Category: World

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan intelligence officials were tipped off about an imminent attack by Islamist militants hours before a series of suicide bombings killed more than 300 people on Easter Sunday, three sources with direct knowledge of the matter said. Three churches and four hotels were hit by suicide bombers on Sunday morning, killing 321 people and wounding […]

WASHINGTON: The United States called on Iran to keep the straits of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab open, a State Department official said on Tuesday after the United States a day earlier demanded that Iran oil buyers halt their purchases by May 1. “We call on Iran, and all countries, to respect the free flow of […]

Donald Trump has accepted Queen Elizabeth’s invitation to make a state visit to Britain in June, becoming only the third US president to have been accorded the honour by the monarch, Buckingham Palace said on Tuesday. The trip is likely to be controversial given many Britons deeply dislike the man and reject his policies on […]

The militant Islamic State has claimed responsibility for coordinated bombings in Sri Lanka which killed 321 people and injured about 500 others. Two of the suicide bombers blew themselves up at the luxury Shangri-La Hotel on Colombo’s seafront, said Ariyananda Welianga, a senior official at the government’s forensic division. The others targeted three churches and two other […]

New Zealand has “not yet seen” any intelligence reports linking the deadly bombings in Sri Lanka to last month’s mosque massacre in Christchurch, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s office said late on Tuesday. The suicide bombings that killed more than 300 people in Sri Lanka on the weekend were carried out in revenge for last month’s attacks on […]

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister on Tuesday welcomed a United States decision to end all Iran sanction waivers by May, saying it was a necessary step to halt Tehran’s “destabilising” policy in the region. The White House announced on Monday it was calling an end to six-month waivers that had exempted several countries — including major […]

Indians are voting on Tuesday in the third phase of the general elections with campaigning by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party and the opposition marred by bitter accusations and acrimony. People lined up outside voting station at several places even before the polling started at 7am. In all, 188 million voters are eligible […]

The Iranian parliament on Tuesday passed a bill requiring the government to take firm steps to respond to “terrorist actions” by the United States forces, the Iranian state TV reported, retaliating against Washington’s blacklisting of the country’s elite Revolutionary Guards. On April 8 US President Donald Trump on April 8 designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guards […]

Myanmar’s Supreme Court rejected on Tuesday the latest appeal filed by two Pulitzer-prize winning Reuters journalists who were jailed for seven years on charges linked to their reporting on the Rohingya crisis, with hopes now turning to a presidential pardon. Reporters Wa Lone, 33, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 29, have been behind bars since their arrest in […]

BEIT JALA: A hospitalised Palestinian teen said on Monday he was shot in his thighs by Israeli soldiers while he was handcuffed and blindfolded the latest in what a leading rights group portrayed as a series of unjustified shootings of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers. The military said it was investigating last week’s incident, which it […]