International

Ukrainian officials shared photos on Saturday showing troops raising the nation’s flag over the main railway city that has supplied Russian forces in northeastern Ukraine, as a collapse in Russia’s frontline threatened to turn into a rout. A Reuters journalist inside a vast area recaptured in recent days by the advancing Ukrainian forces saw Ukrainian police patrolling towns and boxes of ammunition …

King Charles was officially proclaimed as Britain’s new monarch on Saturday at a ceremony in St James’s Palace where former prime ministers, bishops and a host of politicians shouted “God Save The King”. Charles pledged to follow the example of his late mother at a historic ceremony in St James’s Palace. The death of 96-year-old Queen Elizabeth on Thursday after 70 years …

India’s foreign ministry said on Friday that disengagement along a disputed border area with China where troops from both countries have been locked in a standoff for more than two years will be completed by Sept 12. Indian and Chinese soldiers began withdrawing from the Gogra-Hot Springs area in the western Himalayas on Thursday, after deadly clashes at the frontier in June 2020 strained …

WASHINGTON: The US government has notified Congress of a proposed foreign military sale of $450 million to Pakistan to sustain the Pakistan Air Force’s F-16 programme, a US State Department spokes­person told Dawn on Thursday. Another official statement said the US Defence Secu­rity Cooperation Agency (DSCA) delivered the required certification of this possible sale to Congress, on Wednesday. The agency clarified that …

FRANKFURT: The Euro­pean Central Bank anno­unced the largest rate hike in its history on Thursday and said there were more to come as it scrambles to pull inflation down from record heights. Policymakers lifted the ECB’s key rates by 75 basis points, a leap matched only by a technical move made in 1999 shortly after the central bank’s founding. Eurozone …

UNITED NATIONS: A United Nations report published on Thursday argued that an unprecedented array of crises, chiefly among them Covid-19, has set human progress back five years and fuelled a global wave of uncertainty. The UN Development Program (UNDP) announced that for the first time since it was created over 30 years ago, the Human Develop­ment Index — a measure …

SRINAGAR: India and China began pulling back soldiers from a friction point along their border on Thursday, New Delhi’s defence ministry said, following a two-year standoff with sporadic deadly clashes. The two sides agreed during the 16th round of top-level military talks to begin withdrawing “troops in the area of Gogra-Hot Springs”, according to the statement. The move, on the frontier …

TEHRAN: Iran dismissed as “baseless” on Thursday a report from the UN nuclear watchdog that it was unable to certify the Iranian nuclear programme as “exclusively peaceful”. The finding by the International Atomic Energy Agency complicated diplomatic efforts to revive a landmark 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers, including the United States. Last month, all sides voiced hope …

BEIJING: The Chinese megacity of Chengdu has extended a Covid-19 lockdown in most areas, maintaining curbs that have ground business to a halt and confined the majority of its 21 million residents to their homes. China is the last major economy welded to a zero-Covid strategy, tamping down virus flare-ups through a combination of snap lockdowns, mass testing and lengthy …

KABUL: A United Arab Emirates firm signed a contract with Afghanistan on Thursday to manage air traffic across the country as the Taliban authorities seek to expand international flights. While some flights are operating out of Kabul airport, significant extra support is needed for major foreign airlines to resume full service. The full operation of the capital’s airport — which …