KARACHI: While the US dollar has crushed the local currency, the foreign exchange reserves of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) have also started falling sharply that may further weaken the rupee. The SBP reserves plunged by $1.646 billion to $17.492bn during the week ended on Oct 15 from over $20bn in August, announced the central bank on Thursday. The State Bank …

PARIS: The city of Paris on Thursday promised to deve­l­op its network of secure cyc­ling lanes as part of a five-year plan to make the French capital “100-percent bikeable” with 250 million euros ($290 million) of extra spending. Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo, who runs Paris with support from the Green party, placed a push for more bike-friendly policies at the …

PARIS: A private, anonymous US collector bought the fossilised remains of ‘Big John’, the largest triceratops dinosaur ever discovered by paleontologists, for 6.65 million euros ($7.74 million) at a Paris auction on Thursday. Big John — named after the owner of the land where the dinosaur’s bones were found — roamed modern-day South Dakota more than 66 million years ago. …

NEW YORK: Surgeons in the United States claimed on Wednesday they had successfully given a pig’s kidney to a person in a transplant breakthrough they hope could ultimately solve donor organ shortages. The recipient was brain-dead, meaning they were already on artificial life support with no prospect of recovering. The kidney came from a pig that had been genetically modified …

WELLINGTON: New Zealand’s first indigenous Maori woman to be named Governor-general, Dame Cindy Kiro, was formally sworn into the largely ceremonial role in parliament in Wellington on Thursday, pledging to reach out to migrants and marginalised citizens. Speaking to a small audience at the swearing-in ceremony, Dame Cindy said she was proud of her dual Maori and British heritage. The …

SEOUL: South Korea laun­ched its first domestically developed space rocket on Thursday but failed to put its dummy payload into orbit, a setback in the country’s atte­mpts to join the ranks of adv­a­nced space-faring nations. The Korea Space Launch Vehicle II, informally called Nuri and emblazoned with a South Korean flag, rose upwards from Goheung on the southern coast, trailing …

ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday threatened to expel the US, German and eight other Western ambassadors after they issued a rare joint statement in support of a jailed civil society leader. Parisian-born philanthropist and activist Osman Kavala, 64, has been in jail without a conviction since 2017, becoming a symbol of what critics see as Erdogan’s growing …

BRUSSELS: Nato defence ministers agreed a new master plan on Thursday to defend against any potential Russian attack on multiple fronts, reaffirming the alliance’s core goal of deterring Moscow despite a growing focus on China. The confidential strategy aims to prepare for any simultaneous attack in the Baltic and Black Sea regions that could include nuclear weapons, hacking of computer networks …

GENEVA: The United Nations said on Thursday it had set up a special trust fund to provide urgently needed cash directly to Afghans through a system tapping into donor funds frozen since the Taliban takeover in August. With the local economy “imploding”, the aim is to inject liquidity into Afghan households to permit them to survive this winter and remain …

WASHINGTON: Pakistan, India and Afghanistan were among 11 countries singled out by US intelligence agencies on Thursday as being “highly vulnerable” in terms of their ability to prepare for and respond to environmental and societal crises caused by climate change. In a new National Intelligence Estimate, the Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) predicted that global warming would increase …