Category: World

ISLAMABAD: A Taliban delegation met US special representative for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad on Thursday, two sources told Reuters, the first known contact between the two sides since President Donald Trump called off talks last month. President Trump halted the talks, which aimed at a plan to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan in exchange for Taliban security guarantees, […]

An Australian-British blogger and her fiance said on Saturday they were “extremely happy and relieved” to be reunited with their loved ones after being freed from a three-month detention in Iran. The couple returned to Australia after all charges against them were dropped. “We are extremely happy and relieved to be safely back in Australia […]

The US state of Massachusetts upheld a ban on e-cigarettes on Friday amid a spate of deaths and injuries linked to vaping across the country. Eighteen deaths in 15 states had now been positively linked to vaping since March, from a total of 1,080 illnesses, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Officials […]

WASHINGTON: Text messages sent by US diplomats revealing an apparent effort by Donald Trump’s government to push Ukraine to investigate his political rival Joe Biden bolstered the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry on Friday, as the president suggested he might not cooperate with the probe. The investigation picked up steam as Democrats in the House of Representatives […]

PARIS: A man paralysed in a night club accident can walk again thanks to a brain-controlled exoskeleton in what scientists say is a breakthrough providing hope to tetraplegics seeking to regain movement. The French patient trained for months, harnessing his brain signals to control a computer-simulated avatar to perform basic movements before using the robot […]

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will send a letter to the European Union asking for a Brexit delay if no divorce deal has been reached by October 19, the government acknowledged for the first time on Friday. With the clock ticking down to Britain’s departure on October 31, Johnson has consistently said he will not […]

The death toll from days of violent demonstrations across Iraq surged to 44 on Friday, most of them killed in the last 24 hours, as unrest rapidly accelerated across the country despite a plea from the prime minister for calm. In an overnight TV address, Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said he understood the frustration of the […]

Indian police lodged a first information report (FIR) against 49 celebrities who had written an open letter to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi against the increasing cases of mob lynching in the country, Hindustan Times reported on Friday. According to the news report, the FIR was lodged in Muzaffarpur on Thursday against 49 signatories of an open letter, […]

European Union finance ministers are set to remove Switzerland and United Arab Emirates (UAE) next week from the bloc’s lists of countries deemed to act as tax havens, an EU document said. On October 10 they are expected to drop UAE from the blacklist, which includes jurisdictions that have failed to cooperate with the EU […]

The United States, the United Kingdom and Australia have called on Facebook Inc to not go ahead with end-to-end encryption across its messaging services unless law enforcement officials have backdoor access, saying encryption hindered the fight against child abuse and terrorism. The United States and United Kingdom also signed a special data agreement that would […]