International

PARIS: Hundreds of millions of people were unable to access Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp for more than six hours on Monday, underscoring the world’s reliance on platforms owned by the Silicon Valley giant. But what actually caused the outage? What does Facebook say happened? In an apologetic blog post, Santosh Janar­dhan, Facebook’s vice president of infrastructure, said that “configuration changes on the …

Member of the UK Parliament, Naz Shah, on Tuesday said voices against atrocities in Indian-occupied Kashmir (IoK) needed to be galvanised at a grassroots level to make them heard effectively at the international level. In an interview with the Associated Press of Pakistan during her visit to Pakistan, she said that attention raised on human rights violations in IoK such as the incidents of …

GENEVA: More than five billion people could have difficulty accessing water in 2050, the United Nations warned on Tuesday, urging leaders to seize the initiative at the COP26 summit. Already in 2018, 3.6 billion people had inadequate access to water for at least one month per year, said a new report from the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation. “We need to …

WASHINGTON: US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman arrives in Islamabad on Thursday for talks aimed at bridging a growing chasm between the United States and Pakistan on the Afghan issue. The State Department said Ms Sherman will be in New Delhi on Oct 6 for a series of bilateral meetings, civil society events, and the India Ideas Summit. On Oct 7, …

KABUL: Afghanistan will start issuing passports to its citizens again, a senior official said on Tuesday, following months of delays that hampered attempts by those trying to flee the country after the Taliban seized control in August. The process, which had slowed even before the Taliban’s return to power following the withdrawal of US forces, will provide applicants with documents …

LONDON: The British military started delivering fuel to petrol stations on Monday, after a tanker driver shortage sparked two weeks of panic buying by motorists. Troops in fatigues drove tankers from Buncefield Oil Depot in Hemel Hempstead 20 miles (32 kilometres) north of London after the military was put on standby last week. Some 200 military personnel, half of them …

Former Facebook employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen is expected to tell US Congress on Tuesday that the company faces little oversight and liken the social media giant to tobacco companies that for decades denied that smoking damaged health, according to testimony seen by Reuters. “When we realized tobacco companies were hiding the harms it caused, the government took action. When we …

TOKYO: Newly elected Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Monday he will dissolve the lower house next week in preparation for Oct 31 elections as he seeks a fresh mandate to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, the sagging economy and security threats from China and North Korea. Kishida was formally elected by parliament earlier on Monday to replace Yoshihide Suga, who …

Girls have returned to some secondary schools in a northern province of Afghanistan, Taliban officials and teachers said on Tuesday, but they remain barred from classrooms in much of the country. Dozens of girls in black, some wearing white headscarves and others with black face veils, sat in chairs waving Taliban flags, in a video posted by Taliban official Suhail …

u Top US officials will tell their Israeli counterparts on Tuesday that the Biden administration remains committed to diplomacy with Iran, but if necessary would be prepared to pursue “other avenues” to ensure Tehran does not acquire a nuclear weapon, a senior US official said. A visit to Washington by Israel’s national security adviser, Eyal Hulata, will allow the two …