International

DOHA: Qatar became the first Middle Eastern country on Wednesday to receive Chinese giant pandas — Suhail and Soraya — who, in true Gulf fashion, took up residence in luxury air-conditioned quarters. Crowds of children and reporters watched as the four-year-old male and three-year-old female took their first steps in a temporary enclosure in a ceremony at the Al Khor …

DAMASCUS: Palestinian movement Hamas on Wednesday said it restored relations with the Syrian government after a visiting delegation held a “historic meeting” with President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. The Islamist group, which controls the Gaza Strip, was long one of Syria’s closest allies, in large part due to a shared enmity towards Israel. But it left Syria in 2012 after …

TOKYO: A warming climate could bring viruses in the Arctic into contact with new environments and hosts, increasing the risk of “viral spillover”, according to research published on Wednesday. Viruses need hosts like humans, animals, plants or fungi to replicate and spread, and occasionally they can jump to a new one that lacks immunity, as seen during the Covid-19 pandemic. …

LONDON: A man who was protesting outside a Chinese consulate in Britain said he was dragged inside the grounds by masked men, kicked and punched in an attack British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly described on Wednesday as “unacceptable”. China has disputed the account of events which took place during a demonstration on Sunday against Chinese President Xi Jinping outside the …

UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan on Wednesday underlined the need to have a balance between addressing new risks and keeping open the route to new technologies for all nations. During a week-long debate on weapons of mass destruction at the 77th session of UN General Assembly (UNGA), Pakistan reminded the international community that nuclear weapons and their delivery systems no longer exist …

LONDON: The UK’s hardline interior minister Suella Braverman quit the government on Wednesday, heaping more doubt on the survival chances of Prime Minister Liz Truss after her right-wing economic agenda unravelled. Braverman said she had resigned after using her personal email to send an official document to a colleague. While calling it a “technical infringement” of government rules, she wrote …

An 80-year-old Georgia man illegally parked on the grounds of the US Capitol in Washington, saying he wanted to deliver documents to the Supreme Court, was arrested on Wednesday after three guns were found in his van, police said. Tony Payne of Tunnel Hill, Georgia, was taken into custody on three weapons-related charges, the US Capitol Police said in a …

NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday laid the foundation stone of a new airbase coming up in north Gujarat near the India-Pakistan border and said it would emerge as an effective centre for the country’s security. The move followed the opening of a defence exhibition in the state and the meeting of defence ministers from the Indian …

COPENHAGEN: Invest­igations into the suspected sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia with Europe are “progressing well”, despite World War II munitions on the seabed, Denmark said on Tuesday. “It’s a zone marked by the presence of munitions — used or not — from World War II,” Danish Defence Minister Morten Bodskov told reporters on the sidelines of …

ISLAMABAD: Global leaders on Tuesday confirmed $2.6 billion in funding towards the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s 2022-2026 strategy to end polio at a pledging moment at the World Health Summit in Berlin. The funding will support global efforts to overcome the final hurdles to polio eradication, vaccinate 370 million children annually over the next five years and continue disease surveillance …