International

Several thousand supporters of United States President Donald Trump in Washington protested election results and then hailed Trump’s passing motorcade before nighttime clashes with counter-demonstrators sparked fistfights, at least one stabbing and at least 20 arrests. Several other cities on Saturday also saw gatherings of Trump supporters unwilling to accept Democrat Joe Biden’s Electoral College and popular vote victory as …

Azerbaijan said on Sunday it had agreed to extend a deadline for Armenia to withdraw from a disputed district as part of a peace accord that ended six weeks of fierce fighting over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. The first of the territories, Kalbajar, was to be turned over on Sunday. But Azerbaijan agreed at the last minute to give Armenian forces and civilians …

A historic wooden mosque in Istanbul caught on fire on Sunday and Turkish firefighters put out the blaze, working from both land and sea. The Vanikoy Mosque, built in the 17th century during the reign of Ottoman Sultan IV Mehmed, is located on the Asian side of Istanbul along the Bosporus Strait. Videos showed heavy smoke pouring from the structure. …

United States President Donald Trump appeared to edge closer towards acknowledging his election defeat in a tweet on Sunday morning, as he again railed against supposed mass fraud in the vote won by challenger Joe Biden. “He won because the Election was Rigged. NO VOTE WATCHERS OR OBSERVERS allowed, vote tabulated by a Radical Left privately owned company,” Trump tweeted in …

Fifteen Asia-Pacific countries on Sunday signed the world’s biggest free trade deal, seen as a huge coup for China in extending its influence. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) includes 10 Southeast Asian economies along with China, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia, with members accounting for around 30 per cent of global gross domestic product. First proposed in …

MUZAFFARABAD: An elderly man lost his life and five other civilians were injured on Thursday in two districts of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) in heavy Indian shelling from across the restive Line of Control (LoC), officials said. Ikhlaq Gillani, a police official in Forward Kahuta, district headquarters of Haveli that Indian troops violated ceasefire in the Rakhchikri sector at about …

BOSTON: A US appeals court on Thursday upheld Harvard University’s use of race in undergraduate admissions, rejecting a challenge by affirmative action opponents who said the Ivy League school’s policy discriminates against Asian-Americans. Opponents of the decision by an appeals court in Boston promised to appeal to the Supreme Court, where legal experts believe the 6-3 conservative majority could use …

SYDNEY: Australia on Thursday moved to prosecute alleged war crimes by its special forces deployed in Afghanistan, years after harrowing reports emerged of civilians and prisoners being killed. Prime Minister Scott Morrison — citing allegations of “serious and possibly criminal misconduct” — appointed a special investigator, a move to forestall any prosecution at the International Criminal Court. After the September …

ACCRA: Ghana’s former president Jerry Rawlings, a member of the radical and charismatic generation of figures who emerged in West Africa in the 1980s, died on Thursday aged 73. The former air force flight lieutenant led two coups in 1979 and 1981, railing against corruption and stamping his authority on the nation before ushering in democracy. Under his uncompromising command, …

YEREVAN: Thousands massed in Armenia’s capital on Thursday to protest the terms of a ceasefire agreement that gave territorial concessions to Azerbaijan in the long-running conflict over the separatist territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. The rally marked the third straight day of demonstrations triggered by the truce to halt more than six weeks of deadly fighting between the two ex-Soviet nations. Nagorno-Karabakh …