International

SHANGHAI: China said on Monday that just three people have died from Covid-19 in Shanghai since a gruelling lockdown began last month, despite recording hundreds of thousands of cases of the fast-spreading Omicron variant in the eastern megacity. Authorities said the first deaths from China’s biggest outbreak since the virus wave in Wuhan over two years ago were three people …

LVIV: Air strikes killed at least seven people in Ukraine’s western city of Lviv on Monday, as Russia pounded targets across the country and massed forces for an expected all-out assault in the east. The air strikes in Lviv came just hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of wanting to “destroy” the entire eastern region of Donbas bordering …

BENGALURU: At least 88 people have been arrested in India in connection with violence against police after a comment insulting Muslims went viral on social media, police said on Monday. A mob attacked police and vandalised public property on Saturday night in Hubli, 480 km north of Bengaluru, after the derogatory message spread on Whatsapp, police said. Twelve police officials …

At least six people were killed and 11 wounded on Tuesday by two bomb blasts at a boys’ school in the Afghan capital, with social media showing grisly images from the Hazara Shiite neighbourhood. Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran told AFP that Tuesday’s blasts at the Abdul Rahim Shahid school were caused by improvised explosive devices and left at least six people …

Israel carried out its first airstrike on the Gaza Strip in months early on Tuesday, in response to a rocket allegedly fired from the Palestinian enclave after a weekend of violence around a Jerusalem holy site. The army also said its special forces had made five arrests overnight in the occupied West Bank, which has seen a string of deadly …

US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price on Tuesday said that the United States looked forward to “working closely” with newly elected Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his government across regional and international issues and described the US-Pakistan relationship as a “vital one”. The senior official made the statement during a press briefing today in response to a question from a …

Moscow launched dozens of air strikes across eastern Ukraine overnight, its defence ministry said on Tuesday, after Kyiv accused Russian forces of unleashing a major new offensive in the Donbas region. Russia’s defence ministry said that “high-precision air-based missiles” had hit 13 Ukrainian positions in parts of the Donbas while other air strikes “hit 60 military assets”, including in towns …

LONDON: Prime Minister Boris Johnson has thrust Britain into a constitutional crisis by breaking the law he set for pandemic restrictions, effectively “shredding the ministerial code”, the country’s leading constitutional expert said on Sunday. Peter Hennessy, a historian and member of the upper house of parliament, said Johnson had become “the great debaser in modern times of decency in public …

MANILA: Four Philippine presidential candidates, including retired boxing star Manny Pacquiao, quelled speculation they were withdrawing from the race and said they remained alternative choices to frontrunner Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Manila city mayor Francisco Domagoso, Senator Panfilo Lacson and former Defence Secretary Norberto Gonzales, in a joint press conference on Sunday, vowed to fight together “any attempt to subvert the …

NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, under pressure from the West to abandon ties with Russia, will attend a virtual summit to be hosted by China of the BRICS group, which has Russia as a key member, The Hindu said on Sunday. “Weeks after the visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Delhi, India has agreed to attend a virtual …