International

TEHRAN: Iran’s President-elect Ebrahim Raisi said on Monday he will not allow nuclear negotiations for the sake of negotiations, in his first news conference since winning election last week. Raisi also ruled out meeting US President Joe Biden but said there were “no obstacles” to resuming diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia which have been severed for five years.“Any negotiations that …

STOCKHOLM: Sweden’s government was toppled on Monday after Stefan Lofven became the country’s first prime minister to lose a no-confidence vote, meaning he can now either resign or trigger a snap election. The motion of no confidence was filed on Thursday by the far right Sweden Democrats, after the Left Party, which has been propping up the government, said it …

LONDON: Dozens of people have ignored advice not to travel to Stonehenge for the annual summer solstice celebrations, which were cancelled on Monday due to coronavirus concerns. English Heritage, which looks after the Neolithic monument, had planned a live feed of the sunrise at Stonehenge for the second year in a row. But the organisation said that programme had to …

DUBAI: Yemen’s warring parties are thrashing out terms for a peace deal that would extricate Saudi Arabia from a costly war and help alleviate a devastating humanitarian crisis, two sources close to the talks and a Houthi official said. Talks between the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthis are focused on steps to lift a blockade on Houthi-held ports and Sanaa …

JAKARTA: Indonesia passed two million coronavirus cases on Monday as infection rates soar and hospitals are flooded with new patients, prompting warnings that the Southeast Asian nation’s health crisis could spiral out of control. The unwanted milestone came after daily case rates more than doubled in recent weeks and authorities identified the presence of highly infectious Covid-19 variants. On Monday, …

HONG KONG: Hong Kong’s embattled pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily reported on Monday that its board of directors has asked authorities to unfreeze some assets so it can pay salaries and avoid labour violations, and that the board will meet again on Friday to decide if the newspaper will cease operations. Police last week arrested five top editors and executives of Apple Daily under the …

KABUL: Taliban fighters took control of a key district in Afghanistan’s northern Kunduz province on Monday and encircled the provincial capital, police said, as the insurgent group added to its string of recent victories on the battlefield. Fighting around Imam Sahib district began late on Sunday and by mid-day the Taliban had overrun the district headquarters and were in control …

ATLANTA: Tropical Depr­ession Claudette clai­med 12 lives in Alabama as the storm swept across the southeastern US, causing flash flooding and spurring tornadoes that destroyed dozens of homes. Ten people were killed on Saturday in a 15-vehicle crash about 35 miles (55 kilometers) south of Montgomery on Interstate 65, according to Butler County Coroner Wayne Garlock. He said the vehicles …

WASHINGTON: A French and an American astronaut embarked on a spacewalk on Sunday to complete the installation of new solar panels to boost power supplies to the International Space Station (ISS), they announced on Twitter. “Here we go again for episode (2) of the new solar array installation spacewalks,” tweeted Thomas Pesquet, a Frenchman with the European Space Agency. “It …

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Sunday called for joint efforts to counter the growing tendency of Islamophobia and religious bias in different parts of the world. The foreign minister, in an informal meeting with Secretary General of the Economic Cooperation Organi­sation (ECO) Dr Hadi Soleimanpour, said that being a founding ECO member, Pakistan was committed to regional integration …