As the rest of the world was shutting down to stave off Covid-19, U.S. star Anne Hathaway found herself starting up a whole new movie project – a rom-com heist caper set in the pandemic still raging around her. “I don’t think either of us quite know how we pulled it off,” Hathaway told Reuters as she sat down with …

THE HAGUE: Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s government resigned on Friday over a child benefits scandal, threatening political instability as the country battles the coronavirus pandemic. Thousands of parents were wrongly accused by Dutch authorities of fraudulently claiming child allowance, with many of them forced to pay back large amounts of money and ending up in financial ruin. The fact …

Parasite director Bong Joon Ho has been selected as jury president of the 78th Venice International Film Festival, organizers said Friday. The Oscar-winner will preside over seven jurors to hand out the festival’s top awards, including the prestigious Golden Lion. He’ll be the first South Korean to hold the post. In a statement, the director said he is, “Honored to be …

KUNDUZ: At least nine Afghan security personnel were killed when Taliban militants attacked two police checkpoints overnight in a restive northern province, officials said on Friday. The militants launched simultaneous raids on the checkpoints in Kunduz, a region bordering Tajikistan that has seen regular clashes between the insurgents and government forces. The fighting left nine Afghan security personnel dead, Kunduz …

NEW DELHI: A ninth round of talks between the Indian government and protesting farmers over three new contentious farm laws made no headway on Friday, but a government minister and union leaders said they would resume discussions on Tuesday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has said that the laws introduced in September will unshackle farmers from the obligation of selling …

DUBAI: Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard conducted a drill on Friday that saw suicide drones crash into targets and explode, triangle-shaped aircraft that strongly resembled those used in a 2019 attack in Saudi Arabia that temporarily cut the kingdom’s oil production by half. Iran has long denied launching the attack on the sites of Abqaiq and Khurais while Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi …

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump will leave Washington on Wednesday morning, hours before the inauguration of his Democratic successor Joe Biden, according to an official. The outgoing president, who had already announced he would not attend the swearing-in, will fly to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, where he intends to stay. After two months of refusing to acknowledge his defeat in …

WASHINGTON: In one of his final acts as the US Secretary of State, Michael Pompeo has redesignated Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) as foreign terrorist organisations. A statement issued in Washington on Thursday evening said that the Department of State had amended the terrorist designations of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and ISIL Sinai Peninsula (ISIL-SP) group to include additional aliases the two groups …

Rescuers scrambled to find buried survivors on Saturday after a powerful earthquake on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island killed dozens, injured hundreds and left more feared trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings. At least 45 people died after the 6.2-magnitude quake struck in the early hours of Friday, triggering panic among residents of the island, which was hit by a 2018 quake-tsunami disaster …

ISLAMABAD: A day after the Islamabad High Court (IHC) barred Naeem Bukhari from serving as chairman of Pakistan Television, the federal cabinet removed him and two other directors of PTV board on Friday. At the same time, it reinstated Amir Manzoor, who had been sent home by Mr Bukhari. Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry told Dawn that the cabinet, through circulation, …