miles) below the summit. Tsedendamba’s body was found around an altitude of 8,600 metres (28,215 feet) on Friday morning after days of search and rescue operations that had been hampered by bad weather. “The second body was also found on Friday, but needed verification.…
RIYADH: Prince Mohammed bin Salman and US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met in Saudi Arabia’s eastern city of Dhahran to discuss a “semi-final” version of strategic agreements between the two countries, official Saudi media reported on Sunday. The agreements are considered a major part of Washington’s efforts to bring Riyadh around to recognising the state of Israel for the first time — efforts complicated by the ongoing war in Gaza. Prince Mohammed, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, and Sullivan discussed “the semi-final version of the draft strategic agreements between the Kingdom and the United States of America, the work…
DUBAI: Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz will undergo medical tests on Sunday due to “high temperature and joint pain”, state news agency SPA reported. The examinations will be conducted at the royal clinics at Al Salam Palace in Jeddah. The king, 88, was last admitted to hospital in April for a routine checkup, state TV reported then. King Salman, the custodian of Islam’s holiest sites, became ruler of the world’s top oil exporter in 2015 after spending more than 2 1/2 years as the crown prince and deputy premier. On April 25, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz underwent…
GAZA: A Gaza hospital said Sunday that an Israeli air strike targeting a house at a refugee camp in the centre of the Palestinian territory killed at least 20 people. “We received 20 fatalities and several wounded after an Israeli air strike targeted a house belonging to the Hassan family in Al-Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza,” the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said in a statement. Witnesses said the strike occurred around 3:00 am local time. The Israeli army said it was checking the report. Palestinian official news agency Wafa reported that the wounded included several children, and rescuers were searching…
Roughly 800,000 people have been forced to flee Rafah since Israel launched a military offensive on 6 May, the head of the UN Palestine Refugee Agency (UNRWA) said Saturday in a renewed appeal for greater protection of civilians in besieged Gaza, safe humanitarian access and, ultimately, a ceasefire. Once again, nearly half of the population of Rafah or 800,000 people are on the road, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini wrote in his post on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter. He said that following evacuation orders demanding people to flee to so-called safe zones, people mainly went to the middle…
BRATISLAVA, Slovakia: Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s life is no longer in danger following an assassination attempt, Deputy Prime Minister Robert Kalinak said on Sunday. Fico has been in hospital since Wednesday when a lone gunman shot him four times, including in the abdomen. “He has emerged from the immediate threat to his life, but his condition remains serious, and he requires intensive care,” Kalinak, Fico’s closest political ally, told reporters The Slovak premier underwent a five-hour surgery on Wednesday and another surgery on Friday, both at a hospital in the central city of Banska Bystrica. “We can consider his…
