International

KATHMANDU: Nepal’s top court ordered on Wednesday the release and deportation of Charles Sobhraj, the French serial killer portrayed in the Netflix series “The Serpent” who was responsible for a string of murders across Asia in the 1970s. The Supreme Court ruled Sobhraj, 78, who has been in prison in the Himalayan republic since 2003 for murdering two North American …

LONDON: Striking ambulance workers in England and Wales manned picket lines on Wednesday, escalating a pay dispute between the government and a host of public-sector staff. A series of stoppages are causing misery across Britain in the run-up to Christmas, with railway workers and passport control officers set to hinder festive holiday getaways as the government resists the growing pay …

GLASGOW: A chef from Glasgow, who claims to have invented the curry dish chicken tikka masala, has died at the age of 77, a family member said on Wednesday. Ahmed Aslam Ali, who invented the dish by improvising a sauce made from a tin of tomato soup at his restaurant Shish Mahal in the 1970s, died on Monday morning, his …

DUBAI: Iran’s foreign minister said on Wednesday he spoke with his Saudi counterpart on the sidelines of a conference in Jordan the previous day, the highest-level encounter reported between officials from the rival states since they cut ties in 2016. The Middle East’s leading Shia and Sunni Muslim powers — Saudi Arabia and Iran — have been on opposing sides …

KABUL: Female university students in Afghanistan were turned away from campuses on Wednesday after the Taliban-run administration said women would be suspended from tertiary education. The decision to bar women was announced on Tuesday evening in a letter to universities from the higher education ministry, drawing condemnation from foreign governments and the United Nations. “We went to university, the Taliban …

Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Tuesday voiced disappointment over the Taliban’s ban on university education for women but said the best approach remained engagement with Afghanistan’s rulers. “I’m disappointed by the decision that was taken today,” Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said on a visit to Washington. But he said: “I still think the easiest path to our goal — despite having …

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden welcomed Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky to the White House on an unannounced visit on Wednesday with renewed assurances of US support and “admiration for resisting” Moscow. “Thank you first of all,” Zelensky told the US president. “It’s a great honour to be here.” The meeting marks a high point in ties between Ukraine and its most …

Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Tuesday voiced disappointment over the Taliban’s ban on university education for women but said the best approach remained engagement with Afghanistan’s rulers. “I’m disappointed by the decision that was taken today,” Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said on a visit to Washington. But he said: “I still think the easiest path to our goal — despite having …

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke with Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and assured him of his continued support for the people of Pakistan as they recover from the recent devastating floods, said a statement issued in Washington on Tuesday. US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Secretary Blinken and FM Bhutto-Zardari “shared their mutual hope for a …

Dozens of hearses queued outside a Beijing crematorium on Wednesday, even as China reported no new Covid-19 deaths in its growing outbreak, sparking criticism of its virus accounting as the capital braces for a surge of severe cases. Following widespread protests, the country of 1.4 billion people this month began dismantling its “zero-Covid” regime of lockdowns and testing that had largely kept the virus …