International

BEIJING: China will take “drastic measures” if Taiwan makes moves towards independence, a Beijing official warned on Wednesday, adding that Taiwan’s provocations and outside meddling could intensify next year. China claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and in the past two years has stepped up military and diplomatic pressure to assert its sovereignty claim, fuelling anger in Taipei …

Indian police on Thursday arrested a Hindu religious leader for allegedly making a derogatory speech against India’s independence leader Mahatma Gandhi and praising his assassin. Gandhi was shot dead by a Hindu extremist during a prayer meeting in the Indian capital in 1948 because he was considered sympathetic toward Muslims during the partition of the Indian subcontinent by British colonialists …

A destitute Indian woman who claims she is heir to the dynasty that built the Taj Mahal has demanded ownership of an imposing palace once home to the Mughal emperors. Sultana Begum lives in a cramped two-room hut nestled within a slum on the outskirts of Kolkata, surviving on a meagre pension. Among her modest possessions are records of her …

British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty in New York on Wednesday of recruiting and grooming young girls to be sexually abused by the late American financier Jeffrey Epstein. Maxwell faces spending the rest of her life behind bars after the 12-person jury convicted her on five of the six counts she was facing, including the most serious charge of sex trafficking a minor. …

A Covid “tsunami” threatens to overwhelm healthcare systems, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday, as record surges fuelled by the Omicron variant dampened New Year celebrations around the world once again. Governments are walking a tightrope between anti-virus restrictions and the need to keep societies and economies open, as the highly transmissible variant drove cases to levels never seen before …

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman urged arch-rival Iran on Thursday to end its “negative behaviour” in the region, after Riyadh accused Tehran of aiding Yemeni rebels in launching deadly attacks on his country. However, the monarch who turns 86 on Friday appeared to soften his hawkish tone towards the Islamic republic, after having urged world powers last year to take a “firm stance” …

France has ordered the closure of a mosque in the north of the country because of what authorities told AFP on Tuesday was the radical nature of its imam’s preaching. The mosque in Beauvais, a town of 50,000 people some 100 kilometres north of Paris, will remain shut for six months, according to the prefecture of the Oise region where Beauvais is …

WASHINGTON: “Benazir Bhutto’s son would like to continue her legacy but how far he has the autonomy to do so” is not clear, says historian Dr Ayesha Jalal. Dr Jalal, a leading historian of Pakistan and South Asia, was the main speaker at a virtual seminar on the slain Pakistani prime minister where speakers argued that only an independent political …

MOSCOW: Russia’s Supreme Court ordered on Tuesday the closure of Memorial, the country’s most prominent rights group that chronicled Stalin-era purges and symbolised post-Soviet democratisation, sparking an international outcry. The court ruling against Memorial International, the group’s central structure, caps a year that began with the jailing of President Vladimir Putin’s top critic Alexei Navalny and saw a historic crackdown …

BEIRUT: An Israeli air strike hit Syria’s Latakia port before dawn on Tuesday, sparking a fire that lit up the Mediterranean seafront in the second such attack on the key cargo hub this month, Syrian state media reported. Since the outbreak of Syria’s civil war in 2011, Israel has routinely carried out air strikes on its strife-torn neighbour, mostly targeting …