LONDON: Prince Harry and his wife Meghan’s bombshell resignation from front-line royal duties rocked the British monarchy on Thursday, with reports they defied Queen Elizabeth II by going public. The couple said they would now “balance” their time between Britain and North America and rip up long-established relations with the press, in a surprise announcement on Wednesday that appeared to …

It is “highly likely” that Iran shot down the civilian Ukrainian jetliner that crashed near Tehran late on Tuesday, killing all 176 people on board, US, Canadian and British officials alleged on Thursday. They said the fiery missile strike could well have been a mistake amid rocket launches and high tension throughout the region. The crash came just a few hours after …

The US House of Representatives voted on Thursday to stop President Donald Trump from further military action against Iran as the Middle East remained tense after the US killing of a top Iranian commander and Iran’s retaliatory missile strikes. The resolution passed 224-194 along party lines in the Democratic-controlled House with nearly all Republicans opposed. The measure orders termination of Trump’s war …

India’s Supreme Court on Friday, while hearing petitions challenging the restrictions on movement and communication imposed in occupied Kashmir since August 5, said that freedom of internet is a fundamental right and ordered the administration to review all restrictive orders within a week. In a rebuke for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, the court termed shutting down the internet “unconstitutional”. “Freedom of …

Iran on Friday termed reports that it had shot down a Ukrainian commercial airliner in Tehran as “lies” concocted by the United States as part of the latter’s “psychological operations” against Iran. “Today, in a very well-calculated move in psychological operations as quoted by an informed source of Pentagon… has published news pompously that two missiles hit the Ukrainian plane. …

Unidentified planes struck targets in Syria near the border with Iraq on Friday, killing eight Iran-backed Iraqi militiamen, Syrian activists and two Iraqi officials said, an attack that comes amid soaring tensions between the US and Iran. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the planes targeted positions belonging to pro-Iran militias in the Boukamal area, near the border with …

A Moroccan activist has been sentenced to two years in prison for “insulting the national flag and the symbol of the state” in a Facebook post, his lawyer said on Friday. The sentence was handed down late on Thursday in the central Moroccan city of Khenifra, at the end of a hearing lasting around 10 hours, lawyer Hassan El Tas …

Australia urged nearly a quarter of a million people to evacuate their homes on Friday and prepared military backup as authorities said the next few hours could be “very, very challenging” even as rain poured down in some parts. Defence personnel stood ready to move to bushfire grounds if conditions became extreme, Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters, as soaring …

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan has ordered the overhauling of the country’s public diplomacy and information policy for effective projection of national narrative abroad by improving the skill set and orientation of ambassadors and their subordinate diplomatic and media staff at all the missions abroad. As part of the initiative, the prime minister has ordered creation of a fully empowered …

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Thursday put on hold its ruling on an appeal challenging the return of a petition by the court’s secretariat that pertains to a reference on misconduct against former chief justice Mian Saqib Nisar. The appeal against the registrar office’s decision of not entertaining the petition was taken up by Justice Umar Ata Bandial in his …