International

A senior Iranian cleric said in a Friday prayers sermon that the United States’ navy fleet could be “destroyed with one missile”, as a US aircraft carrier headed to the Gulf, the semi-official news agency ISNA reported. The carrier Abraham Lincoln, deployed by President Donald Trump’s administration to the Middle East as a warning to Iran, passed through Egypts Suez Canal on …

GENEVA: Conflict forced more than 10 million people to flee their homes to live elsewhere within their own country last year, bringing the total number of people internally displaced by violence to a record high, monitors said on Friday. The new figure brings the total number of people currently living in internal displacement due to violence to 41.3m, an all-time …

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Friday said that the ugly face of India, which flaunted itself as the world’s largest democracy, but at the same time engaged in massive human rights abuses, would have to be exposed. The foreign minister said this while briefing the parliamentary Kashmir Commi­ttee on the government’s efforts for highlighting the struggle of Kashmiris …

PARIS: French special forces freed two French hostages, an American and a South Korean, in northern Burkina Faso in an overnight raid in which two soldiers died, authorities announced on Friday. The operation was ordered to free the French tourists, identified as Patrick Picque and Laurent Lassimouillas, who disappeared while on holiday in the remote Pendjari National Park in neighbouring …

NEW DELHI: Indian Air Force fighter jets forced a Georgian cargo plane flying from Karachi to New Delhi to land in Jaipur on Friday after it allegedly violated Indian airspace. The An-12 aircraft was intercepted by two Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets after it deviated from its scheduled flight path, the Indian Air Force (IAF) said. “The aircraft did not follow …

MAIDUGURI: Nearly 900 children held by a pro-government militia force fighting Boko Haram insurgents in north-eastern Nigeria were freed on Friday, the UN said. The 894 children, including 106 girls, had been in the ranks of the government-backed Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), a local militia which supports regular soldiers battling the Islamist insurgents. At a ceremony in the north-eastern …

NEW DELHI: India’s Supreme Court on Friday extended by three months the term of a panel arbitrating a decades-long dispute over plans to build a Hindu temple on the ruins of a 16th-century mosque in the northern town of Ayodhya. The extension makes the contentious issue less likely to fuel religious tension during a seven-phase general election that started on …

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Around 180,000 Muslims prayed at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Friday, the first in the holy month of Ramazan, a body responsible for the site said. The figure from the Waqf organisation is 50 per cent higher than last year, when around 120,000 people attended the first Friday prayers. Azzam al-Khatib, director general of Waqf, said the crowds …

The European Union on Thursday urged Iran to respect the international agreement curbing the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions, and added that the bloc aims to continue trading with the country despite US sanctions. The EU and major European powers — Britain, France and Germany — also said that they “note with great concern the statement made by Iran concerning its …

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday he had received a “beautiful letter” from Chinese President Xi Jinping as negotiations on a trade deal between the two countries continue in Washington. “He just wrote me a beautiful letter. I’ve just received it and I’ll probably speak to him by phone,” Trump said. Later he quoted Xi as saying in the …