International

NEW YORK: The ‘Big Apple’ is iconic for its yellow taxis, pizza slices, bright lights on Broadway, and its rats. Mountains of black garbage bags line cramped city sidewalks, a feast for the millions of rodents who call New York home. But such unsanitary eyesores could soon be a remnant of the city’s past, with local authorities launching a “trash …

Nine children were killed in a blast in southeastern Afghanistan caused by a landmine, laid during the country’s decades of conflict, a provincial official said on Monday. The mine went off as a group of young boys and girls were playing with it in the Geru district of Ghazni province on Sunday, said the provincial head of the information and culture …

GAZA STRIP: Deadly airstrikes pounded the Gaza Strip as talks towards a truce between Israel and Hamas resumed in Cairo on Sunday, according to Egyptian state television. As heavy fighting raged on in the besieged Palestinian territory, including in or around several hospitals, the humanitarian crisis deepened despite a UN Security Council resolution last Monday that demanded an “immediate ceasefire”. To …

JERUSALEM: Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Jerusalem on Sunday against Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and against exemptions granted to ultra-Orthodox Jewish men from military service, in scenes reminiscent of mass street protests last year. Protest groups, including some that led the mass demonstrations that rock­ed Israel in 2023, organised the rally outside parliament, the Knesset, calling for a new …

MOSCOW: The foreign ministry on Sunday called on Kyiv to hand over all persons linked to terrorist acts in Russia, including head of Ukrainian security service. A Russian Foreign Ministry statement listed violent incidents that have occurred in Russia since the Kremlin’s forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, including bombings that killed the daughter of a prominent nationalist and a …

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan conceded defeat on Sunday in the country’s local elections, saying the vote was a “turning point” for his party after two decades in power. Partial results from across the nation of 85 million people showed major advances for the Republican People’s Party (CHP) at the expense of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP). Istanbul’s mayor, …

CAIRO: The French, Egyptian and Jordanian foreign ministers have called for an “immediate and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza and the release of all prisoners. Speaking at a joint press conference in Cairo on Saturday, France’s top diplomat Stephane Sejourne said his government would put forward a draft resolution at the UN Security Council setting out a “political” settlement of the …

LIMA: Peruvian authorities raided President Dina Boluarte’s home and the government palace early on Saturday as part of an ongoing corruption investigation related to undisclosed luxury watches. The search was carried out “according to the court order,” Colonel Harvey Colchado of the police told reporters. He would not say whether anything suspect had been found. According to a police document, …

LONDON: A UK-based journalist for independent Iranian media who was attacked outside his Lon­don home, prompting a counter-terrorism police probe, is “doing very well”, his news channel said on Saturday. Pouria Zeraati, a presenter for Persian-language outlet Iran International was in stable condition, the channel’s spokesman Adam Baillie said. “He’s doing very well actually. He’s in the hospital recovering from …

BEIRUT: United Nations peacekeepers said three military observers and a translator were wounded on Saturday in a blast in southern Lebanon, where Israel and the Hezbollah movement trade frequent cross-border fire. Peacekeepers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) patrol the so-called Blue Line, the border demarcated by the UN in 2000 when Israeli troops pulled out of …