International

LONDON: Camilla, wife of Britain’s King Charles, will wear the crown of Queen Mary for her coronation in May, Buckingham Palace said, avoiding the use of a crown featuring the disputed 105-carat Koh-i-Noor diamond which India has demanded be returned. The Koh-i-Noor, one of the largest cut diamonds in the world, was taken from India by the East India Company …

WASHINGTON: US State Department Couns­ellor Derek Chollet will arrive in Islamabad this week with an inter-agency team, as Washington underlines the need to continue dialogue with Pakistan on a broad range of issues. Mr Chollet will lead an inter-agency delegation to Bangladesh and Pakistan from Feb 14 to 18, the US State Depar­tment said in a press note. In Pakistan, …

BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping hailed Beijing’s “solidarity” with Iran on Tuesday as he hosted the Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi at the start of a three-day trip. For the first state visit by an Iranian president to China in more than 20 years, Raisi has brought a large trade and finance delegation to Beijing and was earlier greeted by Xi …

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan vowed to press on with rescue and recovery efforts more than a week after a powerful quake ripped through his country and neighbouring Syria, with an elderly woman the latest to be pulled from the rubble. The combined death toll in Turkiye and Syria has climbed over 41,000, and many survivors are enduring near-freezing winter temperatures, …

Military helicopters winched stranded storm survivors to safety in New Zealand on Wednesday after Cyclone Gabrielle killed four people and displaced 10,500 more. With the storm now fading into the South Pacific, rescue teams have finally reached regions cut off by days of torrential rain and gale-force winds. The New Zealand military deployed three NH90 helicopters on reconnaissance and rescue …

Foreign ministers of four European countries and Canada joined Washington on Tuesday in opposing a decision by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to authorise nine Jewish settler outposts in the occupied West Bank. The foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the United States issued a joint statement voicing concern over the plans announced by Israel on Sunday. …

Indian tax officers searched the BBC’s offices in New Delhi and Mumbai for a second day on Wednesday, two sources said, as controversy swirled over a BBC documentary critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role in deadly riots two decades ago. The searches resumed Wednesday morning after they went on until late in the night on Tuesday, a government source and …

TEHRAN: An Iranian policeman was reprimanded last week after he did not enforce the country’s dress code requiring women to cover their hair. A video was widely shared on social media on Monday, showing a policeman in the western province of Kermanshah telling a woman that he did not consider the hijab to be compulsory for women.     “This …

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday set out ambitions to more than triple annual defence exports to $5 billion over the next two years, as arms firms flocked to a major air show for a slice of the nation’s massive import budget. The country is looking to sign defence deals worth 750 billion rupees ($9bn) at the biennial five-day …

WASHINGTON: Pakistan and the United States began their defence talks in Washington on Monday to enhance coordination on strategic issues and explore various options for ramping up bilateral military and security ties. The four-day talks, ending on Feb 16, is a second round of the Pakistan-US Mid-Level Defence Dialogue. The first round was held in Pakistan in January 2021. Chief …