International

08-03-2023 Bureau Report + Agencies GENEVA/ KABUL/ ISLAMABAD: The Taliban’s treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan could amount to a crime against humanity, according to a UN report presented on Monday at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. The Taliban seized power in August 2021, drastically curtailing women’s freedoms …

08-03-2023 OTTAWA: A Canadian girl and boy born over four months premature and not expected to survive have celebrated their first birthday with a Guinness World Records nod as the world’s most premature twins. Adiah and Adrial Nadarajah were born on March 4, 2022 at the gestational age of 22 …

08-03-2023 BEIJING: China’s foreign minister Qin Gang has blamed the United States for rising tensions between Washington and Beijing, warning that no number of preventive measures could avert a confrontation if the US does not change paths. The US had engaged in suppression and containment of China rather than fair …

08-03-2023 PYONGYANG: North Korea has said that any move to intercept and shoot down its test missiles would be considered “a declaration of war”. The statement on Tuesday by Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, cited a South Korean media report that said …

08-03-2023 DAMASCUS/ JERUSALEM: Israel has launched an air raid on Syria’s Aleppo airport, damaging its runway and taking it out of service, according to Syrian state media. The SANA news agency said the missile attacks took place early on Tuesday morning. Citing a military source, SANA said Israel “carried out …

08-03-2023 ANKARA: Turkey’s bickering opposition leaders ended months of fierce debate Monday and agreed to name the head of the main secular party as their joint candidate against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in May 14 polls. A last-ditch deal aimed at averting a split of the opposition vote will see …

08-03-2023 UNITED NATIONS: The number of pregnant women and nursing mothers suffering from undernutrition has increased by 25% since 2020 in 12 countries at the epicenter of the world food crisis, the UN children’s agency warned Monday, stressing the impact it is having on children’s health. The UNICEF report, based …

08-03-2023 WASHINGTON: The United States said an investigation into the recent poisoning of school girls in protest-hit Iran could fall under the mandate of the United Nations. Several hundred cases of gas poisoning have been reported in more than 52 schools across Iran since the end of November, according to …

08-03-2023 RIYADH: Saudi Arabia said Monday it was depositing $5 billion in Turkey’s central bank, a potentially major boost as the country grapples with inflation and damage from last month’s earthquake ahead of presidential elections. Ahmed Al-Khateeb, the Saudi tourism minister and board chairman of the Saudi Fund for Development, …

08-03-2023 DOHA: Worn down by growing debt and a barrage of crises, leaders of the world’s poorest countries have stepped up calls for the rules governing handouts of billions of dollars to be rewritten. Western nations gave out more than $185 billion in grants and cheap loans in 2021, according …