International

ISTANBUL: Russia and Ukraine met UN and Turkish officials on Wednesday in a bid to break a months-long impasse over grain exports that has seen food prices soar and millions face hunger. The high-stakes meeting in Istanbul came with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine showing no signs of abating and the sides locked in a furious long-range shooting battle that is …

WASHINGTON/SAN FRAN­CISCO: Donald Trump on Tuesday ratcheted up attacks on Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk, after Musk said Trump was too old to become the next US president and Trump needed to “sail into the sunset.” The former US president said Musk would have “begged” him for government subsidies, in a message on his own social media app, Truth Social. …

Former finance minister Rishi Sunak won the biggest backing from Conservative lawmakers on Wednesday in the first vote to choose who will succeed Boris Johnson as party leader and British prime minister, while two more rivals were eliminated. Sunak, whose resignation as finance minister last week helped precipitate Johnson’s fall, secured support from 88 of the party’s 358 Members of …

Sri Lanka’s anti-government demonstrators said on Thursday they were ending their occupation of official buildings, as they vowed to press on with their bid to bring down the president and prime minister in the face of a dire economic crisis. Protesters overran President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s palace at the weekend, forcing him to flee to the Maldives on Wednesday, when activists also …

LONDON: Commandos in Britain’s elite Special Air Service (SAS) corps killed at least 54 Afghans in suspicious circumstances but the military chain of command concealed concerns, a BBC investigation said on Tuesday. Unarmed Afghan men were routinely shot dead “in cold blood” by SAS troops during night-time raids during the long war, and weapons were planted on them to justify the crimes, the …

PRAGUE: The European Union has frozen Russian assets worth $13.8 billion since the country invaded Ukraine on February 24, EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said on Tuesday. “For the moment, we have frozen — coming from oligarchs and other entities — 13.8 billion euros ($13.8bn), so it’s quite huge,” Reynders told reporters in Prague. “But I must say that a …

LAUNCESTON: With thermal coal and liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices holding close to record highs in Asia, it would be logical to expect demand destruction, especially in developing nations said to be price sensitive. But it isn’t happening yet. India, the world’s second-biggest coal importer, behind China, saw record arrivals in June of thermal coal, used mainly to generate electricity, …

UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan urged the international community on Tuesday to evolve a financing mechanism to offset the high energy prices for the most severely affected countries. Speaking at an ambassador-level briefing of the Group of 77 at the United Nations, Pakistan’s permanent envoy Munir Akram said that “highest priority must be given to ensuring energy access to all, from all …

World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was worried that coronavirus case numbers were shooting up, putting more strain on health systems and workers. The number of Covid cases reported to the WHO increased 30 per cent in the past two weeks, driven by sub-variants of the Omicron strain and the lifting of control measures. “New waves …

John Bolton, a former US ambassador to the United Nations and former White House national security adviser, said on Tuesday that he had helped plan attempted coups in foreign countries. Bolton made the remarks to CNN after the day’s congressional hearing into the Jan 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. The panel’s lawmakers on Tuesday accused former President Donald Trump of inciting …