International

KYIV: Russian missiles hit Ukraine’s port of Odessa on Saturday, in what Kyiv called a “spit in the face” of a day-old deal brokered by Turkish president and UN chief between the warring sides to resume cereal exports blocked by the conflict. Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar has said Moscow has denied carrying out any attack on the Ukrainian port of Odessa. …

Ukraine pressed ahead on Sunday with efforts to restart grain exports from Odesa and other Black Sea ports after a missile attack that cast doubt over whether Russia would honour a deal aimed at easing global food shortages caused by the war. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy denounced the strikes on Odesa as blatant “barbarism” that showed Moscow could not be trusted …

ISTANBUL: Kyiv and Moscow on Friday penned a landmark agreement with Turkiye and the United Nations Friday to unblock Ukraine’s Black Sea grain exports after a Russian blockade raised fears of a global food crisis. In their first major deal after nearly five months of fighting, Russian and Ukrainian delegations signed individual agreements with Ankara and the UN in the …

Iran’s nuclear programme is “galloping ahead” and the International Atomic Energy Agency has very limited visibility on what is happening, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi told Spain’s El Pais newspaper in an interview published on Friday. In June, Iran began removing essentially all the agency’s monitoring equipment, installed under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Grossi said at the time it could …

THE HAGUE: The UN’s highest court ruled on Friday that a landmark case accusing the Myanmar government of genocide against Rohingya Muslims can go ahead. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague threw out all of Myanmar’s objections to a case filed by the west African nation of Gambia in 2019. The decision paves the way for full …

WASHINGTON: A federal jury found ex-US president Donald Trump’s former aide Steve Bannon guilty of contempt of Congress on Friday for defying a subpoena to testify before lawmakers investigating the assault on the US Capitol. Bannon, who led Trump’s 2016 presidential election campaign, was among hundreds of people called by a House of Representatives committee to testify about the storming …

LONDON: A political party whose membership skews white and male will decide in the coming weeks between an ethnic Indian and a woman to be its new leader, and hence Britain’s next prime minister. The Conservative runoff between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss means that Boris Johnson’s successor in 10 Downing Street will represent a visible, and possibly historic, change. …

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden’s symptoms from Covid have improved, his doctor said on Friday, one day after he tested positive for the virus as a highly contagious sub-variant drove a new wave of cases in the United States. A letter released from the White House physician, Kevin O’Connor, said the President ran a slight temperature of 37.4 C on …

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan security forces demolished the main anti-government protest camp in the capital on Friday, evicting activists in a pre-dawn assault that raised international concern for dissent under the crisis-wracked country’s new pro-Western president. Troops and police Special Task Force commandos wielding batons and armed with automatic assault rifles charged on people blockading the sea-front Presid­ential Secretariat in Colombo. …

COPENHAGEN: The World Health Organisation’s European office said on Friday the heatwave baking Europe has caused over 1,700 deaths on the Iberian peninsula alone, calling for joint action to tackle climate change. “Heat kills. Over the past decades, hundreds of thousands of people have died as a result of extreme heat during extended heatwaves, often with simultaneous wildfires,” WHO regional …