KARACHI: Researchers have found the brightest object in the universe, which is 500 trillion times brighter than the Sun. According to the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the newly discovered quasar is the most luminous object ever observed, and it is powered by a massive blackhole which is eating a mass equivalent to one Sun per day, making it the fastest-growing …

MOSCOW: The mother of Alexei Navalny urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to “immediately” release the body of her son, in her first comments since his death in an Arctic prison. Putin’s main political opponent died in his penal colony on Friday, Russian authorities said. His team says the 47-year-old was murdered. His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, who has vowed to continue her husband’s …

LONDON: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was absent from a London court due to illness Tuesday as his lawyer made a final appeal against extradition to the United States to face trial for publishing secret military and diplomatic files. Washington wants the Australian extradited after he was charged in the United States multiple times between 2018 and 2020 over WikiLeaks’ 2010 …

WASHINGTON: Pakistan’s US Ambassador Masood Khan on Tuesday highlighted the pivotal role his country could play in fostering cooperation bet­ween the United States and China. In a significant address at the Centre for Strategic and Inter­national Studies (CSIS), Mr Khan said “Pakistan should be a meeting point, not a battleground” for the two global powers, and encouraged both nations to …

KABUL: Rescue teams on Tuesday reached the remote valley where a landslide buried dozens of people in eastern Afghanistan, a provincial official said, after responders were slowed by snow and blocked roads. Snowfall overnight on Sunday caused rubble, earth and snow to rip through the village of Nakre in mountainous Nuristan province, killing at least 25 people. “There were no …

VILLAJOYOSA: Russian emigres in Spain critical of the Kremlin called on the Spanish authorities on Tuesday to better protect them, after a Russian pilot who had defected to Ukraine was found shot dead in a garage in a town on Spain’s Mediterranean coast. Ukraine’s GUR military spy service has confirmed that pilot Maxim Kuzminov, who flew to Ukraine with his …

UNITED NATIONS: The United States once again exercised its veto power on Tuesday to block an Arab resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. The resolution, moved jointly by Algeria and a group of Arab nations, saw 13 votes in favour, one abstention (Britain) and a lone negative vote from the United States. US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield justified …

Indian police fired tear gas on Wednesday to scatter protesting farmers as they resumed a march to the capital, equipped with cranes and excavators after talks with the government on guaranteed prices for their produce failed to break a deadlock. To escape the stinging gas and clouds of smoke, thousands of farmers, some wearing medical masks, ran into the fields surrounding their …

A court in the Russian Far North will next month hear a case brought by the mother of dead opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who has been prevented from seeing his body, his allies said Wednesday. Lyudmila Navalnaya has travelled to the remote IK-3 prison where her son died, but since Saturday, when she arrived, she has been prevented from seeing his body. On Tuesday, …