TAIPEI: Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen warned of “catastrophic consequences” if the island were to fall to China and vowed to “do whatever it takes” to guard against threats in an article published on Tuesday. Taiwan lives under the constant threat of invasion by China, which views the self-ruled democratic island as its territory to be re-taken one day, by force …

STOCKHOLM: US-Japanese scientist Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann of Germany and Giorgio Parisi of Italy on Tuesday won the Nobel Physics Prize for climate models and the understanding of physical systems, the jury said. The Nobel committee said it was sending a message with its prize announcement just weeks before the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, as the rate of global …

BUCHAREST: The Romanian government of liberal Prime Minister Florin Citu was brought down by a no-confidence vote on Tuesday, threatening to plunge the country into fresh political instability. The result of the vote showed 281 MPs voting in favour of the no-confidence motion, with none against as the government and its allies boycotted the poll. The crisis comes as Romania, …

DUBAI: US Commissioner General to the Expo in Dubai Robert Clark, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, said on Tuesday that he would lobby Congress to pass legislation to allow the government to finance the country’s participation in future world fairs. The United States is banned by Congress from using public funds to take part in fairs organised by …

ISLAMABAD: Border security and regional peace and stability topped Pakistan-Iran talks held on Tuesday. The 11th session of the Bilateral Political Consultations (BPC) was held at the Foreign Office. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Dr Ali Bagheri Kani and Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood led their respective sides at the talks. The two sides, the FO said, reviewed entire …

PARIS: Hundreds of millions of people were unable to access Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp for more than six hours on Monday, underscoring the world’s reliance on platforms owned by the Silicon Valley giant. But what actually caused the outage? What does Facebook say happened? In an apologetic blog post, Santosh Janar­dhan, Facebook’s vice president of infrastructure, said that “configuration changes on the …

Member of the UK Parliament, Naz Shah, on Tuesday said voices against atrocities in Indian-occupied Kashmir (IoK) needed to be galvanised at a grassroots level to make them heard effectively at the international level. In an interview with the Associated Press of Pakistan during her visit to Pakistan, she said that attention raised on human rights violations in IoK such as the incidents of …

GENEVA: More than five billion people could have difficulty accessing water in 2050, the United Nations warned on Tuesday, urging leaders to seize the initiative at the COP26 summit. Already in 2018, 3.6 billion people had inadequate access to water for at least one month per year, said a new report from the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation. “We need to …

WASHINGTON: US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman arrives in Islamabad on Thursday for talks aimed at bridging a growing chasm between the United States and Pakistan on the Afghan issue. The State Department said Ms Sherman will be in New Delhi on Oct 6 for a series of bilateral meetings, civil society events, and the India Ideas Summit. On Oct 7, …

KABUL: Afghanistan will start issuing passports to its citizens again, a senior official said on Tuesday, following months of delays that hampered attempts by those trying to flee the country after the Taliban seized control in August. The process, which had slowed even before the Taliban’s return to power following the withdrawal of US forces, will provide applicants with documents …