ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Sunday said it had rejected nomination of Jayant Khobragade as India’s new charge d’affaires in Pakistan as he was too senior for the position at a time when the bilateral ties had been lowered. In a statement, Foreign Office (FO) spokesman Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri said leaking misleading information and twisting facts was not only contrary to diplomatic …

NEW YORK: A US judge on Sunday blocked the government’s ban on WeChat downloads, hours before it was due to take effect in an ongoing technology and espionage battle between Washington and Beijing. The Trump administration had ordered a ban on downloads of the messaging platform WeChat as well as hugely popular video-sharing app TikTok, both owned by Chinese companies. …

WASHINGTON: Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday she would not rule out impeaching President Donald Trump if he pushes through his nominee to replace a Supreme Court judge. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal judge who championed gender equality during her long association with the Supreme Court, died on Friday. President Trump tweeted on Saturday that he …

MADRID: Protesters in some poorer areas of Madrid that are facing lockdown to stem a soaring Covid-19 infection rate took to the streets on Sunday to call for better health provisions, complaining of discrimination by the authorities. Madrid’s regional government on Friday ordered a lockdown from Monday in some of the poorer areas of the city and its outskirts that …

BANGKOK: Thousands of protesters cheered as activists installed a plaque in Bangkok on Sunday declaring that Thailand “belongs to the people” — the boldest show of defiance in a youth-led movement which is questioning the unassailable monarchy’s role in the country. Thailand has seen near-daily protests for the past two months led by student activists calling for the resignation of …

BERLIN: Rights activists on Sunday accused Italian authorities of blocking migrant rescue ship Sea-Watch 4 from leaving port and resuming its emergency mission in the Mediterranean. After an inspection on the safety of the vessel to operate in high seas, Italian authorities placed the ship under an administrative blockade, said the German activist groups Sea-Watch and United4Rescue, as well as …

Taiwan said on Monday its armed forces have the right to self-defence and counter attack amid “harassment and threats”, in an apparent warning to China, which last week sent numerous jets across the mid-line of the sensitive Taiwan Strait. Tensions have sharply spiked in recent months between Taipei and Beijing, which claims democratically run Taiwan as its own territory, to be taken …

At least 10 people were killed and up to 25 were feared trapped after a three-storey residential building collapsed before dawn on Monday in western India, officials said. The accident in the city of Bhiwandi, which neighbours India’s financial capital Mumbai, occurred around 3:40am, local authorities said. “Ten people have died, we have rescued 11 people alive,” an official at …

CHITRAL: The District Headquarters Hospital, Chitral, has been functioning without a surgeon for one and a half years forcing patients requiring surgical procedure to travel to Peshawar. The hospital has three sanctioned posts of surgeons, including two of BPS-18 and one of BPS-19. The residents criticised the government over failure to cater for the needs of a population of around …

MURREE: Contaminated water filled with mud and debris is being supplied to residents and tourists in Murree as water tanks – the only source of water storage in the city – have not been cleaned since long, sources in the town’s administration confirmed. The 100,000 people living in Murree along with millions of tourists, who visit the city on a …