Shells rain down on city near Ukraine’s N- plant
KYIV: Artillery shells rained down on a city close to Europe’s biggest nuclear plant on Saturday night and Russian missiles hit targets near Odesa, a Ukrainian Black Sea port and a grain export hub, as the war headed for its six-month milestone on Aug 24. The day will also mark 31 years of Ukraine’s independence […]
Sri Lanka’s ousted president keen to return home
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s deposed former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa is seeking to return home from his exile in Thailand and has asked his successor to guarantee his safety, his party said on Friday. Rajapaksa fled the island last month after a huge crowd stormed his house, capping months of white-hot public anger over the island nation’s […]
‘Tornado of fire’: Algeria forest blazes kill 38
EL KALA: Algerian firefighters on Thursday battled two dozen blazes fanned by hot winds that have killed at least 38 people and left destruction across the drought-hit North African country. Deadly forest fires have become an annual scourge in the North African country, where climate change is turning large areas into a tinderbox in the […]
China to send troops to Russia for joint military drills
Chinese troops will travel to Russia to take part in joint military drills, Beijing’s defence ministry said. Beijing and Moscow have close defence links and China has said it wants to push bilateral relations “to a higher level,” even as Moscow faces international sanctions and widespread condemnation over its war in Ukraine. China’s defence ministry […]
Australian PM says Scott Morrison secretly held five cabinet posts
SYDNEY: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday that his predecessor secretly seized control of five ministerial posts, labelling it an “unprecedented trashing of our democracy”. Albanese said Scott Morrison had appointed himself to more ministries than initially thought, and promised further investigation. From March 2020 until he was swept from power in May […]
Clashes in Kenya as Ruto declared president-elect after disputed count
NAIROBI: William Ruto was declared the victor of Kenya’s hard-fought presidential poll on Monday, but the outcome sparked a split in the election commission and some violent protests in his defeated rival’s strongholds. Ruto won with 50.49 percent of the vote on Aug 9, narrowly ahead of Raila Odinga on 48.85pc, Independent Electoral and Boundaries […]
Iran denies link with Rushdie’s attacker, says writer and his supporters to blame
Iran “categorically” denied on Monday any link with the attacker who stabbed British writer Salman Rushdie, but blamed the writer himself. Rushdie is recovering after being stabbed repeatedly at a public appearance in New York state. The suspected assailant, 24-year-old Hadi Matar from New Jersey, was wrestled to the ground by staff and other audience […]
US to conduct ‘freedom of navigation’ transit near Taiwan
A senior US official said Friday the US was set to conduct “freedom of navigation” operations in the Taiwan Strait during the coming weeks. Kurt Campbell, the US Indo-Pacific coordinator in the administration of President Joe Biden, said the operations will consist of “air and maritime transit through the Taiwan Strait over the next few […]
Wildfires burn, farmers struggle as another heatwave bakes western Europe
HOSTENS: European nations sent firefighting teams to help France tackle a “monster” wildfire on Thursday, while forest blazes also raged in Spain and Portugal and the head of the European Space Agency urged immediate action to combat climate change. More than 1,000 firefighters, backed by water-bombing planes, battled for a third day a fire that […]
G7 wants Russia to return nuclear plant control to Kyiv
• Ukraine accuses Russia of using N-plant as shield • China calls US ‘main instigator’ of crisis • 13 killed in rocket attacks KYIV/BERLIN: As Ukraine on Wednesday accused Russia of exploiting its position in a nuclear power plant it had seized to target a nearby town in rocket attacks that killed at least 13 […]
