International

An overladen ship crammed with thousands of sheep sank on Sunday in Sudan’s Red Sea port of Suakin drowning the animals on board but with all crew surviving, port officials said. The livestock vessel was exporting the animals from Sudan to Saudi Arabia when it sank after several thousand more animals were loaded on board than it was meant to …

Some 1,200 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank region of Masafer Yatta face the risk of forced removal to make way for an army firing zone after a decades-long legal battle that ended last month in Israel’s highest court. The ruling opened the way for one of the largest displacements since Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Middle East war. But …

Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe said on Sunday that it was up to the United States to improve the bilateral relationship, as ties were at a critical juncture. Repeating several times at an Asian security meeting that China only sought peace and stability, and was not an aggressor, he called on the United States to “strengthen solidarity and oppose confrontation …

TOKYO: Asteroid dust collected by a Japanese space probe contains organic material that shows some of the building blocks of life on Earth may have been formed in space, scientists said on Friday. Pristine material from the asteroid Ryugu was brought back to Earth in 2020 after a six-year mission to the celestial body around 300 million kilometres away. But …

LOS ANGELES: The United States unveiled on Friday a long list of measures to confront the migration crisis as President Joe Biden and fellow leaders prepared to issue a joint declaration thrashed out at a fractious Summit of the Americas. The White House touted a series of actions agreed by countries across the hemisphere and Spain, including programmes to take …

ISLAMABAD: Taking notice of problems being faced by Afghan citizens and plug in loopholes of illegal immigration, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has approved a new visa policy for Afghan nationals going abroad via Pakistan. Talking to Dawn, the head of PM’s Strategic Reforms Initiatives, Salman Sufi said that under the new policy a transit visa of 30 days would be issued …

SINGAPORE: Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida warned a security summit on Friday that “Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow”. Officials in the United States have been saying since Russia’s action against Ukraine that they believe China is closely monitoring how the invasion progresses to assess its own plans when it comes to Taiwan. Kishida told the Shangri-La Dialogue security …

DAMASCUS: All flights to and from Syria’s capital were halted on Friday, the government said, after Israeli air strikes wounded one civilian and damaged an airport runway. Since civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes against its neighbour, targeting government troops as well as allied Iran-backed forces and fighters from Lebanon’s …

Beijing’s recent outbreak of Covid-19 that has been linked to bars in the capital is “explosive” in nature, widespread in scope and complex, a Beijing government spokesman said in a briefing on Saturday. The capital has reported 46 new local Covid cases on Saturday as of 3pm local time, health official Liu Xiaofeng said at the same briefing. Of a …

WASHINGTON: The US announced on Friday that Covid-19 tests would no longer be required for international travellers arriving by air, a major step in the country’s gradual lifting of pandemic restrictions. White House Assistant Press Secretary Kevin Munoz confirmed the news on Twitter, with US media saying the measure would end this weekend after strong lobbying from the travel industry. …