International

SEOUL: North Korea fired four ballistic missiles on Saturday, the South Korean military said, the latest in Pyongyang’s testing blitz this week as Washington and Seoul concluded their biggest-ever air force drills. The flurry of North Korean launches included an intercontinental ballistic missile and one that landed near the South’s territorial waters. South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said it was …

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden has now irked Afghans by repeatedly disparaging their country as a “Godforsaken place,” causing Kabul’s Taliban rulers to claim that the American leader was doing so out of frustration. Last month, President Biden annoyed Pakistanis when he described their country as “one of the most dangerous nations in the world” that possessed nuclear weapons without any ‘cohesion’. …

A domestic passenger plane plunged into Lake Victoria in Tanzania early on Sunday due to bad weather shortly before landing in the northwestern city of Bukoba, police said, adding that rescue efforts were under way. “There was an accident involving a Precision Air plane which … crashed into water about 100 metres from the airport,” regional police commander William Mwampaghale …

Oleh, the commander of a Ukrainian mechanised infantry unit dug into trenches west of Kherson, is confident his Russian foes will be forced to abandon the strategic port by winter weather, logistical logjams and the threat of encirclement. But neither he nor his men think the Russians will go quickly or quietly and nor do they intend to let them. …

AN India-based computer hacking gang targeted Pakistani politicians, military officials and diplomats to eavesdrop on private conversations at the behest of Indian secret services, claimed an expose by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Sunday Times. The revelations based on the leaked documents and undercover work in India by the reporters of the said organisations revealed that private British investigators, through the hacking gang …

NEW DELHI: For three months Qatar has detained eight former Indian navy officers, and New Delhi says it is trying to get them released, reports said on Saturday. The New Indian Express said the former naval officers were ‘mysteriously’ detained in Doha. “All of them were working for a firm called Dahra Global Technologies and Consultancy and were reportedly engaged in conducting …

GENEVA: A woman was seriously injured when she got out of her car with the engine still on, only for it to run her over three times, Swiss police said on Friday. The 45-year-old had stepped out of her car in a residential area in St Gallen, in north-eastern Switzerland, likely in order to get something out of the boot. …

ROME: A group of activists threw pea soup at a Vincent Van Gogh masterpiece, The Sower, on Friday in a protest they warned would continue until more attention was paid to climate change. The 1888 painting by the Dutch artist depicting a farmer sowing his land under a dominating sun, was exhibited behind glass and remained undamaged. Climate activists from …

SEOUL: South Korea said it scrambled warplanes in response to 180 North Korean military flights near the countries’ shared border on Friday, and Pyongyang again demanded that the United States and South Korea halt “provocative” air exercises. The North Korean mano­euvres follow the firing of more than 80 rounds of artillery overnight and the launch of multiple missiles into the …

The UK’s government, specially the Home Office, which has been under fire over its treatment of asylum seekers over the past weeks, saw a fresh wave of censure on Friday after a minister said it was “a bit of a cheek” for migrants to complain about conditions at an overcrowded asylum processing centre. The Manston centre in Kent has been …