WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump used 9/11 remembrance commemorations Wednesday to announce an unprecedented escalation of the US military assault on Afghanistan’s Taliban — just days after he wanted to hold peace talks with the insurgents.Speaking at a Pentagon ceremony marking the 18th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, Trump said that…
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump used 9/11 remembrance commemorations Wednesday to announce an unprecedented escalation of the US military assault on Afghanistan’s Taliban — just days after he wanted to hold peace talks with the insurgents.Speaking at a Pentagon ceremony marking the 18th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, Trump said that…
PARIS: French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has received three letters containing death threats, including one this week with bullets enclosed, one of his aides said on Wednesday. It was not immediately clear who sent the threats or what their motive was, but the letters had coincided with an increase in violence toward politicians, the…
TAIPEI: A Canadian frigate was passing through the Taiwan Strait on Tuesday, Taiwanese and Canadian authorities said, in the latest of a string of such voyages likely to provoke Beijing.Taiwan’s defense ministry said it was closely monitoring as the Canadian warship sailed through the narrow waterway separating the island and the Chinese mainland in a…
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Tuesday he fired national security adviser John Bolton, citing strong disagreements on a number of policy issues.Trump tweeted that he told Bolton Monday night his services were no longer needed at the White House and said Bolton submitted his resignation on Tuesday morning. Trump said that he “disagreed strongly” with…
GENEVA: Pakistan’s foreign minister demanded Tuesday that the UN launch an investigation into the situation in Indian Kashmir, warning that a “genocide” could be looming in the Muslim-majority region.“The people of Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir are apprehending the worst,” Shah Mehmood Qureshi told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, adding that “I shudder…
JUBA: South Sudan’s exiled rebel leader Riek Machar arrived in Juba on Monday for the first time in a year and held rare talks with President Salva Kiir as the rivals try to salvage a stalled peace agreement.Machar landed in the capital in a Sudanese plane, preceded by two jets carrying a large delegation of…
LONDON: Britain’s House of Commons Speaker John Bercow, who played a key role in the three-year Brexit crisis, said on Monday he would stand down from the role, issuing a warning to the government not to “degrade” parliament.Bercow bent parliamentary rules to give lawmakers the chance to challenge government policy, most recently to pass a…
MOSCOW: France said Monday that the time had come to start easing tensions with Russia as senior ministers held four-way talks in Moscow not seen since the crisis over Ukraine broke out.French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said there was a “window of opportunity” for resolving the Ukraine conflict after a landmark prisoner exchange on…
WASHINGTON: Talks on bringing peace to Afghanistan are on hold and the United States will keep pressuring Taliban militants for significant commitments while providing military support to Afghan troops, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday.US President Donald Trump unexpectedly announced on Saturday that he had canceled peace talks with the Taliban’s “major leaders”…
Pope Francis in Madagascar insists: ‘Poverty is not inevitable’ The Catholic primate spoke at a rock quarry in Madagascar where hundreds of people toil rather than scavenge in the capital’s biggest dump Despite Madagascar’s vast and unique natural resources, it is one of the poorest countries in the world Updated 19 min 32 sec ago…
MANILA: A militant wearing a traditional black Muslim woman’s gown was killed in a suicide bombing attack Sunday on a military detachment in the southern Philippines that failed to inflict any other deaths or injuries, officials said.The suicide attacker tried but failed to enter a detachment in Sulu province’s Indanan town and died when a…
ASSAM: The northeastern Indian state of Assam is building a detention center to house thousands of stateless citizens.On Aug. 31 the state released its final list of the National Register of Citizenship (NRC), an exercise in establishing the genuine citizens of Assam. Out of 32 million people, about two million were not on the list.Those…
ROME: Italian prosecutors said Saturday they had issued arrest warrants for 10 people, including an imam, suspected of being part of a network financing terrorism.The eight Tunisians and two Italians are suspected of having set up false bank accounts and businesses to move large sums of money and avoid taxes, said the prosecutors’ office in…
ROME: Italian prosecutors said Saturday they had issued arrest warrants for 10 people, including an imam, suspected of being part of a network financing terrorism.The eight Tunisians and two Italians are suspected of having set up false bank accounts and businesses to move large sums of money and avoid taxes, said the prosecutors’ office in…
COPENHAGEN: Norway’s domestic security agency warned Friday about the possibility of a terror attack from right-wing extremists “in the coming year.”In a statement, the PST agency said it “now considers it possible that Norwegian right-wing extremists will try to carry out terrorist acts in the coming year.”The agency said its heightened assessment stemmed from the…
ISLAMABAD: A high-level Saudi delegation held talks with Pakistani officials in Islamabad to discuss ways of enhancing cooperation between the two countries in various fields, especially in the fields of refining, mining and renewable energy.The Pakistani side was represented in the talks by Minister for Power and Petroleum Omar Ayub Khan, while the Kingdom's delegation…
LONDON: Britain’s Prince Harry will make a poignant visit to Angola this month to visit the land mine clearance project that featured in some of the most famous photographs of his late mother Princess Diana.The pictures of Diana wearing protective gear as she walked among red skull-and-crossbone signs in 1997 won vital publicity for the…
MANILA: An American woman who attempted to carry a 6-day-old baby out of the Philippines hidden inside a sling bag has been arrested at Manila's airport and charged with human trafficking, officials said Thursday.They said Jennifer Erin Talbot was able to pass through the airport immigration counter on Wednesday without declaring the baby boy but…
KABUL: NATO said two of its servicemen — a Romanian and an American — were among 12 people killed on Thursday after a Taliban suicide bomber detonated a vehicle outside a checkpoint near a heavily fortified part of the Afghan capital.“Two Resolute Support service members were killed in action … in Kabul,” NATO said in…
