International

LONDON: The British government suffered a fresh Brexit setback in parliament late on Monday over controversial legislation that would have allowed it to override parts of the country’s EU divorce treaty. Members of the unelected upper chamber House of Lords rejected key provisions of the Internal Market Bill, which is designed to regulate trade between all four UK nations. The …

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump will push ahead on Tuesday with longshot legal challenges to his loss to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden in last week’s election, as Republican officials at the state and federal level lined up behind him. Pennsylvania Republican state lawmakers plan to call for an audit of the results in the state that gave Biden enough electoral votes …

WASHINGTON: Repea­ling Donald Trump’s travel ban on some Muslim majority nations will be one of the four executive orders that President-elect Joe Biden plans to issue on his first day in the White House, his campaign managers say. The executive actions would also include rejoining the Paris Climate Agree­ment, reinstating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme and rejoining the …

United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo voiced confidence on Tuesday that once every “legal” vote was counted, it would lead to a “second Trump administration”, appearing to reject Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory over President Donald Trump. But hours after withering criticism over his comments, Pompeo, a close ally and appointee of Trump, in a Fox News interview appeared to soften …

India’s ruling party and its allies have won a key state election seen as a barometer of Prime Minister Narendra Modi government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic downturn. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and his regional ally Janata Dal United won 125 seats of Bihar state’s 243-seat legislature, India’s election commission website showed on Wednesday. A …

VILLAZON: Bolivia’s former president Evo Morales made a dramatic homecoming on Monday, greeted by crowds of cheering supporters as he crossed the border from Argentina where he had been living in exile since late last year. Morales, seen off by Argentine President Alberto Fernandez, who hugged him goodbye, made his return after his socialist MAS party swept back into power …

ISLAMABAD: As Pakistan celebrated the first anniversary of the inauguration of Kartarpur Corridor on Monday, it regretted the Indian government’s unwillingness to reopen it after a temporary closure because of Covid-19 pandemic was preventing Indian Sikhs from visiting their holy site. “As religious places started gradually opening up around the world, Pakistan also reopened the Corridor on June 29, 2020, …

VIENNA: Austrian police on Monday raided more than 60 addresses allegedly linked to radical Islamists and seized millions of euros in cash, with orders for 30 suspects to be questioned. The operation came a week after a convicted supporter of the militant Islamic State group killed four people in a shooting rampage in the heart of Vienna, but prosecutors said …

LONDON: The British Broadcasting Corporation said on Monday it would hold an inquiry into how the broadcaster secured a famous 1995 interview with the late Princess Diana, amid accusations from her brother she had been tricked into taking part. During the interview, which was watched by more than 20 million viewers in Britain, Diana shocked the nation by admitting to an affair …

MOSCOW: A Russian military helicopter was shot down in Armenia near the border with Azerbaijan on Monday, the defence ministry in Moscow said, killing two crew members. The ministry said that the Mi-24 helicopter was hit by a man-portable air defence system close to the border with Azerbaijan, whose forces are fighting Armenian-backed separatists in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. …