International

KARACHI: Ideas for the future are being thrown around by Shahid Afridi, who reiterated that naming the squad for the three-match One-day International series against New Zealand is his last assignment in the role as Pakistan’s interim chief selector. In recent television comments, Afridi had stated that players with strike rate of 135 or above would be considered for selection; …

TEHRAN: Iran warned France on Wednesday it would respond after “insulting” cartoons depicting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were published in the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo. The weekly had published dozens of cartoons on the same day ridiculing the highest religious and political figure in Iran. The magazine said the cartoons were part of a competition it launched last month …

PARIS: Two climate activists spray-painted the front entrance of the French prime minister’s office on Wednesday in protest at what campaign group Derniere Renovation (Last Renovation) called “climate crimes” committed by the state. Video of the protest action seen by this news agency showed police arresting the two activists, who wore T-shirts with the slogan “Who is guilty?”. In a …

WASHINGTON: The stalemate over electing a speaker of the US House of Representatives continued on Wednesday, with Republican Kevin McCarthy losing again in a fifth round of voting. A sixth round was underway at the time of going to press. In the fourth vote, Mr McCarthy got 201 votes, two short of the 203 he received in the first vote …

JERUSALEM: A Jerusalem bishop said on Wednesday he was “dismayed” by the desecration of dozens of Christian graves on the edge of the Old City, as police probed the vandalism. Stone graves lay in pieces with crosses toppled at the Protestant cemetery on Mount Zion, where Christians believe Jesus’s Last Supper took place. “We discovered that more than 30 tombstones …

ISLAMABAD: The year 2022 was yet another reminder that Asia-Pacific is the world’s most disaster-prone region, and the floods were the deadliest, accounting for 74.4 per cent of disaster events in the region and 88.4 per cent of total deaths globally, a United Nations report said on Wednesday. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP) says …

The Israeli army killed a Palestinian child on Thursday in the West Bank city of Nablus, the Palestinian health ministry said. The health ministry announced, “Amer Abu Zeitoun, 16, was killed by a bullet in the head fired by the occupation (Israeli) soldiers during the aggression on Nablus at dawn today”. Israel’s military said “armed suspects fired towards the soldiers, …

Britain’s Prince Harry says in an upcoming book that his older brother and heir to the throne, Prince William, knocked him to the floor during a 2019 argument over Harry’s wife Meghan, The Guardian reported on Wednesday. The Guardian said it had obtained a copy of the memoir, “Spare,” which is due to be published on Jan 10. Harry is due to appear in …

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has joined the international community in condemning Israel’s new far-right national security minister’s provocative visit on Tuesday to Al-Aqsa mosque compound, warning that breaching the sanctity of the holy site could inflame tensions in occupied Palestinian territories. “Al-Aqsa is a holy site revered by Muslims around the world. Violation of its sanctity offends the religious sensitivities of Muslims and inflames …

Afghan Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said on Thursday that a network of Daesh militants involved in the attack on Pakistan’s embassy in Kabul has been killed in an operation. On December 2, the embassy in Kabul came under attack with Chargé d’Affaires (CdA) to Afghanistan Ubaidur Rehman Nizamani targeted. Nizamani was unscathed but his guard was critically wounded. The banned Islamic State …