International

An Australian archaeologist and two Papua New Guinea researchers held for a week by 20 armed men in a remote part of the Pacific Island nation were released on Sunday, while their captors remain at large, a local official told Reuters. Professor Bryce Barker and doctoral student Teppsy Beni from the University of Southern Queensland, and Papua New Guinea National Museum …

Hong Kong police said on Sunday they had arrested three people in connection with the murder of 28-year old model Abby Choi, whose legs were found in a refrigerator in a house on the city’s outskirts, along with tools used in dismembering bodies. Police found Choi’s body on Friday but have yet to locate her head, torso and hands. They …

President Vladimir Putin has cast the confrontation with the West over the Ukraine war as an existential battle for the survival of Russia and the Russian people — and said he is forced to take into account Nato’s nuclear capabilities. A year since ordering the invasion of Ukraine, Putin is increasingly presenting the war as a make-or-break moment in Russian history — …

GENEVA: Banks in Switzerland are holding a substantial amount of millions of dollars Lebanese central bank chief Riad Salameh is accused of embezzling, Swiss media reported on Sunday. Salameh, 72, faces investigations related to suspicions of money laundering and illicit enrichment in Lebanon and abroad after he amassed a fortune in the country mired in a financial crisis. A Lebanese …

KYIV: French President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday he would visit China in April, and urged Beijing to pressure Russia to end the war in Ukraine. China has sought to position itself as a neutral party in the conflict, even as it has maintained close ties with Russia and helped scuttle a joint statement condemning the war at a G20 …

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to Central Asia hoping that greater US engagement will reassure former Soviet republics rattled by the Ukraine war, although Russia’s historic clout limits the extent of cooperation. Days after the anniversary of the Ukraine invasion, the top US diplomat will hold talks on Tuesday in Kazakhstan and then Uzbekistan and meet jointly with …

TEHRAN: An Iranian deputy minister said on Sunday “some people” were poisoning schoolgirls in the holy city of Qom with the aim of shutting down education for girls. Since late November, hundreds of cases of respiratory poisoning have been reported among schoolgirls mainly in Qom, south of Tehran, with some needing hospital treatment. On Sunday, the deputy health minister, Younes …

ROME: Fifty-nine people died, including some children, when a wooden sailing boat carrying migrants crashed against rocks on the southern Italian coast early on Sunday, authorities said. The vessel had set sail from Turkiye several days ago with migrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and several other countries, and crashed in stormy weather near Steccato di Cutro, a seaside resort on …

UNITED NATIONS: Syria faces a double disaster as the areas hardest hit by this month’s earthquake had already been destroyed in 12 years of unrelenting conflict, warned David Beasley, who heads the World Food Programme (WFP), after returning to New York from the devastated regions of Syria and Turkiye on Saturday. “The impact of this quake will be felt for months and …

Israel committed to stopping authorisation of any settler outposts in the occupied West Bank for six months during a meeting on Sunday with Palestinian officials in Jordan when the sides pledged to de-escalate surging violence. In a joint statement at the end of a meeting in the city of Aqaba, Israel, and Palestinian officials said they would work closely to …