International

Attorneys for actor Johnny Depp began their questioning of Amber Heard in the couple’s defamation trial on Monday and challenged the Aquaman star’s claims that she suffered physical abuse before and during their brief marriage. Depp’s attorneys introduced photographs of Heard making public appearances on red carpets and The James Corden Show shortly after times that she said Depp had struck her with his hands, on …

KYIV: Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Finland and Sweden on Monday to expect a “response” for applying to join Nato as Ukraine braced for a new push by Moscow’s forces in its eastern Donbas region. Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson on Monday confirmed her country would apply to join the military alliance, the day after Finland — which shares a …

WASHINGTON / ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and the United States resume their efforts to rebuild bilateral ties with a series of meetings between their foreign policy chiefs in New York this week. Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari reaches New York on Tuesday (today) to attend a US-initiated UN meeting on food security and for a bilateral meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. …

Two top US defence intelligence officials were due to testify on Capitol Hill on Tuesday about what the government knows of unidentified flying objects, in the first public congressional hearing concerning UFOs in more than 50 years. The hearing before a US House Intelligence subcommittee comes 11 months after a report documenting more than 140 cases of what the government …

Acting Afghan Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani has said the Taliban regime in Afghanistan does not look at the United States “as enemies” and wants to have good ties with it but that they have reservations over Washington’s intentions based on its conduct. The deputy chief of the Afghan Taliban — who is still wanted by the US that has offered …

DSSELDORF: Exit polls from a regional vote in Germany’s most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia on Sunday showed Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) lagging badly behind the conservative CDU. Surveys published after polling stations closed at 6pm put the conservatives on around 35 percent, with the SPD on around 28 percent — a result that would be its worst …

TOKYO: The Japanese island chain of Okinawa marked the 50th anniversary on Sunday of the end of US occupation and its return to Japan with calls for more economic growth and fewer US bases despite growing worries over its proximity to an increasingly assertive China. Okinawa, a string of tropical islands off far southwest Japan much closer to Taiwan than …

TURIN: Ukraine won the Eurovision Song Contest on Sunday with an infectious hip-hop folk melody, boosting spirits in the embattled nation fighting off a Russian invasion that has killed thousands and displaced millions of people. Riding a huge wave of public support, Kalush Orchestra beat 24 competitors in the finale of the world’s biggest live music event with “Stefania”, a …

JERUSALEM: Pales­tinians rallied on Sunday to mark the “Nakba”, or catastrophe, 74 years after Israel’s creation, with condemnation spreading over a police raid on the funeral of a slain journalist. The annual demonstrations across the occupied West Bank, annexed east Jerusalem and inside Israel came with tensions high over the killing of 51-year-old Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh. The Palestinian-American was …

SEOUL: North Korea on Sunday reported 15 additional deaths from “fever”, days after officially confirming its first-ever Covid-19 cases and ordering nationwide lockdowns. The outbreak, which leader Kim Jong Un has said is causing “great upheaval”, leaves a country with one of the world’s worst healthcare systems on the edge of potential disaster. North Korea has no Covid vaccines, antiviral …