TOKYO: The Bank of Japan (BOJ) ended eight years of negative interest rates and other remnants of its unorthodox policy on Tuesday, making a historic shift away from its focus on reflating growth with decades of massive monetary stimulus. While the move was Japan’s first interest rate hike in 17 years, it still keeps rates stuck around zero as a …

KURRAM: A day after the air strikes by the Pakistani military in Afghanistan provoked clashes along the border, Tuesday remained a relatively calmer day as guns on both sides of the boundary remained silent, barring the Angoor Adda border, despite the tense situation. In the early hours of Monday, Pakistan struck militant hideouts in Khost and Paktika provinces which, according to the …

WASHINGTON: Ahead of his appearance at a Congressional panel on Tuesday, US Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu submitted a written statement expressing Washington’s concerns about irregularities in the Feb 8 elections while also emphasising the need to stay engaged with Pakistan to help it navigate through the crises it is facing. Mr Lu is the diplomat whose supposed warning …

LONDON: Britain said on Tuesday it would refer the UAE-led takeover of the Telegraph for a lengthy review, a move that will effectively kill the deal because a law banning foreign governments owning newspapers is due to come into force in coming months. Abu Dhabi-backed RedBird IMI took control of the Telegraph titles and the Spectator magazine in December when it helped repay the Barclay family’s 1.2 billion …

AMMAN: Israel launched missiles at several military targets outside the Syrian capital Damascus on Tuesday, Syria’s defence ministry said, in what regional intelligence and Syrian sources said were stepped up strikes on fortifications of Hezbollah. Syrian air defences intercepted Israeli “missiles and shot down some of them”, the ministry said in a statement, adding they caused only material damage. Two …

Following recent skirmishes on the Pak-Afghan frontier, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday asserted that the government would not tolerate any cross-border terrorism. In the early hours of Monday, Pakistan struck Afghanistan’s Khost and Paktika provinces in “intelligence-based anti-terrorist operations”, which, according to the Afghan interim government, killed eight people. The Foreign Office had confirmed the strikes, saying they were aimed at the Hafiz …

RAMSTEIN BASE (Germany): US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday warned that Ukraine’s survival was in danger and sought to convince allies that the United States was committed to Kyiv, even as Washington has essentially run out of money to continue arming Ukrainian forces. Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson has so far refused to call a vote on …

BEIJING: Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to China in May for talks with Xi Jinping, in what could be the Kremlin chief’s first overseas trip of his new presidential term, according to five sources familiar with the matter. Western governments on Monday condemned Putin’s re-election as unfair and undemocratic. But China, India and North Korea congratulated the veteran leader on extending his …

LAHORE: As disruption of social media platform X stre­t­ched into its fifth week, Inte­rior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said on Tuesday the country needed “better laws” to regulate internet free speech. “We need to make better laws,” he said when asked whe­ther his ministry was responsible for shutting down the platform, formerly known as Twitter. “Expression is fine, but ma­k­ing false …

US Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu on Wednesday termed the allegations against him — which formed the crux of the ‘cablegate’ cipher controversy — by former prime minister Imran Khan as a “conspiracy theory, lie and complete falsehood”. Lu is the diplomat whose supposed warning to former Pakistan Ambassador to the US Asad Majeed was the subject of a …