International

CAIRO: Armed and masked men from an array of clans and factions have started providing security to aid convoys in Gaza, Palestinian officials and sources in the Hamas group say. Video footage obtained by Reuters showed a convoy of trucks entering Gaza City with foreign aid overnight, watched by several men armed with AK-47 assault rifles and others wielding sticks. With Israeli …

LONDON: A new artwork by British street artist Banksy has appeared in London, using green paint sprayed across the side of a building to mimic the foliage of a real, heavily pruned tree that stands a few metres in front of it. A photo of the mural was posted on Banksy’s official Instagram account on Monday, where the artist usually …

WELLINGTON: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made a rare visit to New Zealand on Monday, stressing the need to work with “friends” in the face of the “tumultuous international situation”. The trip marks the start of a diplomatic blitz through New Zealand and Australia, Wang’s first visit to either country since 2017. The whistle-stop tour is expected to focus heavily …

UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres invoked Oscar-winning film Oppenheimer on Monday as he warned that the world faced the highest risk of nuclear war in decades. At a Security Council session called by Japan, Guterres said that the biopic about the morally conflicted father of the atomic bomb “brought the harsh reality of nuclear doomsday to vivid life …

LONDON: Western governments lined up on Monday to condemn Vladimir Putin’s landslide election victory as unfair and undemocratic, but China, India and North Korea and some other countries congratulated the veteran Russian leader on extending his rule by a further six years. The contrasting reactions underscored the geopolitical fault lines that have gaped wider since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine …

GENEVA: A fact-finding mission mandated by the United Nations said on Monday the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of Iran’s morality police was unlawful and caused by violence and that Iranian women still suffer systematic discrimination. The death of 22-year-old Amini, a Kurdish Iranian woman, in September 2022 while in custody for allegedly flouting Iran’s Islamic dress code unleashed months …

ROME: Half of Gazans are experiencing “catastrophic” hunger, with famine projected to hit the north of the territory by May without urgent intervention, a United Nations-backed food security assessment warned on Monday. “People in Gaza are starving to death right now. The speed at which this man-made hunger and malnutrition crisis has ripped through Gaza is terrifying,” the head of the UN’s …

Pakistan remained one of the world’s three smoggiest countries in 2023, as Bangladesh and India replaced Chad and Iran, with particulate matter about 15 times the level recommended by the World Health Organisation, data published on Tuesday showed. Average concentrations of PM2.5 — small airborne particles that damage the lungs — reached 79.9 micrograms per cubic metre in Bangladesh in 2023, and …

Pakistan on Tuesday denounced Indian authorities’ decision to declare several political parties of India-occupied Kashmir as “unlawful associations”. In a statement, the Foreign Office said: “Pakistan denounces the Indian authorities’ decision to declare the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Freedom League (JKPFL) and four factions of Jammu and Kashmir Peoples League (JKPL) as ‘unlawful associations’.” It also denounced the decision to “extend the ban …

WASHINGTON: The US State Department called on Kabul’s Taliban rulers on Monday to prevent terrorist activities originating from Afghan soil, while also urging both Afghanistan and Pakistan to prioritise the protection of civilian lives during security operations. “We have seen reports that Pakistan carried out airstrikes in Afghanistan in response to the attack in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, on Saturday at a military …