International

BERLIN: A wild animal, believed to be a lioness, was on the loose in Berlin’s southern outskirts on Thursday, with residents urged to stay indoors as hunters joined police in a major search operation. Police first issued the alarm in the early hours after two people saw what appeared to be a lioness chasing a wild boar down a street …

Meta Platforms said it had restored WhatsApp connectivity issues after thousands of users globally reported problems accessing the messaging app on Wednesday, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com. “We’re back, happy chatting!” the Whatsapp Twitter account posted in a tweet. The company had earlier said it was experiencing disruptions “receiving incoming messages and message delivery on Whatsapp,” according to Meta’s status …

Hundreds of protesters stormed the Swedish embassy in central Baghdad in the early hours of Thursday morning, scaling its walls and setting it on fire in protest against the expected burning of the Holy Quran in Sweden. All Baghdad embassy staff were safe, the Swedish foreign ministry press office said in a statement, condemning the attack and highlighting the need …

ISLAMABAD: The Nuclear Security Index 2023, which ranks the se­c­­urity of nuclear materials worldwide, has upgraded Pakis-tan’s status. According to the report, the majo­rity of improvements were in the security of materials and controls. The forum ranked Pakistan above India, Iran and North Korea in terms of its handling of hazardous material, showing that the country had gained more points since …

ISLAMABAD: A total of 24,822 undocumented Afghan nationals ‘spontaneously’ returned to Afgha­nistan from Pakistan between April and June 2023, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said in a report. Key findings of the organisation’s Quarterly Flow Monitoring of Undocu­mented Afghan Returnees from Pakis­tan, released on Wednesday, show­­ed that 11,397 Afghan nationals returned through the Torkham border point and 13,425 through …

PARIS: More than 700 people have been sentenced to prison over riots in France late last month, the country’s justice minister said on Wednesday, lauding the “firm” response of magistrates. In total, 1,278 verdicts have been handed down, with over 95 per cent of defendants convicted on a range of charges from vandalism to attacking police officers. Six hundred people …

KABUL: Security officials shot into the air and used firehoses to disperse dozens of Afghan women protesting in Kabul on Wednesday against an order by Taliban authorities to shut down beauty parlours, the latest curb to squeeze them out of public life. Since seizing power in August 2021, the Taliban government has barred girls and women from high schools and …

UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has demanded ‘scrupulous respect’ for the Indus Waters Treaty, which supports the world’s largest irrigation system and is vital for the national economy. Pakistan raised the issue at the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), held at the UN headquarters in New York, this week. A parliamentary delegation, headed by National Assembly Deputy Speaker Zahid Durrani, …

Rescue workers in India battled difficult terrain and bad weather on Thursday as they searched for survivors of a landslide that killed at least 10 people in a mountain village after incessant rain soaked the slopes, officials said. A wave of extreme heat, wildfires, torrential rain and flooding has wreaked havoc around the world in recent days, raising new fears …

ATHENS: Millions of people across three continents suffered a sustained spell of heat on Wednesday as fires raged, health worries mounted and temperature records tumbled. Experts pointed the finger at climate change driven by the burning of fossil fuels, saying global warming had a key role in destructive weather. Governments issued safety warnings, including in Greece which was among the …