COLOMBO: A fire-stricken oil tanker was pushed further away from Sri Lanka’s coast and into deeper waters on Saturday, rescuers said, after successfully containing the blaze during a 36-hour operation. The Panamanian-registered New Diamond carrying 270,000 tonnes of crude had drifted dangerously close to the eastern shores of Sri Lanka since issuing a distress message on Thursday morning. The Indian …

ISLAMABAD: The Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, Gen Nadeem Raza, in his meeting with Chief of General Staff of the Russian Federation, Gen Valery V. Gerasimov, discussed bilateral defence ties and regional security situation. An ISPR statement issued here on Saturday said: “Matters of bilateral military cooperation and regional security dynamics between the two countries were discussed during …

India and China said on Saturday they had agreed to work towards reducing tensions along their contested border, following a meeting of the defence ministers of the nuclear-armed Asian giants. Both sides deployed additional forces along the frontier running through the western Himalayas after a clash in June, during which 20 Indian soldiers were killed in hand-to-hand fighting. China has not released …

WASHINGTON: The US election is officially open: North Carolina on Friday launched vote-by-mail operations for the Nov 3 contest between President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden, which is getting uglier by the hour. With two months until Election Day, Trump is seizing on fears over violent protests in US cities and questioning the integrity of voting by mail, while …

talib ISLAMABAD: Peace talks between warring Afghan factions are finally set to begin in Doha after protracted delays over prisoners’ exchange as a Taliban delegation has returned to the Qatari capital and Afghan government negotiators are scheduled to reach there on Sunday (today). “The government negotiating team is fully ready to depart (for Doha) by tomorrow. They were waiting for …

China’s first reusable spacecraft landed on Sunday after two days in orbit, a possible step toward lower-cost space flight, the government announced. The secretive, military-run space program has released few details of the craft, which was launched Friday aboard a Long March 2F rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China’s desert northwest. The craft landed as planned at …

MELBOURNE: Protes­ters against a Covid-19 lockdown defied police in Aust­ra­lia’s hotspot on Saturday, prompting 15 arrests, even as the state of Victoria continued its gradual improvement in stemming new cases due to the nearly five weeks of restrictions. Around 200 protesters in the state capital Melbourne rallied with chants of “freedom” and “human rights matter”, surrounded by swarms of police. …

WASHINGTON: An official US report indicates that China has deep strategic interests in Pakistan, which will persuade both countries to stay engaged despite possible irritants. In its 2020 report to Congress on “Military and Security Develop­ments” in China,” the US Department of Defence suggests that Pakistan is among a handful of countries where Beijing seeks to enhance both “bilateral and multilateral” engagements. …

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will set out tougher rules for terror convicts after a man released early from a jail term for terrorism offences injured two people in a stabbing spree in south London. Sudesh Amman, who was jailed in 2018 for terrorism but released halfway through serving his three-year sentence, was shot dead by police when he began stabbing people …

ISLAMABAD: The Natio­nal Highway Authority (NHA) has rejected impression regarding weak-ness of the old Hub bridge that links Karachi with Balochistan, saying it is structurally stable and there is nothing wrong with it. An NHA spokesman while responding to questions raised in a video circulating on social media regarding the bridge said the bridge is 500 metres long, having 21 …