International

TOKYO: The United States and Japan warned China against what they called “coercion and destabilising behaviour” on Tuesday after top-level diplomatic and defence talks aimed at bolstering their alliance against rising Chinese influence. Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin and top US diplomat Antony Blinken are on their first overseas trip, which began on Monday in Japan, looking to shore up regional …

ATLANTA — Shootings at two massage parlors in Atlanta and one in the suburbs left eight people dead, many of them women of Asian descent, authorities said Tuesday. A 21-year-old man was taken into custody in southwest Georgia hours later after a manhunt. Texas PUC’s lone commissioner resigns 2 weeks after becoming chairman in wake of winter storm Atlanta police …

BEIJING: Beijing was cloaked in thick yellow smog on Monday with pollution levels surging off the charts as the worst sandstorm in a decade descended on China’s capital from the Gobi desert. City residents used goggles, masks and hairnets to protect themselves from the choking dust and sand, with landmarks including the Forbidden City partly obscured behind an apocalyptic-looking haze. …

YANGON: Myanmar security forces fired on pro-democracy demonstrators on Monday, killing six people, media and witnesses said, a day after dozens of protesters were shot dead and attackers torched several Chinese-financed factories in the city of Yangon. Supporters of detained democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi marched again, including in the second city of Mandalay and in the central towns …

BEIJING:  In a major blow, encrypted messaging app signal has been blocked in China that was one of the last US social media platforms still freely available in the country. Users of the free app, which has surged in popularity globally after rising privacy concerns, were unable to access it without a virtual private network (VPN). China has deployed a …

DOHA: Senior members of the Taliban will attend talks with the Kabul government in Moscow this week to discuss the future of war-ravaged Afghanistan, the insurgent group said on Monday. The two sides are due to meet at Russia’s invitation ahead of a May deadline for US President Joe Biden to decide whether to end the two-decade military involvement in …

DENVER: People in Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska were digging out on Monday from a powerful late winter snowstorm that led to airport and road closures, power outages and avalanche warnings. The storm dropped 27.1 inches (68.3 centimetres) of snow at Denver International Airport by the end of Sunday, making it the fourth biggest snowfall in the city’s history, the National …

Tesla Inc added “Technoking of Tesla” to billionaire Chief Executive Elon Musk’s list of official titles on Monday in a regulatory filing that also named finance chief Zachary Kirkhorn “Master of Coin”. The electric-car maker did not elaborate on the reasons for the cryptic new titles. Last month, Tesla revealed it had purchased $1.5 billion of bitcoin and would soon …

TEHRAN: Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard on Monday inaugurated a new underground facility designated for missile storage, the country’s state TV reported. The report quotes Guard commander Gen. Hossein Salami as saying that cruise and ballistic missiles will empower the force’s navy even more. The TV report showed footage of scores of missiles in an enclosed space resembling an underground corridor. …

ROME: The Vatican decreed on Monday that the Catholic Church won’t bless same-sex unions since God cannot bless sin. The Vatican’s orthodoxy office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued a formal response to a question about whether Catholic clergy have the authority to bless gay unions. The answer, contained in a two-page explanation published in seven languages …