International

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has termed the recent remarks of the Afghan deputy foreign minister as ‘against the spirit of friendly relations’, and highlighted the need for interim Afghan authorities to take necessary steps to address international expectations and concerns. The views were expressed by Foreign Office Spokesperson Asim Iftikhar at the weekly media briefing here on Friday, in response to a …

Armed soldiers in fatigues and masks appeared on television in Burkina Faso on Friday night to confirm the ouster of President Paul-Henri Damiba, the second coup in the troubled West African country this year. The announcement capped a day that began with gunfire near a military camp in the capital Ouagadougou, an explosion near the presidential palace, and interruptions to state television …

MOSCOW: Despite warnings from the West and the United Nations Secretary-General, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed treaties to annex four Moscow-occupied Ukrainian regions — Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia — at a grand ceremony in the Kremlin. The development came on the day when Kyiv formally requested fast-track Nato membership. “We have already proven our compatibility with Alliance standards… …

Iran, which has blamed “foreign enemies” for protests that swept the country after the death of a woman in morality police custody, said on Friday it had arrested nine European nationals for their role in the unrest. The detention of citizens of Germany, Poland, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and other countries is likely to ratchet up tensions between Iran and Western countries over …

The death toll from a suicide bombing of a classroom in Kabul has risen to at least 35, the United Nations mission in Afghanistan told AFP on Saturday. On Friday, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a study hall in the Afghan capital’s western district of Dasht-e-Barchi as hundreds of pupils were taking tests in preparation for university entrance exams. The …

A suicide bomb attack on a classroom of hundreds of people preparing for exams in the Afghan capital on Friday killed at least 19 people, with most of the casualties girls, police and a witness said. The blast ripped through Kaaj Higher Educational Center, which coaches mainly adult men and women ahead of university entrance tests. “We were around 600 …

GENEVA: Doreen Bogdan-Martin was elected on Thursday as the first woman to lead the UN’s telecom agency in its 157-year history, with the US contender beating a Russian rival to the post. Bogdan-Martin will become the next secretary general of the International Telecommunication Union, which plays an important global role in setting the technical standards underlying mobile phones, television and …

GENEVA: Funding for innovation swelled during the Covid-19 pandemic, with significant growth in developing countries, the UN said on Thursday, warning though that the current geopolitical turmoil was threatening the advances. In a fresh report, the UN’s World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) found that research and development spending and other investments that drive innovative activities continued to boom last year …

LONDON: Queen Elizabeth II died of “old age” at 3:10pm (1410 GMT) on September 8, according to her death certificate released on Thursday, or nearly three-and-a-half hours before the news was announced to the world. The 96-year-old monarch died at her Balmoral Castle estate in the Scottish Highlands. Elizabeth was the longest-serving monarch in British history and ruled as head of state …

MOSCOW: Russia said on Thursday that leaks spewing gas into the Baltic Sea from pipelines to Germany appeared to be the result of state-sponsored “terrorism”, as an EU official said the incident had fundamentally changed the nature of the conflict in Ukraine. The European Union is investigating the cause of the leaks in the Gazprom-led Nord Stream 1 and 2 …