International

WASHINGTON—President-elect Joe Biden rolled out a national security team steeped in government experience on Monday, announcing his intent to nominate the first woman to oversee the country’s intelligence community and the first Latino to lead the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Biden’s transition team said in a statement revealing the president-elect’s first cabinet selections that he would nominate Alejandro Mayorkas, …

Remember last week when Elon Musk, the chief executive officer of electric car company Tesla, zoomed past Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to become the third-richest person in the world? Well, this week he has become the second-richest person in the world! He toppled Bill Gates as the world’s second-richest person on Monday after a further surge in Tesla’s share price. The 49-year-old …

The Foreign Office (FO) on Tuesday said the Indian government had escalated its anti-Pakistan campaign — marked by false narratives, concocted evidence and orchestration of false flag operations — after Islamabad made public a dossier containing “irrefutable proof” of Indian sponsorship of terrorism in the country. The statement was issued in response to media queries regarding the reported briefing to a group …

ISTANBUL: Turkey accused the German navy on Monday of conducting an “unauthorised” search on a Turkish-flagged cargo vessel in a bid to enforce a United Nations arms embargo on Libya. But the European Union’s Operation Irini — tasked with halting arms shipments to the strife-torn north African country — said it had made a “good faith” effort to get Turkey’s …

GENEVA: The international community must continue aiding Afghanistan or risk “disastrous consequences,” UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi urged on Monday as a donors conference kicked off in Geneva. Grandi’s appeal comes after his visit to the war-torn nation that remains beset by violence and corruption, and is grappling with the imminent withdrawal of thousands of US troops. United Nations High …

WASHINGTON: US President-elect Joe Biden on Monday named the deeply experienced Antony Blinken for secretary of state, also nominating the first female head of intelligence and a czar for climate issues, with a promise to a return to expertise after the turbulent years of Donald Trump. As Trump continued to make flailing attempts at overturning the results of the election …

DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates has relaxed and removed a range of limits on foreign ownership of companies, state-run media reported on Monday, in the country’s latest bid to boost its global status and attract foreign investors. The overhaul signals yet another startling change for the federation of seven desert sheikhdoms as it grapples with the economic fallout of the …

HONG KONG: Three young Hong Kong dissidents including Joshua Wong were remanded into custody on Monday after pleading guilty to inciting a rally during last year’s pro-democracy protests, deepening the crackdown against Beijing’s critics. Hong Kong was convulsed by seven straight months of huge and often violent democracy rallies last year in which millions took to the streets. Beijing has …

JERUSALEM: Israel on Monday sent a delegation to Sudan, its first since last month’s announcement of normalisation of relations between the two countries, a senior Israeli official said. For days there have been rumours in Jerusalem that a delegation would visit Khartoum in the wake of the accord announced by US President Donald Trump on October 23. Israeli army radio …

China launched an ambitious mission on Tuesday to bring back rocks and debris from the moon’s surface for the first time in more than 40 years — an undertaking that could boost human understanding of the moon and of the solar system more generally. Chang’e 5 — named for the Chinese moon goddess — is the country’s boldest lunar mission …