International

LONDON: The United States urged two senior British judges on Wednesday to clear the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and reject a lower court’s ruling that he is a suicide risk. Washington also assured the High Court in London that it would not hold the Australian in isolation in a US “supermax” prison, as it sought to sideline several …

SHANGHAI: Bottled-water tycoon Zhong Shanshan has become China’s wealthiest person, according to an annual ranking released on Wednesday, as a government campaign to rein in the super-rich took a big bite out of the fortunes of perennial front-runners like Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma. Zhong, in his late 60s, has seen his fortune swell following the stock listings last year of …

JERUSALEM: Israel on Wednesday advanced plans for building more than 3,000 settler homes in the occupied West Bank, a move condemned by the Palestinians that came a day after the US forcefully criticised such construction. The Civil Administration’s high planning committee gave final approval to 1,800 homes and initial endorsement for another 1,344, a spokesman for the military body that …

SRINAGAR: Police have launched an investigation after several hundred students in India-occupied Kashmir celebrated India’s recent defeat to Pakistan in the cricket World Cup, officials said on Wednesday. Around 300 students in two top Srinagar medical colleges gathered in two hostels watching the match on Sunday and burst into celebrations when Pakistan crushed India in the high-octane contest in Dubai. Videos of …

The United States on Wednesday announced its first passport with “X” for gender, a landmark step for people outside the binary male or female categories. The State Department said it had issued the first passport with “X” for gender and would make the option routinely available by early 2022 both for passports and birth certificates of Americans abroad. “I want …

India has test-fired a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 5,000 kilometres from an island off its east coast amid rising border tensions with China. The successful launch on Wednesday was in line with “India’s policy to have credible minimum deterrence that underpins the commitment to no first use”, said a government statement. The Agni-5 missile splashed down in the …

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon’s top general said on Wednesday that China’s recent test of an earth-circling hypersonic missile was akin to the Soviet Union’s stunning launch of the world’s first satellite, Sputnik, in 1957, which sparked the superpowers’ space race. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed for the first time the Chinese test of a nuclear-capable missile …

India’s top court on Wednesday established a committee of experts to look into accusations that the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi used Israeli military-grade spyware to monitor political opponents, journalists and activists. The Supreme Court order came in response to petitions filed by a group of Indian journalists, rights activists and opposition politicians following an investigation by a global media …

GENEVA: The Covid-19 crisis is far from over, the World Health Organisation’s emergency committee said on Tuesday as it called for research into next-generation vaccines for long-term control of the pandemic. The 19-member committee meets every three months to discuss the pandemic and make recommendations. “While progress has been made through increased uptake of Covid-19 vaccines and therapeutics, analysis of …

WASHINGTON: The Biden administration iss­ued on Tuesday its harshest public criticism to date of Israeli plans for Jewish settlement expansion in occupied West Bank, saying that it harmed peace prospects between Israelis and Palestinians. “We are deeply concerned about the Israeli government’s plan to advance thousands of settlement units tomorrow, Wednesday, many of them deep in the West Bank,” State …