BARCELONA: A cruise ship rescued 68 migrants from a fishing boat spotted adrift south of Spain’s Canary Islands with five bodies on board, Spanish authorities and the ship’s operator said on Thursday. Rescuers were alerted on Wednesday afternoon to the vessel drifting in the Atlantic some 800 kilometres south of the island of Tenerife. The cruise ship, the Insignia, was …

NEW DELHI: An Indian court granted bail on Thursday to one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s chief opponents, who was first detained over a long-running corruption probe in March. Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of Delhi and the leader of the opposition Aam Aadmi party, denies the charges as a “political conspiracy” by Modi and his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party …

MANILA: The Philip­pines accused Chinese coast guard sailors of brandishing knives, an axe and other weapons in a clash with its naval vessels near a strategic reef in the South China Sea. The clash took place on Monday as Philippine forces attempted to resupply marines stationed on a derelict warship that was deliberately grounded atop the disputed Second Thomas Shoal …

LONDON: The man who made headlines less than two years ago for being the United Kingdom’s richest and first non-White prime minister will now go down in history as a symbol of failure. This week, a new poll forecast that the Conservatives will face a wipeout in London at the general election, and that Rishi Sunak will lose his own seat …

HANOI: The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, says he wants to build a “reliable security architecture”, in the Asia-Pacific region. He made these remarks on Thursday, during a state visit to Vietnam, which is part of a ‘two-nation’ trip to Asia, viewed by many “as [a] show of defiance to the West”. A day after signing a mutual defence agreement with North …

BEIRUT: Fears of a regional war rose on Thursday after Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement said none of Israel would be spared in a full-blown conflict, and Israel said it had approved plans for a Lebanon offensive. Experts are divided on the prospect of wider war, almost nine months into Israel’s vow to eradicate Hamas, the Palestinian group in the Gaza …

WASHINGTON: The US State Department said on Thursday that Washington supports direct talks between India and Pakistan but will not tell them how to conduct those discussions. At the regular news briefing in Washington, spokesperson Matthew Miller also emphasised a strong counterterrorism partnership with Pakistan, stating that both countries are committed to maintaining this relationship. “We value our important relationships …

Former US president Donald Trump said he wants to grant green cards to foreign graduates from US colleges, in an apparent softening of his typically hard-line view on immigration, a key election issue. The Republican candidate made the remarks in a podcast published on Thursday, days after President Joe Biden announced a citizenship pathway for immigrants married to US nationals, counterbalancing his recent crackdown …

Stretching, arching his back and kneeling on a mat, India’s Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi led hundreds of people performing yoga in India-held Kashmir on Friday. The exercises in Srinagar marked the 10th International Yoga Day, Modi’s own brainchild. But while yoga is not itself a religious practice, it has its origins in Hindu philosophy — the god Shiva …

ISLAMABAD: A request by the Islamabad police seeking possession of a vehicle — belonging to the Lahore High Court — to investigate its involvement in a two-year-old hit-and-run case has been denied by a judicial magistrate, who said the request made by the Khanna police was not justified. In 2022, a sports utility vehicle allegedly driven by the daughter of the Lahore …