Category: World

WASHINGTON: The US Treasury placed two Hezbollah members of Lebanon’s parliament on its sanctions blacklist on Tuesday — the first time Washington has taken aim at the Iran-allied group’s elected politicians. Stepping up its effort to build global pressure on the powerful Lebanese Shia movement, the Treasury named MPs Amin Sherri and Muhammad Hasan Raad […]

NEW DELHI: Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is planning to travel to India in September just days before he faces elections, The Hindu said on Tuesday. Mr Netanyahu was due to visit Delhi in February this year, also just ahead of the earlier Israeli election, which failed to give his coalition a clear majority. He will now […]

MINEO: What was once Europe’s biggest migrant reception centre, in Mineo in Sicily, officially closed on Tuesday in the presence of its biggest critic, far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. “We’re saving quite a bit of money, we’re working to find new jobs for the centre’s ex-workers, but Sicily, Catania and Mineo cannot base their future […]

President Donald Trump on Tuesday called the British ambassador to the United States “a very stupid guy,” one day after declaring he would cut contact with the diplomat following a leak of cables describing Trump as “inept.” “I don’t know the Ambassador but have been told he is a pompous fool,” Trump wrote in a […]

China demanded on Tuesday that the United States “immediately cancel” a potential sale of $2.2 billion in arms to self-ruled Taiwan, including battle tanks and anti-aircraft missiles, adding fuel to tensions between the two powers. It would be the first big-ticket US military sale to the democratically-governed island in decades, and comes as ties between Washington […]

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday fired a new Twitter salvo at India, accusing the giant Asian economy of unfairly blocking American imports. “India has had a field day putting tariffs on American products,” the president tweeted. “No longer acceptable.” Trump’s sparring with Delhi over trade has heated up just as Washington seeks to resolve […]

All-Afghan talks that brought together Afghanistan’s warring sides ended on Tuesday with a statement that appeared to push the country a step closer to peace, by laying down the outlines of a roadmap for the country’s future and ending nearly 18 years of war. Washington’s Peace Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has said he is hoping for […]

Turkish prosecutors on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for over 200 soldiers in Istanbul and the Aegean Izmir province for their alleged links to the Fetullah Terrorist Organisation (Feto), the network blamed by Ankara for orchestrating a failed 2016 military coup. According to Istanbul prosecutors, the warrants were issued for 176 active-duty soldiers — including colonels, […]

DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates said on Monday it was redeploying and reducing troops across war-torn Yemen and moving from a “military-first” strategy to a “peace-first” plan. The UAE is a key partner in a Saudi-led military coalition which intervened in Yemen in 2015 to back the internationally recognised government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi […]

China on Monday said “unilateral bullying” by the United States was the cause behind the escalating Iran nuclear crisis, after Tehran announced it was set to breach its uranium enrichment cap. “The facts show that unilateral bullying has already become a worsening tumour,” said Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang at a press briefing in […]