International

PRISTINA: Belgrade on Monday freed three Kosovo police officers who had been taken into custody by Serbian security forces earlier this month, following a court order to release the trio. The move followed weeks of soaring tensions between the two sides, after rioting in northern Kosovo saw more than 30 Nato peacekeepers injured in late May. “We confirm that the …

MONTREAL: Forest fires in Canada left Montreal blanketed with smog on Sunday, giving it the worst air quality of any major city in the world, according to a pollution monitor. Quebec province’s most populous city had ‘unhealthy’ air quality according to IQAir, which tracks pollution around the globe, as hundreds of wildfires burned across the country. Environment Canada issued smog …

NEW DELHI: Top Indian wrestlers who have accused their federation president of sexual harassment said they will rely on legal challenges rather than return to protests, local media reported on Monday. Olympic medallists and other Indian wrestling champions supported a weeks-long sit-in in New Delhi, accusing federation chief Brij Bhushan Singh of groping women athletes and demanding sexual favours. Singh …

Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko confirmed Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led a mutiny in Russia over the weekend, will be in Belarus on Tuesday under a deal that ended his revolt. “I can see Prigozhin is already flying on the plane. Yes, indeed, today he is in Belarus,” Lukashenko said in a meeting with Belarusian officers, according to state media. …

WASHINGTON/ MOSCOW: US President Joe Biden on Monday said a brief uprising by Russian mercenaries against the Kremlin was part of a struggle within the Russian system and the Washington and its allies were not involved in it. “We made clear we were not involved, we had nothing to do with this,” Biden said in his first comments on the …

Hundreds of thousands of Muslim pilgrims prayed at Mount Arafat in searing heat on Tuesday at the height of an annual Haj pilgrimage held in the fierce Saudi Arabian summer. Worshippers crowded the rocky rise and surrounding area from before dawn and when the sun appeared, it revealed vast numbers of white-robed worshippers thronging the sacred site.   Muslim pilgrims gather on …

Former US president Donald Trump can be heard discussing secret documents he had apparently held on to and acknowledging he had not declassified them in an audio recording aired by CNN. The two-minute recording comes from an interview Trump gave at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club in July 2021 for people working on a memoir by his former chief of staff Mark …

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and a senior Palestinian official discussed violence in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, with Gallant’s office saying he offered reassurance about Israel’s intention to crack down on Jewish settler riots. Both the phone call and the announcement that it took place were unusual for Israel’s religious-nationalist government and followed mounting expressions of US concern …

The White House strongly denounced the online harassment of a reporter who questioned Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on religious minorities’ rights during joint press conference with US President Joe Biden in Washington last week, it emerged on Tuesday. According to the Hindustan Times, Sabrina Siddiqui from the Wall Street Journal had asked Modi about what the government had done to improve the …

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday he had been invited to China and his office had informed close ally the United States about the planned trip to Beijing. The announcement comes during tense ties between Israel and the US, whose President Joe Biden failed to invite Netanyahu for a visit after the Israeli’s re-election in November. “The projected …