International

LUCKNOW: Indian police on Tuesday formed a special investigative unit to probe the death of a girl who said she had been set on fire by a stalker whose marriage proposal she rejected, a case that has led to anger in a country where violence against women is rife. Hardline Hindu groups have called for death to the accused, a …

MOSCOW: Mikhail Gor­bachev, who ended the Cold War without bloodshed but failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union, died on Tuesday. He was 92. Gorbachev, the last Soviet president, forged arms reduction deals with the United States and partnerships with Western powers to remove the Iron Curtain that had divided Europe since World War Two and bring about …

PARIS: France’s highest administrative court ruled on Tuesday that a France-born Moroccan imam whom the government had accused of promoting hate could be deported, a court ruling showed. That decision overturned a previous ruling by a Paris court suspending a deportation order against Hassan Iquioussen in July for “inciting hate, discrimination and violence”, notably against the Jewish community and women. …

India will formally commission its first home-built aircraft carrier on Friday, the culmination of 17 years of construction and tests as the country seeks to catch up with regional rival China and its far larger naval fleet. The INS Vikrant, however, will not have its own fleet of fighter jets on deck and instead will rely on a few Russian-designed …

The Taliban declared on Wednesday a national holiday and decorated the capital with coloured lights to celebrate the first anniversary of the withdrawal of US-led troops from Afghanistan. The country’s new rulers — not formally recognised by any other nation — have reimposed their harsh version of Islamic law on the impoverished country, with women squeezed out of public life. But despite the restrictions, …

TAIPEI: Taipei and Beijing have traded barbs over a recent string of drone sorties from the Chinese mainland to an outlying Taiwanese island, as Taiwan’s president on Tuesday vowed “strong countermeasures” against such incursions. Photos and video taken by Chinese drones of the Kinmen islands have been circulating on both Taiwa­nese and Chinese social media, with one video showing Taiwanese …

The death toll from the devastating floods soared to 1,162 on Wednesday as flood waters which came from the north began to breach banks and affected more than a million people in Sindh’s Dadu district. According to the daily report by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), more than 3,500 people have been injured so far since June 14. Around …

Indian industrialist Gautam Adani became the world’s third-richest person on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index on Tuesday, the first time an Asian has ranked in the top three. The self-made billionaire has seen his net worth more than double to $137.4 billion in the last year, rising 20 spots on the index to now rank just behind Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, Bloomberg News reported. …

KENNEDY CENTRE: Nasa called off a test flight on Monday of its largest-ever rocket in a setback to the ambitious programme to send humans back to the Moon and eventually to Mars. “We don’t launch until it’s right,” Nasa administrator Bill Nelson said after an engine temperature issue forced liftoff from Kennedy Space Centre to be scrubbed. “This is a …

LONDON: Russian military exercises in the Far East this week will take place on a far smaller scale than when they were last held in 2018, reflecting the strain on Moscow’s forces as they struggle to make headway on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine. Announcing the “Vostok 2022” war games, in which China will also participate, the Russian defence ministry …