International

BEIJING: China will launch a spacecraft on Sunday carrying three astronauts to the core module of the unfinished Chinese space station, where they will work and live for six months as construction enters advanced stages. A Long March-2F rocket carrying the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft is set to blast off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the northwestern province of Gansu at …

LUCKNOW: At least 10 people were killed and 22 injured in a chemical explosion at an electronics factory in northern India’s Hapur district on Saturday, a police official said. The accident happened at an industrial facility in Dhaulana, about 60 km (37 miles) from the capital, New Delhi, police spokesman Surendra Singh said. “The firm was registered to manufacture electronic …

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia and Israel — planned for late June — has now been postponed to July, various US media outlets reported on Saturday. Speculations about the visit started in mid-May and several US media outlets reported last week that Mr Biden might visit the two Middle Eastern countries as early as late June. …

Three people were killed and 11 others wounded on Saturday after multiple shooters opened fire into a crowd on a popular Philadelphia street, police said. Police Inspector DF Pace told local media that two men and a woman had been killed, adding that officers responding to the incident “observed several active shooters shooting into the crowd.” “You can imagine there …

BRUSSELS: EU countries and lawmakers are set to agree on a common charging port for mobile phones, tablets and headphones on June 7 when they meet to discuss a proposal that has been fiercely criticised by Apple, people familiar with the matter said. The proposal for a single mobile charging port was first broached by the EC more than a …

WASHINGTON: Decla­ring “enough, enough!” US President Joe Biden on Thursday urged Congress to ban assault weapons, expand background checks and implement other sensible gun control measures to address a string of mass shootings that have struck the United States. Speaking from the White House, in a speech broadcast live in primetime, Biden asked a country stunned by the recent shootings …

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 …