International

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that it would be “tough” to withdraw the remaining US troops in Afghanistan by May 1, as was agreed to by the Trump administration. In an interview with ABC’s Good Morning America, Mr Biden said he was still “in the process” of determining when the forces should leave. “The fact is that this was …

YANGON: Protesters in Myanmar fired slingshots and threw Molotov cocktails towards lines of security forces after apparently coming under fire on Wednesday, a rare incidence of anti-coup demonstrators fighting back against a relentlessly violent crackdown. The growing resistance comes after one organisation said that more than 200 people have been killed since the Feb 1 takeover. At least two people …

NEW YORK: On a clear afternoon in November 2014, Glenda Marie Buchanan set off in her silver Chevrolet Trailblazer SUV from her home in rural Georgia. Several minutes into the drive, she started veering off the road. Buchanan swerved left and lost control, and the vehicle rolled onto its side into a ditch. The 42-year-old mother and Home Depot saleswoman …

ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi has said Pakistan is keen to improve ties with Bangladesh and called for utilising all avenues for improving the bilateral relationship. Talking to Pakistan’s High Commis­­sioner to Bangladesh Imran Siddiqui, who had called on him at the Presidency on Tuesday, Dr Alvi said: “Pakistan highly values its ties with Bangladesh and wants to further expand …

New Delhi was the world’s most polluted capital for the third straight year in 2020, according to IQAir, a Swiss group that measures air quality levels based on the concentration of lung-damaging airborne particles known as PM2.5. India was home to 35 of the world’s 50 most polluted cities, according to IQAir’s 2020 World Air Quality Report, which gathered data for …

THE HAGUE: The EU’s medicines regulator said on Tuesday it was “firmly convinced” the benefits of AstraZeneca’s jab outweigh potential risks, insisting there was no evidence linking the vaccine to blood clots after a host of nations suspended the shot over health fears. The suspensions have led to intense debate over whether it was prudent to put AstraZeneca inoculations on …

WASHINGTON: The emergence of the Earth’s first living organisms billions of years ago may have been facilitated by a bolt out of the blue — or perhaps a quintillion of them. Researchers said on Tuesday that lightning strikes during the first billion years after the planet’s formation roughly 4.5 billion years ago may have freed up phosphorus required for the …

MOSCOW: Russia’s media regulator Roskomnadzor on Tuesday gave Twitter a one-month ultimatum to remove “banned” content, threatening to consider blocking the social media platform within the country if it does not comply. Last week Roskomnadzor started disrupting Twitter’s services in Russia, saying the US platform failed to comply with its requests to delete content related to child pornography, drug use …

YANGON: Residents of a protest flashpoint district in Myanmar’s biggest city fled on flatbed trucks and motorbikes on Tuesday as security forces defied global calls for restraint and maintained their use of lethal force against anti-coup rallies. Much of the country has been in uproar since the military ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi last month, with hundreds of …

WASHINGTON: Pakistan has given another extension to a helicopter deal with Turkey, giving Ankara six more months to deliver the aircraft, a US defence publication reported this week. In July 2018, Pakistan signed a $1.5 billion deal with Turkey for buying 30 Turkish-made T129 Atak helicopters. The delivery date, however, has been pushed back due to the Pentagon’s refusal to …