International

YANGON: Protesters returned to the streets across Myanmar on Saturday, defying a junta-led campaign of fear as regional powers Indonesia and Malaysia condemned the violence deployed by security forces against anti-coup demonstrators. The country has been in turmoil since the military ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a Feb 1 coup, triggering a nationwide uprising as protesters call …

LONDON: Britain has hit a Covid-19 vaccination milestone with more than half of all adults having had at least one injection, health secretary Matt Hancock said on Saturday, making it the world’s first major economy to achieve that level of inoculation. Britain’s vaccine roll-out, which has raced ahead of those in the European Union and the United States, means the …

The resignation of one of India’s most prominent intellectuals and a fierce government critic from a top university has sparked student protests and worries about freedom of speech in the world’s biggest democracy. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, a respected scholar on political theory and constitutional law, had long been dismayed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, firing off stinging editorials and …

PARIS: Parisians packed inter-city trains leaving the capital on Friday hours ahead of a new lockdown in the French capital imposed to combat a surge in coronavirus infections. The new restrictions, anno­u­nced by Prime Minister Jean Castex late on Thursday, apply from midnight Friday to around a third of the country’s population affecting Paris and several other regions in the …

MEXICO CITY: Gunmen killed at least 13 Mexican police in an ambush a short distance outside the capital on Thursday, local authorities said, in one of the worst mass slayings of security forces to rock the country in recent years. Photos of the grisly scene circulated on social media showing a bullet-riddled police car and an unmarked truck, along with …

ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi on Friday said that Pakistan was an attractive destination for the Buddhist tourists and invited people from Sri Lanka to visit the religious and scenic sites in the country. The president, during a meeting with the visiting Chief of Defence Staff and Commander of the Sri Lankan Army, General Shavendra Silva, who called on him …

WASHINGTON: America’s top diplomat is heading to Europe next week as the Biden administration moves to restore closer US ties with European and Nato allies after four years of snubs and tension under former president Donald Trump. The State Department announced on Friday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Brussels for the administration’s first in-person talks with transatlantic …

WASHINGTON: Nasa successfully carried out a key static test of its troubled Space Launch System rocket on Thursday, a win for the agency as it prepares to return to the Moon. The second “hot fire” test saw all four of the rocket’s RS-25 engines fire simultaneously at 4:40 pm Eastern time (2040 GMT) for the full duration of eight minutes, …

YANGON: Security forces killed at least nine opponents of Myanmar’s Feb 1 coup on Friday, a funeral service and media said, as Indonesia urged an end to violence and Western ambassadors condemned what they called the military’s immoral, indefensible actions. Police and soldiers have used increasingly violent tactics to suppress demonstrations by supporters of detained elected leader Aung San Suu …

MOSCOW: The Taliban warned Washington on Friday against defying a May 1 deadline for the withdrawal of American and Nato troops from Afghanistan. The Taliban issued their warning at a press conference in Moscow, the day after meeting senior Afghan government negotiators and international observers to try to jumpstart a stalled peace process to end Afghanistan’s decades of war. President …