LONDON: The United Kingdom is within inches of a reality where the leaders of England, Scotland and Ireland could all be people of South Asian descent — a surreal moment which will take shape if Scottish-Pakistani candidate Humza Yousaf is victorious in the race to replace Nicola Sturgeon as leader of the Scottish National Party, and consequently become the country’s …

KUTUPALONG: Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh said on Thursday they are struggling to survive after the United Nations slashed their food aid due to a massive funding gap. After a $125 million donation shortfall, monthly food vouchers were cut from $12 to $10 per person starting in March, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) announced, warning further cuts were “imminent” without an immediate …

LONDON: The head of Britain’s security services said on Thursday he was profoundly sorry his spies had missed a “significant” opportunity to prevent a deadly 2017 suicide bombing at the end of an Ariana Grande pop concert in Manchester. Twenty-two people — the youngest aged eight — died and more than 200 were injured when a man detonated a homemade bomb at …

CAPE CANAVERAL: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off on Thursday to the International Space Station carrying two Nasa astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and the second Emirati to voyage to space. The SpaceX Dragon Crew-6 mission launched at 12:34am from Launch Complex 39A at Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, a live stream of the launch showed. The launch had …

NEW DELHI: The foreign ministers of India and China discussed bilateral “challenges” on the sidelines of a G20 meeting in New Delhi on Thursday, India said. “Our discussions were focused on addressing current challenges to the bilateral relationship, especially peace and tranquillity in the border areas,” Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Twitter after meeting his Chinese counterpart Qin …

AS anti-government protests gather steam in Israel, hundreds of protesters besieged the wife of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a Tel Aviv hair salon on Wednesday, prompting the intervention of police, according to The Times of Israel. In a day of “rare” clashes between police and protesters in Tel Aviv, demonstrators rushed to Kikar HaMedina Plaza upon hearing that Prime Minister’s …

LAHORE/RAWALPINDI: The number of Pakistanis killed in a migrant boat wreck off the coast of Libya last week has risen to seven, the Foreign Office confirmed on Thursday, as the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrested three alleged traffickers responsible for sending migrants down the ill-fated route that culminated in a shipwreck off the coast of southern Italy. At the weekly …

Xi Jinping will secure a third term as China’s president at a rubber-stamp parliament that starts this weekend, enjoying unchallengeable status despite criticism over his handling of Covid and the economy. Xi is certain to be reappointed as president after he locked in another five years as head of the Communist Party (CCP) and the military — the two more significant leadership …

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court has held that supervisory officer in any organisation should perform more like a mentor than a punishing authority by cracking whip on finding a fault in the performance of his subordinates. The primary duty of a supervisor is to guide his subordinates to improve their per­formance and efficiency, Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah wrote in a …

GWADAR: Two alleged militants were killed in an exchange of fire with security forces in Shapok and Sammi areas of Kech district on Thursday. Officials said security forces had launched a search operation on a tip-off about the presence of suspected militants in the mountainous area of Kech district. The alleged militants were identified as Shoaib and Yahya who belonged …