BAGHDAD: Iraqi politicians and their regional allies gathered in Baghdad on Tuesday to discuss a way out of two months of protests that brought down the government, as violence hit southern cities Najaf and Karbala. Demonstrators demanding root-and-branch reform have flooded the capital and the Shia-majority south since October in the largest grassroots movement the country has witnessed in years. …

p LONDON: President Donald Trump on Tuesday downplayed the likelihood of reaching a US-China trade deal before next year’s elections and then shrugged off the tailspin that his remarks caused in the stock market. Speaking in London, where he is attending a NATO summit, Trump said he had no deadline to end the 16-month trade war between the world’s two …

HELSINKI: Finnish Prime Minister Antti Rinne resig­ned on Tuesday after losing the support of the coalition partner Centre Party, thou­­gh the governing alliance is expected to stay in power to avoid a snap election. A Social Democrat who has headed the centre-left five-party government since June, Rinne handed his resignation to President Sauli Niinisto, who asked the government to stay …

MANILA: Typhoon Kammuri barreled across the Philippines with fierce winds and rain on Tuesday, leaving at least four people dead, forcing hundreds of thousands of villagers to abandon high-risk communities and prompting officials to shut Manila’s international airport. Kammuri toppled trees and electrical posts, ripped off tin roofs and battered a provincial airport as it blew across island provinces in …

A university student in California has filed a class-action lawsuit against video app TikTok, which she accuses of harvesting large amounts of user data and storing it in China. “TikTok clandestinely has vacuumed up and transferred to servers in China vast quantities of private and personally-identifiable user data,” the court filing said. Misty Hong, a student in Palo Alto, California, …

India’s drugs regulator has asked all states to enforce a court directive prohibiting online medicine sales, a senior government official said on Tuesday, raising industry concerns it could disrupt some online businesses. India is yet to finalise regulations for online drug sales, or e-pharmacies, but the growth of several online sellers such as Medlife, Netmeds, Temasek-backed PharmEasy and Sequoia Capital-backed …

Nato leaders will attempt to make a convincing show of unity on Wednesday when they meet to conclude a summit already overshadowed by bitter rows about the future of the alliance. Last year, the Western allies’ get-together was derailed by US President Donald Trump’s demand for greater European defence spending, but 2019’s provocateur was France’s Emmanuel Macron. The French president …

US Senator Kamala Harris ended her 2020 presidential bid on Tuesday, abandoning a campaign that began with promise for a rising Democratic Party star but faltered as she struggled to raise money and make a compelling case for her candidacy. Harris, 55, would have been the first woman and second black US president if elected next November. But her wavering …

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa forest department has planned to designate natural forests in the merged tribal districts, formerly known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, as Guzara Forests to be owned by the respective communities, while their management role will lie with the department. Forests in other districts of the province, especially Hazara and Malakand, have been divided into three …

PESHAWAR: One soldier was martyred and three others were injured in an exchange of fire with suspected militants in Janikhel subdivision of Bannu district on Tuesday, officials said. Hanif Ullah, a wanted terrorist, was also killed in the gun battle. Officials said Hanif Ullah had affiliation with the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (Akhtar Mohammad group). Officials said intelligence had been received …