International

IOWA: A man shot and killed two women in the parking lot of a church in Iowa state on Thursday and then turned the gun on himself, police said, adding three more dead to the toll in a series of recent shootings that have rocked the United States. The Iowa shooting took place shortly after President Joe Biden delivered a …

THE HAGUE: European police said on Friday they had arrested eight human smuggling “kingpins” and dismantled a huge secret network accused of transporting some 10,000, mainly Afghan, Pakistani and Syrian migrants, to the continent. A German-led task force involving Austria, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and the Netherlands also arrested 126 accomplices, mainly in Austria, said the EU’s police agency Europol. Europol, …

LONDON: Cheers greeted Prince Harry and his wife Meghan outside St Paul’s Cathedral on Friday as they made their first public appearance in Britain for two years. But opinions were split among the throng of fans waiting at the London landmark to catch a glimpse of the royals, reflecting a generational divide. The couple’s return for Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum …

BRUSSELS: The EU formally adopted a ban on most Russian oil imports on Friday, hitting Moscow with its toughest sanctions over the war on Ukraine after weeks of wrangling with Hungary. The sanctions — the sixth wave imposed by the 27-nation bloc since the Kremlin launched the invasion in February — include cutting Russia’s biggest bank Sberbank from the global …

PESHAWAR: A 57-member jirga negotiating with the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) returned to Pakistan on Friday without any major breakthrough over the militants’ demand for the reversal of Fata’s merger with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a member of the jirga told Dawn. The jirga consists of tribal elders, politicians and parliamentarians who met with senior TTP leaders at Kabul’s Inter-Continental Hotel for two …

The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Friday it was aware of more than 700 global cases of monkeypox, including 21 in the US, with investigations now suggesting it is spreading inside the country. Sixteen of the first 17 cases were among people who identify as men who have sex with men, according to a new …

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday blamed recent protests in Iran on foreign enemies seeking to overthrow the government in the Islamic Republic. Also, he said, enemies were waging a psychological war against Iran by accusing it of piracy for seizing two Greek ships after the US confiscated Iranian oil from a tanker. “Today, the enemies’ most important …

Saudi Arabia on Saturday welcomed its first batch of Haj pilgrims since before the coronavirus pandemic, which prompted authorities to sharply restrict the annual ritual. The group from Indonesia landed in the city of Madina and was set to travel south to the holy city of Makkah in the coming weeks to prepare for the Haj next month, state media …

SRINAGAR: An unidentified attacker shot dead a bank manager in Indian-occupied Kashmir on Thursday, the seventh in a spate of targeted killings in the occupied territory. The attacker shot Vijay Kumar, a Hindu who had moved from the western Indian state of Rajasthan a week ago, in his office with a pistol in the Kulgam area, a police officer said. …

RAMALLAH: Israeli troops shot dead a teen in the West Bank on Thursday, the Palestinian health ministry said, the fourth Palestinian killed in the occupied territory in two days. The ministry identified the slain Palestinian as 17-year-old Odeh Odeh, who was hit in the chest by what it said was an Israeli bullet near the village of Al-Madiya, west of …