International

YEREVAN: Armenia and Azerbaijan said on Tuesday their foreign ministers would meet US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington on Friday in efforts to end the heaviest fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh since the 1990s. The State Department did not immediately comment. But the planned meetings suggest that, just before the US presidential election, Washington is stepping up involvement in moves …

PARIS: French authorities said on Tuesday they would close a Paris mosque in a clampdown on “radical Islamists” that has yielded over a dozen arrests following the beheading of a teacher who had shown his pupils sketches of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). The move came as the investigation revealed the killer had been in contact with a disgruntled parent at Samuel …

GENEVA: UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet voiced her dismay on Tuesday at the arrest of activists in India and restrictions to the work of non-governmental organisations. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights appealed to New Delhi to safeguard the rights of human rights defenders and NGOs. Bachelet regretted what she called the application of vaguely worded laws that …

At least 15 people were killed in stampede among thousands of Afghans gathered outside Pakistan’s consulate on Tuesday as jostling broke out between people applying for visas, officials in the eastern city of Jalalabad said. An estimated 3,000 Afghans had congregated on the open ground outside the consulate, waiting to collect tokens needed to apply for a visa, two provincial …

China has welcomed Pakistan’s decision to lift the ban on the widely popular video-sharing app TikTok. “The government always asks overseas Chinese enterprises to strictly comply with international rules and local laws and regulations, and fully respect local customs and religious beliefs,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian during a regular press briefing on Tuesday. “We are glad to see the …

ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi on Tuesday said Pakistan would continue to support the Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process for an inclusive, broad-based and comprehensive political settlement in the neighbouring country. He was talking to Hizb-i-Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who called on him here at the Aiwan-i-Sadr. The Afghan dignitary also called on Prime Minister Imran Khan and National Assembly …

A total of 120,000 posts on Facebook and Instagram have been withdrawn for attempting to “obstruct voting” in the United States presidential election and 2.2 million ads have been rejected, Facebook’s vice president Nick Clegg said in an interview published on Sunday. In addition, warnings were posted on 150 million examples of false information posted online, the former British deputy prime …

Britain on Monday condemned what it said were attempts by Russian military intelligence to disrupt next year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo with malicious cyberattacks. British officials said Unit 74455 of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency had conducted “cyber reconnaissance” operations against Games organisers, logistics suppliers and sponsors. They declined to give further details about the types of attacks …

WASHINGTON: US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad warned on Monday that “distressingly high” levels of violence in Afghanistan could derail ongoing peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban. “Unfounded charges of violations and inflammatory rhetoric do not advance peace,” he said in a statement issued in Washington. “Instead, we should pursue strict adherence to all articles of the US-Taliban …

BRUSSELS: A raft of European nations including Italy and Belgium took desperate new measures on Monday to try to combat a second wave of coronavirus infections as the worldwide caseload topped 40 million. The latest global milestone came just hours after the number of people who have died from Covid-19 passed 250,000 in Europe, according to an AFP tally, as the pandemic …