BRUSSELS: European Union foreign ministers agreed on Monday to a naval operation to enforce an arms embargo on war-torn Libya, overcoming objections from countries who feared it may encourage new migrant flows. The mission will be authorised to intervene to stop arms shipments, EU diplomatic chief Josep Borrell said, insisting the vessels would not be “having a promenade” in …

JOHANNESBURG: South Africa’s last apartheid-era president, F. W. De Klerk, on Monday apologised and withdrew a controversial statement that apartheid was not a crime against humanity, following an outcry. De Klerk, 83, shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela in 1993 for dismantling white-minority rule and ushering in democracy. But he sparked fury among many South Africans when he …

WASHINGTON: SpaceX successfully launched its latest cluster of high-speed internet satellites into orbit on Monday, but was unable to land its rocket booster on an autonomous ship, missing a key milestone. The private company founded by billionaire Elon Musk has revolutionised spaceflight in recent years by developing rockets capable of delivering their payload in space then flying back to Earth …

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump has called for Russia to end its support for the Syrian regime’s “atrocities” as he expressed US concern over violence in the Idlib region, the White House said on Sunday. Turkey’s foreign minister also pressed his Russian counterpart over the attacks by Damascus on the last rebel-held bastion in the country. Backed by Russian air power, …

JERUSALEM: An Israeli aircraft has flown through Sudanese airspace for the first time, in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called another example of warming ties with formally hostile states. Israel remains technically at war with Sudan, which supported hardline Islamists — including, for a period, Al Qaeda — during the rule of president Omar al-Bashir. Bashir was ousted by the …

SHANGHAI: Doctors in Shanghai are using infusions of blood plasma from people who have recovered from the coronavirus to treat those still battling the infection, reporting some encouraging preliminary results, a Chinese professor said on Monday. The coronavirus epidemic is believed to have originated in a seafood market in the central city of Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, and has …

Members of a German extreme-right group arrested last week were believed to have been plotting “shocking” large-scale attacks on mosques similar to the ones carried out in New Zealand last year, the government said on Monday. Officials said that investigations into 12 men detained in police raids across Germany on Friday had indicated they planned major attacks, following media reports …

MUZAFFARABAD: Indian police have registered a general FIR — the first of its kind — against “various” suspects in occupied Kashmir on the charge of misusing social media, it emerged on Monday. An official of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) government condemned the Indian move as “yet another draconian measure” on the likes of mass graves, mass detentions and …

The World Health Organisation has warned against a global over-reaction to the new coronavirus epidemic following panic-buying, event cancellations and concerns about cruise ship travel, as China’s official death toll neared 1,900 on Tuesday. More than 72,000 people have now been infected in China and hundreds more abroad, although the WHO stressed the disease has infected a “tiny” proportion of …

  ISLAMABAD: Attorney General Anwar Mansoor will reply on Tuesday to the allegations levelled in a set of petitions challenging the filing of the presidential reference against Justice Qazi Faez Isa of the Supreme Court. Headed by Justice Umar Ata Bandial, a 10-judge full court was due to resume the hearing on the petitions on Monday, but since Justice Muneeb …