International

GENEVA: One billion people in 43 countries are at risk of cholera — a “pandemic killing the poor” — despite prevention and treatment being relatively straightforward, the United Nations warned on Friday. The UN branded the outlook bleak, saying it did not have the resources to fight the outbreaks, and the longer it took to start waging the battle, the …

Iran’s judiciary said on Saturday that it had executed the head of a network that trafficked Iranian women to neighbouring countries for prostitution. It said Shahrooz Sakhnoori, a man known as “Alex, was the leader of an escort and trafficking network of Iranian women and girls to some countries in the region, the judiciary’s Mizan news agency reported. It said Sakhnoori was …

NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, ahead of his visit to Japan for the G7 summit in Hiroshima on Friday, noted that his country wants “normal and neighbourly relations” with Pakistan. However, he reiterated India’s oft-repeated position on the issue, saying the “onus is on Islamabad to create a conducive environment free from terrorism and hostilities”. Pakistan has rejected the Indian …

HIROSHIMA: G7 leaders arrived in Hiroshima, Japan, on Thursday to weigh tighter sanctions on Russia and protections against China’s “economic coercion”, surrounded by reminders about the harrowing cost of war. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is hosting leaders from six other wealthy democracies in his hometown — a city synonymous with nuclear destruction and now peppered with peace monuments. Leaders …

KATHMANDU: Two more climbers have died on Everest, expedition organisers said on Thursday, bringing the number of deaths on the world’s highest peak this spring climbing season to seven. The latest fatalities were a 58-year-old Indian woman who said before her expedition that she had a pacemaker, and a Nepali member of a team clearing trash from the mountain. Suzanne …

Xi Jinping called on China and Central Asia to “fully unleash” their potential in trade, economic and infrastructure cooperation on Friday, as he wrapped up a landmark summit with heads of state from the strategically vital region. The Chinese leader is hosting the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan at a summit in Xi’an in northern China this …

MAND-PISHIN (Pakistan-Iran Border): Top leaders of Pakistan and Iran inaugurated the first border market and an electricity transmission line on Thursday as relations warm between the two countries. Located in the remote village of Balochistan’s Mand town, the marketplace is the first of six to be constructed along the Pakistan-Iran border under a 2012 agreement signed by the two sides. …

ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office on Thursday rejected as baseless assertions made about Pakistan in the International Religious Freedom Report released by the US Department of State. “Such ill-informed reporting exercises about internal affairs of sovereign states are pointless, irresponsible and counterproductive,” Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch told a press briefing. She said Pakistan is proud of its religious diversity and pluralistic …

JOS (Nigeria): More than 3,000 people have been displaced in central Nigeria after 85 people were killed in clashes between herders and farmers, officials said on Thursday. The violence erupted on Monday, with an initial death toll of 30, in several villages of Plateau State, an area which has struggled with ethnic and religious tensions for years. The crisis is …

LONDON: Competing claims surfaced on Thursday over Prince Harry and his wife Meghan’s purported involvement in a “near catastrophic car chase” with paparazzi in New York. A spokesperson for the couple drew global attention by announcing on Wednesday that they had endured a “relentless” two-hour pursuit that resulted in “multiple near collisions involving other drivers”. The account of Tuesday’s incident …