International

Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Asim Munir on Thursday met Saudi Arabia’s Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman and discussed the ways of strengthening cooperation between the two countries. According to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), the army chief arrived in the Kingdom in the early hours of Thursday where he was received by Prince Khalid. At the outset of the …

Another Russian was found dead in Odisha, India, on Tuesday, the third such incident in a fortnight. “This was the third such incident in a fortnight,” police said. According to The Hindu, the Russian, identified as Milyakov Sergey, was found dead in a ship anchored at Paradip Port in Jagatsinghpur district. The 51-year-old man was the chief engineer of the vessel, …

SAMARA: Mourners voiced grief and anger on Tuesday at a rare public commemoration in Russia for the scores of soldiers killed by a Ukrainian strike on New Year’s Eve. In a rare admission, Russia on Monday said 63 servicemen were killed when a temporary deployment point was struck in Makiivka in a part of eastern Ukraine held by pro-Moscow separatists …

RAMALLAH: Israeli forces killed a child in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Tuesday, the Palestinian health ministry reported, as Israel said police officers fired on people throwing Molotov cocktails. The health ministry announced “the death of the child Adam Essam Shaker Ayyad, 15, with a bullet in the chest fired by the occupation soldiers during the aggression on …

YANGON: A firebrand monk dubbed the “Buddhist bin Laden” for his role in stirring up religious hatred in Myanmar received a national award on Tuesday, with the junta saluting his work in the country. Wirathu, who received the moniker from Time magazine in 2013 following deadly communal riots, was awarded the title of “Thiri Pyanchi” on Tuesday, the military’s information team said. …

SEOUL: South Korea’s first-ever lunar orbiter Danuri has sent black-and-white photos of the Moon’s surface and Earth, the national space centre said on Tuesday. Danuri — a portmanteau of the Korean words for “Moon” and “enjoy” — was launched on a SpaceX rocket from the United States in August 2022 and entered lunar orbit last month. Its images — taken …

VILLIERS BEL: Thousands of Kurds from across Europe travelled to the Paris suburbs on Tuesday for the politically charged funeral of three of their own killed in a December attack in the French capital. Buses were chartered to bring people from across France and some neighbouring countries to the ceremony in Villiers-le-Bel, north of Paris, local sources said. Tears and …

WASHINGTON: Kevin McCarthy, the Republican candidate for speakership of the US House of Representatives, failed on Tuesday to secure a majority after hard-right lawmakers refused to vote for him. The first vote leaves the race for the top job in the House wide open, although the Republican Party takes control of the chamber. The Republican leadership immediately launched efforts to …

Global health officials tried to determine the facts of China’s raging Covid-19 outbreak and how to prevent a further spread as the government’s mouthpiece newspaper on Wednesday rallied citizens for a “final victory” over the virus. China’s axing of its stringent virus curbs last month has unleashed Covid on a 1.4 billion population that has little natural immunity having been …

The United States has thrown its weight behind the counter-terrorism decisions taken by the National Security Committee (NSC) in its recent meeting, saying “Pakistan has a right to defend itself from terrorism”. The statement from US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price comes two days after the NSC — the highest civil-military forum for decisions on matters pertaining to national security — …