International

PARIS: The militant Islamic State (IS) group’s new leader will have two key priorities, according to expert Hans-Jakob Schindle; to keep ties between its multiple subsidiaries, and simply, to stay alive. The militant group revealed the identity of its third chief since its inception on Thursday, confirming the death of its leader Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi, more than a month after …

MYKOLAIV: The corpse lies with its hands clasped, as if in prayer. In fact, says the morgue employee, he was throwing Molotov cocktails when the Russians caught him. They tied his hands and executed him. Such are the chilling images from the morgue in Mykolaiv, a city on the shores of the Black Sea that has been under Russian attack …

VIENNA: Iran and world powers on Friday paused negotiations on reviving a 2015 nuclear deal due to “external factors”, the EU’s top diplomat said after last-minute Russian demands threatened to torpedo the otherwise largely completed negotiations. Eleven months of talks to restore the deal which lifted sanctions on Iran in return for curbs on its nuclear programme have reached their …

SHANGHAI: A Chinese city of nine million was ordered into lockdown on Friday and Shanghai shut its schools as authorities scrambled to halt a Covid-19 outbreak that has pushed nationwide cases to their highest levels in two years. Changchun, the capital of northeastern Jilin province and an important industrial base, ordered residents to stay at home, allowing one person out …

Following India’s admission of “accidentally” launching a missile inside Pakistan, Islamabad questioned on Saturday why New Delhi failed to immediately share information about the incident and acknowledged the occurrence only after Pakistan announced it, seeking a clarification. The delay from India’s side was highlighted in a list of questions issued by the Foreign Office (FO) a day after Delhi expressed regret over …

A mosque in the southeastern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, where 80 civilians were taking shelter, has been shelled by Russian forces, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said on Saturday.   “The mosque of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and his wife Roxolana (Hurrem Sultan) in Mariupol was shelled by Russian invaders. More than 80 adults and children are hiding there from the …

BUDAPEST: The Hungarian parliament on Thursday elected Katalin Novak, a close ally of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, as the EU member’s first woman president. Novak, who most recently served as a minister for family policy, portrayed her election as a victory for women. She was elected to the mostly ceremonial role by 137 votes to 51 in the parliament dominated …

TEHRAN: Iran on Thursday accused the United States of working to “complicate” efforts to restore a 2015 nuclear deal, after new Russian demands linked to its invasion of Ukraine raised concerns of further delays. It came on the day Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in major state policies, stressed that his country will not …

WASHINGTON: Caught on the back foot by the Taliban’s lightning takeover of Kabul last August, US intelligence services have earned a measure of redemption with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which they predicted and detailed with impressive precision. According to several US officials, the US military understood as early as October 2021 that Russian troop movements on the border with Ukraine …

KYIV: Russia and Ukraine failed to make a breakthrough on Thursday in their first top-level talks since Moscow’s invasion two weeks ago, amid international outrage over the bombing of a children’s hospital that Kyiv said killed three people, including a young girl. An official of the Ukrainian parliament, meanwhile, said at least 71 children have been killed and more than …