KYIV: Blasts shook Ukraine’s southern city of Mykolaiv on Saturday as Russia’s artillery helped grind out gains in the east, after a week when the civilian death toll from Russian missile strikes climbed in urban centres well behind the frontline. “There are powerful explosions in the city! Stay in shelters!” Oleksandr Senkevych, mayor of the Mykolaiv region which borders the …

SYDNEY: Visiting the Malaysian city where she was born, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said her story showed that Australia was part of Asia, as new data showed more than half of Australians were born overseas or had an immigrant parent. Wong visited Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah state, where she lived for eight years as a child before …

HONG KONG: More than two dozen crew members are unaccounted for after their ship broke into two during a typhoon in the South China Sea on Saturday, with rescuers scrambling to find them, officials say. China’s first typhoon of the year brought gales and rain to its southern shores on Saturday, as forecasters warned of record rainfall and high disaster …

At least three people were killed and dozens of homes damaged in the Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukraine border, the regional governor said on Sunday, as Kyiv acknowledged it could lose its last big bastion in eastern Ukraine to Kremlin forces. Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov reported a number of blasts in the city of nearly 400,000 some 40km north …

Israel said on Sunday it would test a bullet that killed a Palestinian-American journalist to determine whether one of its soldiers shot her and said a US observer would be present for the procedure that could deliver results within hours. The Palestinians, who on Saturday handed over the bullet to a US security coordinator, said they had been assured that Israel would …

GILGIT: Two climbers from Nepal scaled Nanga Parbat, and two French mountaineers summited Diran peak on Saturday. Sakhawat Hussain, the managing director of Summit Karakoram, told Dawn that Naoko Watanabe from Japan and Sanu Sherpa from Nepal scaled Nanga Parbat, the world’s ninth-highest mountain at 8,126 metres, on Saturday at 5:14am. Nanga Parbat is often considered one of the most difficult of …

ISLAMABAD: In a bid to make Islamabad “one of the safest cities” in Pakistan, the federal government has decided to install additional cameras in the capital to expand coverage of the Safe City Project from 30pc to 100pc during the current fiscal year. Addressing a press conference on Saturday, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah said at present, the safe city project …

ISLAMABAD: Supporters of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), who gathered at the Parade Ground on Saturday to attend the protest against inflation, criticised the incumbent government led by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) over its failure to provide relief to the masses. They also took an exception to the removal of pro-PTI banners in the twin cities and said the government could “remove the posters …

ISLAMABAD: Traders of twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad on Saturday demanded removal of Finance Minister Miftah Ismail, calling him anti-business and corrupt trying to eradicate small businesses. Addressing a news conference at the National Press Club, President of All Pakistan Traders Association Ajmal Baloch said the government had promised to allow traders to keep their shops opened till midnight …

At least 19 people were killed while 11 others were injured after a passenger bus plunged into a ravine in Balochistan’s Zhob district on Sunday morning, officials said. The bus, which was carrying more than 30 passengers, was travelling from Islamabad to Quetta. Television footage showed rescue workers assisting bloodied passengers, while in another scene, the wreckage could be seen. …