International

SEOUL: North Korea fired a ballistic missile Wednesday, Seoul said, a week after Kim Jong Un vowed to boost Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal and just days before the South inaugurates a new, hawkish president. Pyongyang has conducted 14 weapons tests since January, including firing an intercontinental ballistic missile at full-range for the first time since 2017. Last week, while overseeing a …

ABUJA: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday he was seeking talks to get Ukraine and Russian agriculture and fertilizer production back into world markets to help end a “three-dimensional” crisis the Ukraine invasion is causing for developing nations. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and economic sanctions on Moscow have disrupted supplies of wheat and other food supplies from both …

TAIPEI: Taiwan signalled on Thursday that it had abandoned a plan to buy advanced new anti-submarine warfare helicopters from the US, saying they were too expensive. Taiwan had earlier said it was planning to buy 12 MH-60R anti-submarine helicopters, made by Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) unit Sikorsky, but Taiwanese media reported that the United States had rejected the sale as not …

WASHINGTON: The United States has expressed determination to work together with Pakistan in areas of mutual interests including counter-terrorism and border security. At his press briefing in Washington D.C, the US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said his country values the bilateral relationship with Pakistan. The spokesperson reiterated condemnation of the terrorist attack at the Karachi University. He said a …

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday “strongly denounced” a ban on Eid prayer gatherings by Indian authorities in certain areas of occupied Jammu and Kashmir. In a phone call with Azad Jammu and Kashmir Prime Minister Sardar Tanveer Ilyas earlier today, PM Shehbaz reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to continue to extend moral, political, and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people until …

The European Union’s (EU) top official on Wednesday called on the 27-nation bloc to ban oil imports from Russia and target the country’s biggest bank and major broadcasters in a sixth package of sanctions over the war in Ukraine. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, proposed having EU member nations phase out …

India and France on Wednesday called for “an immediate cessation of hostilities” in Ukraine, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi again stopping short of condemning Russia’s invasion of its neighbour. India, which imports much of its military hardware from Russia, has long walked a diplomatic tightrope between the West and Moscow — notably refusing to denounce the latter or vote against it …

India should replace marriage and inheritance laws that are based on religion with a uniform civil code, the chief minister of a northeastern state said on Sunday, taking aim at rules that allow Muslim men, for example, to have four wives. Successive governments have steered clear of adopting such a code for fear of angering voters from India’s Hindu majority …

PARIS: Police fired tear gas to push back black-clad anarchists who ransacked business premises in the French capital Paris on Sunday during May Day protests against the policies of newly re-elected President Emmanuel Macron. Thousands of people joined May Day marches across France in which they called for salary increases and for Macron to drop his plan to raise the …

JERUSALEM: Three young Israelis formerly serving in military cyber units have figured out how to locate your digital footprint — and give you the tools to delete it. The company Mine, co-founded by Gal Ringel, Gal Golan and Kobi Nissan, says it uses artificial intelligence to show users where their information is being stored — like whether an online shoe …