International

CARBIS BAY: UK anger with Europe sizzled on Sun­day after a sausage-themed dispute between the British and French leaders over post-Brexit trading arrangements in Northern Ireland. Brussels is equally angered at London’s refusal to implement checks on goods heading into Northern Ireland from England, Scotland and Wales. Talks broke down earlier this week, and the European Union is threatening retaliation …

MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin has said Russia would be ready to hand over cyber criminals to the United States if Washington did the same for Moscow and the two powers reached an agreement to that effect. Putin made the comments in an interview aired in excerpts on state television on Sunday ahead of a June 16 summit with US President …

MADRID: Right-wing protesters hit the streets of Madrid on Sunday to denounce controversial Spanish government plans to offer pardons to the jailed Catalan separatists behind the failed 2017 independence bid. Around 25,000 people, according to police estimates, gathered in Madrid’s Plaza de Colon at midday, with the leaders of the opposition Popular Party (PP) and the far-right Vox faction, Pablo …

Novavax Inc said on Friday its experimental COVID-19 vaccine showed immune response and protection against the highly contagious coronavirus variant originally identified in South Africa in a clinical trial. The vaccine, NVX-CoV2373, is being tested in multiple trials but has yet to be authorized for use in any country. Novavax also said studies in mice and baboons found that a different …

NEW YORK: Iran regained its vote in the UN General Assembly on Friday after the United States enabled Tehran to use funds frozen in South Korea to pay some $16 million it owed to the world body. Iran lost its vote in the 193-member General Assembly in January because it was more than two years in arrears. It owed more …

WASHINGTON: Prosec­utors in the US Justice Department under former president Donald Trump seized data from Apple about two Democratic lawmakers on the House intelligence committee, as well as that of their staff and family members, The New York Times reported on Thursday. Subpoenas for the communications metadata targeted congressman Adam Schiff of California, a Trump foe who was then the panel’s top …

WASHINGTON: US Defe­nce Secretary Lloyd J. Austin has refused to rule out the possibility of launching airstrikes to prevent the Taliban from taking over Kabul after the withdrawal, but acknowledged that it would be difficult to do so. At a hearing on the defence budget on Thursday, some US lawmakers also suggested that the United States recall all its troops …

LONDON: Britain’s main doctors’ union has joined calls for the next planned lockdown easing in England to be delayed, as figures on Friday showed new Covid cases across the UK running at their highest level since late February. The rise in new infections comes as a result of the spread of the delta variant first identified in India. Government figures …

BEIJING: Beijing’s top diplomat on Friday condemned Washington’s “small circle” diplomacy, state media reported, in a phone call with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken as G7 leaders met for their first in-person summit in nearly two years. Yang Jiechi, the Chinese Com­munist Party’s chief diplomat, told Blinken that “genuine multilateralism is not pseudo-multilateralism based on the interests of small …

DUBAI: The outgoing chief of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service has offered the closest acknowledgment yet his country was behind recent attacks targeting Iran’s nuclear programme and a military scientist. The comments by Yossi Cohen, speaking to investigative programme Uvda of Israel’s Channel 12 in a segment aired on Thursday night, offered an extraordinary debriefing by the head of the typically secretive agency …