NEW YORK: The ‘Big Apple’ is iconic for its yellow taxis, pizza slices, bright lights on Broadway, and its rats. Mountains of black garbage bags line cramped city sidewalks, a feast for the millions of rodents who call New York home. But such unsanitary eyesores could soon be a remnant of the city’s past, with local authorities launching a “trash …

Nine children were killed in a blast in southeastern Afghanistan caused by a landmine, laid during the country’s decades of conflict, a provincial official said on Monday. The mine went off as a group of young boys and girls were playing with it in the Geru district of Ghazni province on Sunday, said the provincial head of the information and culture …

RAWALPINDI: A case of theft of crude oil from the main pipeline of Pakistan Oilfields Limited (POL) has come to light as 3,904 barrels of crude oil were stolen in Dhamial area. Shahid Ahmad, associated with Pakistan Oilfields Limited, said in the FIR that he and the company’s patrolling official, Haris bin Fida, were on duty on Saturday morning when …

ISLAMABAD: On its way to missing targets in the current financial year, Pakistan’s biggest challenge now is fiscal consolidation and reforms amid a weak coalition government and political instability stemming from accusations of electoral fraud, the Washington-based Institute of International Finance (IIF) has said. On the other hand, exchange rate, monetary policy, energy subsidies and state-owned enterprises (SOE) reforms are …

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif arrived in Upper Kohistan’s Dasu on Monday to meet engineers from the Chinese company working on the dam project, according to Radio Pakistan. The visit comes days after five Chinese engineers — and their Pakistani driver — were killed in the suicide bombing on March 26 while travelling between Islamabad and a hydroelectric dam construction site in …

GAZA STRIP: Deadly airstrikes pounded the Gaza Strip as talks towards a truce between Israel and Hamas resumed in Cairo on Sunday, according to Egyptian state television. As heavy fighting raged on in the besieged Palestinian territory, including in or around several hospitals, the humanitarian crisis deepened despite a UN Security Council resolution last Monday that demanded an “immediate ceasefire”. To …

JERUSALEM: Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Jerusalem on Sunday against Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and against exemptions granted to ultra-Orthodox Jewish men from military service, in scenes reminiscent of mass street protests last year. Protest groups, including some that led the mass demonstrations that rock­ed Israel in 2023, organised the rally outside parliament, the Knesset, calling for a new …

When tracing Pakistan’s progress, a predominantly agricultural country, we see that it transformed into a semi-industrialised economy, which then ushered in import-oriented and debt-driven growth with an increasingly vulnerable external sector. Stressing the need to accelerate export-led growth, Finance Minister Muhammed Aurangzeb said that import-led subsidised businesses were no longer sustainable. While the need to boost exports cannot be overemphasised, …

MOSCOW: The foreign ministry on Sunday called on Kyiv to hand over all persons linked to terrorist acts in Russia, including head of Ukrainian security service. A Russian Foreign Ministry statement listed violent incidents that have occurred in Russia since the Kremlin’s forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, including bombings that killed the daughter of a prominent nationalist and a …

MAGURELE: “Ready? Signal sent!” In the control room of a research centre in Romania, engineer Antonia Toma activates the world’s most powerful laser, which promises revolutionary advances in everything from the health sector to space. The laser at the centre, near the Romanian capital Bucharest, is operated by French company Thales, using Nobel prize-winning inventions. France’s Gerard Mourou and Donna …