International

WASHINGTON: “Education is the first step towards empowerment,” says 21-year-old Alisha Khan, who was elected to the board of education in New Brunswick, a city in New Jersey. “I graduated from high school only three years ago, so I know what our generation needs,” says Ms Khan, who is the youngest among those elected this year to state legislatures in …

An American citizen has returned a relic to Pakistan as part of a repatriation of 19 antiquities to four countries, the Guardian reported on Friday. The report said that John Gomperts took the decision after reading news in the Guardian about the return of stolen antiquities and realised that the items he had inherited from his grandmother were worth up to £80,000 and could have …

Afghan women will no longer be allowed in parks, a spokesperson for the Taliban’s morality ministry said, in part because they had not been meeting its interpretation of Islamic attire during their visits. Mohammad Akif Muhajir, the spokesman for the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, made the comments in an interview with local media and, …

India’s top court on Friday ordered the release of six people convicted over the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. Gandhi was 46 when he was killed by a woman suicide bomber at an election rally in the southern state of Tamil Nadu in 1991. The assassination was carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a …

SHARM EL-SHEIKH: The UN unveiled on Friday a satellite-based system to detect methane emissions as part of efforts to cut down on the major contributor to global warming. The Methane Alert and Response System (MARS) was announced by the UN Environment Programme during the COP27 climate summit in the Egyptian seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Methane, emitted by leaks in …

VATICAN CITY: The Vatican said on Friday it had decided to launch a preliminary investigation into French cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, after he admitted to a “reprehensible” act on a 14-year-old. France’s Catholic Church revealed on Monday that 11 former or serving French bishops have been accused of sexual violence or failing to report abuse cases _ including Ricard, who confessed …

DOHA: A group of Qatari activists campaigning against normalising ties with Israel said on Thursday they were shocked by the government’s authorisation of direct flights between Tel Aviv and Doha during the soccer World Cup. The protest by Qatar Youth Against Normalisation, a vocal group of 24 members, was small but notable in a state where citizens very rarely speak …

FORMER US president Donald Trump took a thinly-veiled racist jab at a potential rival for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, his second attack on a prospective competitor in as many days, Politico reported on Friday. “Young Kin (now that’s an interesting take. Sounds Chinese, doesn’t it?) in Virginia couldn’t have won without me,” Trump wrote about Virginia Governor Glen Youngkin on Truth Social, …

SHARM EL-SHEIKH: President Joe Biden vowed at UN climate talks on Friday that the United States was on track to slash its carbon emissions, urging all nations to ramp up their own efforts to avert catastrophic global warming. Biden touted the passage of a massive, $369 billion spending package to green the United States economy as an example for the …

BEIJING: China on Friday condemned a White House plan to brief Taiwan on the results of a much-anticipated meeting between President Joe Biden and his counterpart, Xi Jinping, next week on the sidelines of a G20 gathering in Indonesia. The two leaders will meet on Monday, the White House said, for their first face-to-face meeting since Biden became president, amid …