VIENNA: The UN nuclear watchdog’s 35-nation board of governors passed a resolution on Wednesday calling on Iran to step up cooperation with the watchdog and reverse its recent barring of inspectors, despite concerns Tehran would respond with atomic escalation. Twenty countries voted in favour and two against — Russia and China — with 12 abstentions. It follows up on the …

NEW YORK: Humankind’s role in the destructive warming of the planet is the equivalent to the meteorite that wiped out dinosaurs from Earth, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a speech on climate change on Wednesday. “Like the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, we’re having an outsized impact,” Guterres said in a speech at the American Museum of Natural …

PARIS: Slovenia has followed suit of Spain, Ireland and Norway by recognising the state of Palestine, breaking with the long-held view of Western powers that Palestinians can gain statehood “only as part of a negotiated peace with Israel”. With the latest addition, 146 of the 193 UN member states now recognise a Palestinian state including most Middle Eastern, African, Latin American and …

WASHINGTON: When US President Joe Biden publicly aired a Gaza ceasefire proposal developed by Israel and the United States and sent to Hamas, he made the announcement without seeking agreement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said three US officials with knowledge of the matter. The decision to announce unilaterally — an unusual step for the United States to take with a …

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on Wednesday elected as the leader of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), but uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. Two crucial conditions have surfaced on the wish list of Mr Modi’s strongly independent allies, whose support he needs to shore up his minority government. The demands, if pressed would bear resemblance to the …

ST PETERSBURG: President Vladimir Putin cautioned the West on Wednesday that Russia could use all available means, including nuclear weapons, to defend itself if its sovereignty or territorial integrity were threatened. Putin said that the West had repeatedly accused Russia of nuclear sabre-rattling, but said this was wrong, and pointed out that it was the United States which had used nuclear …

UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan is poised to secure a record eighth term as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council in Thursday’s election. All UN member nations are currently engaged in the process of filling five non-permanent seats on the 15-member Security Council. Among the contenders are Denmark, Greece, Pakistan, Panama, and Somalia, with each regional group presenting a single …

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was preparing on Thursday to be sworn in for a third term after an unexpectedly close election that forced his party into a coalition government. Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which had ruled for the past decade with an outright majority, had been expecting another landslide win. But results of the six-week election released on Tuesday …

UFO sightings should not be dismissed out of hand because they could in fact be surveillance drones or weapons, say Japanese lawmakers who launched a group on Thursday to probe the matter. The non-partisan group, which counts former defence ministers among its 80-plus members, will urge Japan to ramp up its abilities to detect and analyse unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), …

ISLAMABAD: Empha­sising the need for business-to-business cooperation between Pakistan and China, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday assured Chinese investors and their investment-oriented projects of all-out facilitation and foolproof security in Pakistan. Addressing the Pakistan-China Business Forum in Shenzhen on the second day of his China visit, the PM highlighted bilateral trade and investment potential, especially in key sectors including …