International

MACQUARIE HARBOUR: At least 380 whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia, officials said on Wednesday, as hopes faded of saving more than a few dozen of those creatures still trapped. Nearly the entire pod of 460 long-finned pilot whales stuck in Macquarie Harbour — on the rugged and sparsely populated west coast of Tasmania — has …

GENEVA: The coronavirus pandemic is taking a heavier toll on jobs than previously feared, the UN said on Wednesday, with hundreds of millions of jobs lost and workers suffering a “massive” drop in earnings. In a fresh study, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) found that by the mid-year point, global working hours had declined by 17.3 per cent compared to …

NEW DELHI: Besieged Kashmiris, including those that once had faith in their destiny with India, would today prefer to be ruled by China than New Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir’s former pro-India chief minister Farooq Abdullah said in a TV interview aired on Wednesday. “Today Kashm­iris do not feel Indian and do not want to be Indian … They are slaves …

NEW YORK: Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz took aim at Iran during his debut on Wednesday at the annual United Nations meeting of world leaders, calling for a comprehensive solution to contain Riyadh’s regional rival and stop it from getting weapons of mass destruction. He said Iran has exploited a 2015 nuclear deal with world powers “to intensify its …

SHANGHAI: China has no reason to approve the “dirty and unfair” deal based on “bullying and extortion” that Oracle and Walmart said they struck with ByteDance, the state-backed English-language China Daily newspaper said on Wednesday. “What the United States has done to TikTok is almost the same as a gangster forcing an unreasonable and unfair business deal on a legitimate …

LONDON: Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Tuesday that the planned return of spectators to sports venues in England could be on hold for six months due to a sharp rise in coronavirus (Covid-19) cases. A number of pilot test events, in which capacities have been capped at 1,000, have taken place and it was hoped venues would be allowed …

UNITED NATIONS: For­e­ign Minister Shah Meh-m­ood Qureshi told the 75th General Assembly on Mon­day evening that the United Nations was now derided across the world as a “talk shop,” which could not imp­lement its own resolutions. “The Jammu & Kashmir and Palestine disputes are the Organisation’s most gla­ring and long-standing failures,” said the top Pakistani diplomat while addressing delegates at …

The Ministry of Information of Saudi Arabia has successfully released the country’s first documentary film titled ‘Difficult Stage’ (Marhala Sa’aba in Arabic) to highlight the role of health workers in their fight against coronavirus. The premiere of the film was showcased in the AMC cinema in Riyadh and it is still breaking records on the silver screen. According to an …

erd Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday appreciated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for “once again raising his voice in support of the rights of the Kashmiri people” during his address to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). “Turkey’s unwavering support remains a source of strength for the Kashmiris in their legitimate struggle for self-determination,” said the premier. Leader of …

TANGERANG: A Chinese drug trafficker on death row escaped from a jail near Indonesia’s capital after digging a 30-metre (100 feet) tunnel from his cell, police said. Cai Ji Fan, sentenced to death in 2017 for trafficking 110 kilogrammes (230 pounds) of methamphetamine, broke out of Tangerang prison in Banten last week via the narrow tunnel, which connected to a …