International

DHAKA: Five people died in Bangladesh on Sunday and rescue workers searched for survivors as a small ferry packed with up to 50 passengers sank after colliding with another boat. The vessel sank in the Shitalakhsya river after leaving the central industrial city of Narayanganj, 20 kilometres from Dhaka, for the nearby district of Munshiganj. A police inspector said the …

WASHINGTON: Nasa’s Ingenuity mini-helicopter has been dropped on the surface of Mars in preparation for its first flight, the US space agency said. The ultra-light aircraft had been fixed to the belly of the Perseverance rover, which touched down on the Red Planet on Feb 18. “MarsHelicopter touchdown confirmed!” Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory tweeted on Saturday. “Its 293 million mile …

DUBAI: Police in Dubai arrested a group of people on charges of public debauchery, authorities said, over a widely shared video that showed naked women posing on a balcony in the city. Violations of the public decency law in the United Arab Emirates, including for nudity and other lewd behavior, carry penalties of up to six months in prison and …

JAKARTA: More than 50 people were killed after flash floods and landslides swept through eastern Indonesia and neighbouring Timor Leste on Sunday, authorities said, warning the toll could rise further. Floods sparked by torrential rain wreaked havoc and destruction on islands stretching from Flores Island in Indonesia to Timor Leste (East Timor), a small nation east of the Indonesian archipelago. …

KABUL: Afghan President Ashraf Ghani will put forward a three-phase peace roadmap for Afghanistan during a proposed meeting in Turkey, seeking an agreement with the Taliban and a ceasefire before elections, a document seen by this news agency shows. Washington is pushing for a conference to be hosted by Turkey, with UN involvement, this month to finalise a peace deal …

AMMAN: Jordan said on Sunday it had foiled a plot to “destabilise” the kingdom involving a half-brother of King Abdullah II and arrested at least 16 suspects. Hamzah bin Hussein — a former crown prince stripped of that title by the monarch in 2004 — and the others had worked with foreign parties to “undermine the security” of Jordan, Deputy …

Jordan’s estranged Prince Hamzah, in a voice recording released on Monday, said that he would disobey orders by the army not to communicate with outside world after he was put under house arrest. The half-brother of King Abdullah and former heir to the throne said in the recording, released by the country’s opposition, that he would not comply after being …

As many as 22 Indian police and paramilitary forces personnel were killed and 30 others wounded in a gun battle with Maoist rebels in a central Indian state, police said on Sunday, in the deadliest ambush of its kind in four years. Some 2,000 security personnel were on the hunt for a Maoist rebel leader in Bijapur district in Chhattisgarh …

Bollywood star Akshay Kumar said on Sunday that he has tested positive for Covid-19, becoming the latest Indian celebrity to contract the virus as the vast nation battles a new wave of cases. India reported 93,249 new daily infections on Sunday, according to health ministry data, the highest increase since September, taking the total known cases to almost 12.5 million. …

LONDON: A British Labour MP has criticised the UK government’s decision to curtail travel from Pakistan in view of Covid-19 cases, dubbing the move “consciously and knowingly discriminatory”. Bradford West MP Naz Shah wrote a letter to UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, asking for an explanation about why Pakistan was added to the ‘red list’ when it has “substantially lower …