International

WASHINGTON: Earth sizzled last month and July became the hottest month in 142 years of recordkeeping, meteorologists said on Friday. As extreme heat waves struck parts of the United States and Europe, the globe averaged 16.73 degrees Celsius last month, beating out the previous record set in July 2016 and tied again in 2019 and 2020. the National Oceanic and …

WASHINGTON: The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has welcomed the celebration of religious minorities day in Pakistan, hoping that the government would uphold the vision of inclusiveness and religious freedom advocated by its founding father, Mohammad Ali Jinnah. In a message on Pakistan’s National Minority Day, USCRIF also posted one of Mr Jinnah’s quotes on its official Twitter …

The Afghan Taliban tightened their territorial stranglehold around Kabul on Saturday, as refugees from the insurgents’ relentless offensive flooded the capital and US Marines returned to oversee emergency evacuations from Afghanistan. With the country’s second- and third-largest cities having fallen into Taliban hands, Kabul has effectively become the besieged, last stand for government forces who have offered little or no resistance elsewhere. …

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has said it considers the Unites States a friend and wants broad-based relations to achieve the shared objective of peace and prosperity in the region and beyond. “We believe that both countries have a history of close cooperative relations, which have served our shared interests,” Foreign Office spokesman Zahid Hafeez Chaudhry said at a weekly press briefing here …

ROME: Stifling heat kept its grip on much of Southern Europe on Thursday, driving people indoors at midday, spoiling crops, triggering drinking water restrictions, turning public libraries into cooling climate shelters and complicating the already difficult challenge firefighters faced battling wildfires. Palermo, in Italy’s Sicily region, registered a record temperature of 48.8 Celsius. The country’s 15 cities received warnings from …

TOKYO: A cargo ship ran aground and broke into two off northern Japan, the coastguard said on Thursday, with the crew of the Panama-flagged vessel taken to safety. Aerial images showed the separated stern of the Crimson Polaris tipped upwards and the other part of the stricken boat listing into the sea. A fuel leak from the ship has spread …

ANKARA: Police in Turkey on Thursday detained 76 people in connection with attacks on homes and businesses believed to be owned by Syrians after a Turkish teenager was killed in a fight with a group of refugees from Syria. A hundreds-strong mob took to the streets of the capital Ankara’s Altindag neighbourhood late on Wednesday, throwing stones at Syrian refugees …

PORTLAND: Volunteers and county employees set up cots and stacked hundreds of bottles of water in an air-conditioned cooling center in a vacant building in Portland, Oregon, one of many such places being set up as the Northwest sees another stretch of sizzling temperatures. Scorching weather also hit other parts of the country this week. The weather service said heat …

ISLAMABAD: Due to the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, Pakistan has decided to reduce its staff at its three consulates in Afghanistan and temporarily suspended some of their operations. The consulates in Mazar-i-Sharif, Kandahar and Herat will, however, continue to process online visa applications and function with a minimum strength of staff. Confirming the development, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi …

LONDON: Britain will deploy hundreds of military personnel to Afghanistan to help British nationals and local translators get out of the country, defence secretary Ben Wallace said on Thursday as the security situation there worsens. The British embassy in Kabul will be moved to a more secure location and will remain manned by only a core staff. The deployment of …