International

BEIJING: China lodged “solemn representations” with the United States on Thursday after a US Senate panel advanced legislation that would enhance military support for Taiwan. If the bill continues to go forward, it would affect US-China relations, Mao Ning, a foreign ministry spokesperson, said at a regular media briefing. The US Senate’s foreign relations committee on Wednesday approved legislation that …

KABUL: Taliban authorities accused the United States on Thursday of having “usurped” Afghan assets, after Washington revealed plans to set up an external fund to manage $3.5 billion of its seized national reserves. When the Taliban stormed back to power in August last year, the US froze $7 billion in central bank assets, exacerbating a poverty crisis caused by the collapse of …

From record droughts to catastrophic floods, the world’s worst climate hotspots are seeing a surge in acute hunger, according to an Oxfam report that called on rich nations to drastically cut their emissions and compensate low-income countries. The analysis, “Hunger in a heating world,” found that acute hunger had risen 123 per cent over six years in the ten most-affected nations, defined …

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Friday that it would be a “big mistake to ignore Afghanistan this time around”, highlighting that peace in Pakistan and Afghanistan was interlinked. He made the remarks as he addressed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s (SCO) Council of Heads of State (CHS) meeting in Samarkand.   View this post on Instagram A post shared by …

SYDNEY: Much of Australia will face unusually heavy rains in coming months, the country’s weather forecaster said on Tuesday, after confirming that a La Nina weather event is under way for the third year in a row and would likely last into next year. The Bureau of Meteorology firmed up its guidance for this year for the weather pattern known …

NEW DELHI: Eight cheetahs will be sent to India where they will be personally welcomed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his birthday, officials said on Tuesday, in an ambitious project to reintroduce the speedy big cats to the country. India in the past was home to Asiatic cheetahs but the species was declared extinct domestically by 1952. A prince …

KRAMATORSK: Russia said on Tuesday it was carrying out “massive strikes” across the Ukrainian front line and accused Ukrainian soldiers of abusing civilians in territories recaptured in a dramatic counter-offensive. Moscow’s retaliation came after it was forced to pull back its troops from swathes of the northeast, particularly in the Kharkiv region, following Kyiv’s lightning assault to wrest back terrain. …

WASHINGTON: A congressional panel on Tuesday sought an urgent review by the US National Archives after agency staff members acknowledged that they did not know if all presidential records from Donald Trump’s administration had been turned over. House of Representatives Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney also asked the Archives, the federal agency charged with preserving government records, to seek a …

ISLAMABAD: Prime Mini­ster Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif has no plans to meet his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organi­sation (SCO) being held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan on September 15 and 16. “No meeting is envisaged with the Indian prime mini­ster,” Foreign Office spokesman Asim Iftikhar told Dawn. An official, when contacted, said though a brief courtesy meeting …

KABUL: Taliban authorities on Tuesday condemned UN accusations that they are violating the rights of women to work in Afghanistan, insisting thousands are employed in the country’s public sector. But Sharafuddin Sharaf, chief of staff at the ministry of labour and social affairs, said that many women were being paid despite not attending work, as offices were not set up …