International

SEOUL: North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles on Monday, South Korea’s military said, the latest in a flurry of weapons tests that Pyongyang says are in response to major US-South Korea defence drills. The two allies were conducting a joint amphibious landing exercise on Monday, days after concluding Freedom Shield, their largest combined military drills in five years. North …

RIYADH: A bus ferrying pilgrims to Makkah burst into flames after a collision on a bridge on Monday, killing 20 people and injuring more than two dozen others. The incident in the southern province of Asir highlights persistent challenges to safely transporting worshippers to Makkah and Madina. “According to preliminary information we have now received, the number of deaths in …

GENEVA: EU funding is facilitating the commission of abuses against migrants in Libya, who are being systematically tortured and forced into sexual slavery, a United Nations investigation has found. The probe voiced alarm at the deteriorating human rights situation in the conflict-torn North African country, warning that the European Union was supporting some of the organisations perpetrating abuses against migrants. …

China spent $240 billion bailing out 22 developing countries between 2008 and 2021, with the amount soaring in recent years as more have struggled to repay loans spent building “Belt & Road” infrastructure, according to a study published Tuesday. Almost 80 per cent of the rescue lending was made between 2016 and 2021, mainly to middle-income countries including Argentina, Mongolia …

A heavily armed former student killed three young children and three staff in what appeared to be a carefully planned attack at a private elementary school in Nashville on Monday, before being shot dead by police. Chief of Police John Drake named the suspect as Audrey Hale, 28, who the officer later said identified as transgender. Hale left behind a …

The founder of a project that campaigned for girls’ education in Afghanistan has been detained by Taliban authorities in Kabul, his brother and the United Nations said Tuesday. The Taliban government last year barred girls from attending secondary school, making Afghanistan the only country in the world where there is a ban on education. “Matiullah Wesa, head of PenPath and advocate for …

Pakistan on Tuesday chose not to participate in the democracy summit taking place in Washington this week, opting instead to engage with the US on a bilateral basis to encourage democratic values. The virtual summit, led by the United States, begins today. China and Turkiye have not been invited to the summit. The issue of Pakistan’s participation in the Second …

Nato on Sunday criticised Vladimir Putin for what it called his “dangerous and irresponsible” nuclear rhetoric, a day after the Russian president said he would station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus. Putin announced the move on Saturday and likened it to the US stationing its weapons in Europe, while insisting that Russia would not violate its nuclear non-proliferation promises. Although the …

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday fired Defence Minister Yoav Galant, a day after he broke ranks to call for a pause in the government’s controversial judicial reforms. On a day when 200,000 people took to the streets of Tel Aviv to protest the reforms, Galant — who had been a staunch Netanyahu ally — on Saturday said …

WACO: Donald Trump used his first election rally in Waco, Texas, to cast the 2024 presidential vote in apocalyptic terms, slam his leading Republican rival Ron DeSantis and rail against prosecutors pursuing him with criminal investigations he likened to a “Stalinist Russia horror show.” Speaking to several thousand of his diehard supporters, some flashing signs saying “Witch hunt”, Trump spent …