International

TEHRAN: More than 100 students were hospitalised in Iran after a new spate of suspected gas attacks on girls’ schools on Wednesday, media outlets in the Islamic republic reported. Hundreds of cases of respiratory distress have been reported in the past three months among schoolgirls across Iran, in what one government official has said could be an attempt to force …

LIBREVILLE: A two-day conference to highlight the key environmental role and value of the world’s rainforests got underway in Gabon on Wednesday, backed by several leaders of tropical countries. “Forests potentially represent 20-30 per cent of the solution to climate change,” Gabon’s minister of waters and forests, British-born Lee White, said in opening remarks. Long recognised as a haven of …

NEW DELHI: British Foreign Minister James Cleverly raised the issue of tax searches at the BBC’s offices in India during a meeting with his counterpart in New Delhi on Wednesday, the minister told. In response, Cleverly was “firmly told that all entities operating in India must comply fully with relevant laws and regulations”, an Indian government source said. Last month, …

The FBI has arrested a man who allegedly attempted to bring an explosive device onto an airplane in Pennsylvania, US authorities said Wednesday. The bomb was discovered by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) personnel on Monday, after the man’s checked bag set off an alarm at Lehigh Valley International Airport in the city of Allentown, the federal agency said in a …

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken Antony Blinken said on Wednesday he had no plans to meet his Russian or Chinese counterparts at a G20 foreign ministers’ meeting, as Ukraine and China tensions overshadow attempts by host India to forge unity among the world’s biggest economies. The gathering in New Delhi on Thursday will be the first time Blinken and …

PORT VILA, Vanuatu: More than 100 countries have backed a plan by Vanuatu to enlist the UN’s top court in tackling climate change, after what the nation’s officials on Thursday described as a “herculean” diplomatic effort. With rising sea levels threatening its future, Vanuatu has spearheaded a drive for the court to define what legal responsibility countries have for the …

KABUL: Afghan forces on Thursday claimed to have killed six terrorists of proscribed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and injured over a dozen in an action in Khost province.  Well-informed sources said Afghan defence forces targeted the hideout of TTP terrorists in Khost province with the IED. As a result TTP commanders namely, Abdul Manan, Alam Khan Mudakhel, Khujeer and three others …

President Tayyip Erdogan indicated on Wednesday that elections will be held on May 14, sticking to his previous plan for the vote with a date just over three months after a devastating earthquake killed more than 45,000 people in Turkiye. “This nation will do what is necessary on May 14, God willing,” Erdogan said in a speech to lawmakers from his ruling …

A passenger train and a cargo train collided head-on in Greece on Tuesday night, killing at least 36 people and injuring dozens as the country’s deadliest rail crash in living memory threw entire carriages off the tracks. The death toll was expected to rise further, a fire brigade official said. Sixty-six of those injured were hospitalised, six of whom in …

LONDON: A ‘doomsday’ Arctic seed vault on Norway’s Spitsbergen island is set to receive its most diverse batch of seed donations yet as efforts to secure the world’s food supplies ramp up amid rising climate concerns. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, built to protect the world’s food stock from disasters ranging from nuclear war to global warming, will add 19,500 …