International

POMPEII: A flock of grazing sheep is helping archaeologists to preserve the ancient ruins of Pompeii, the Roman city that was buried under metres of pumice and ash in the calamitous eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Archaeologists have uncovered only around two-thirds of the 163-acre site at Pompeii since excavations began 250 years ago. Preserving the unexplored sections …

Several people have been killed in a shooting at a Jehovah’s Witness centre in Hamburg, with the gunman believed to be among the dead, German police said on Thursday. Police have not given a death toll, but multiple local media outlets reported that the shooting had left seven dead and eight seriously injured. The first emergency calls were made around …

A series of letters, which India’s current government has tried to keep classified, paint a weak picture of the Indian army’s position in its 1948 war with Pakistan, and that then-Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru was urged to agree to a ceasefire by his most senior general. According to a Guardian report, Mr Nehru was advised by Gen Sir Francis Robert Roy …

SURABAYA: An Indo­nesian court handed prison sentences to two football match officials on Thurs­day after finding them guilty of negligence over one of the world’s deadliest stadium stampedes. The October 2022 derby match in Malang, East Java, between Arema FC and Persebaya Surabaya ended in chaos with 135 spectators killed, many crushed as they fled for exits after police fired …

DHAKA: Forty global figures, including Ban Ki-moon, Hillary Clinton and Bono published a joint letter on Wednesday calling upon Bangladesh to stop “unfair” attacks and harassment of Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus. Yunus is credited with lifting millions out of poverty with his pioneering micro-credit bank, but he has fallen out with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who says he is “sucking …

KABUL: Afghanistan under the Taliban government is the “most repressive country in the world” for women’s rights, with authorities effectively trap­ping women and girls in their homes, the United Nations said on Wednesday. About 20 women held a rare demonstration in a Kabul street on Wednesday, calling on the international community to protect Afghans. The Taliban government has imposed a …

LONDON: Arif Naqvi, the founder of collapsed private equity firm Abraaj Group, on Wednesday lost his final challenge to an impending extradition to the United States, where he faces charges of fraud. US prosecutors allege that Mr Naqvi masterminded a plot to defraud investors, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as well as the US government-run agency Overseas Private …

LONDON: The British government hit back on Wednesday at critics including the United Nations and football presenter Gary Lineker, after he compared its new plan on illegal immigration to the rhetoric of Nazi-era Germany. The Conservative government intends to outlaw asylum claims by all illegal arrivals and transfer them elsewhere, such as Rwanda, in a bid to stop thousands of …

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan needs to reorient its relations with Afghanistan beyond security perspective to bridge the widening mistrust between the two countries both at the state and people-to-people levels. Pakistan needs to abandon its approach of conditioning the promotion of trade activities between the two neighbours with the resolution of security issues because this scheme would prove counterproductive. These views were …

SINGAPORE: Plastics entering the world’s oceans have surged by an “unprecedented” amount since 2005 and could nearly triple by 2040 if no further action is taken, according to research published on Wednesday. An estimated 171 trillion plastic particles were afloat in the oceans by 2019, according to peer-reviewed research led by the 5 Gyres Institute, a US organisation that campaigns …