16-02-2023 TOKYO: Japan has warned China that violations of its airspace by surveillance balloons were “totally unacceptable”, as new information emerged that unidentified aerial objects that had entered Japanese airspace in recent years were likely Chinese spy balloon flights. “As a result of further investigation of specific balloon-shaped flying objects …

16-02-2023 Bureau Report + Agencies NEW DELHI: In two months, India is projected to become the world’s most populous country with over 1.4 billion people but for at least a year, and possibly longer, the country won’t know how many people it has because it hasn’t been able to count …

16-02-2023 ANKARA: When Melih Telci, a 28-year-old lawyer from Istanbul, heard about a family of four left homeless in the province of Hatay after last week’s devastating earthquakes, he knew what he had to do. He picked up his phone. “I called them and said; ‘Come, our home is yours,’” …

15-02-2023 Bureau Report + Agencies NEW DELHI/ MUMBAI: Indian tax authorities have raided the offices of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in the country in the wake of a documentary that examined Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role in 2002 anti-Muslim riots, according to the BBC. In a tweet, the BBC …

15-02-2023 UNITED NATIONS/ DAMASCUS: Syria’s government has agreed to allow the UN to use two more border crossings to deliver aid to opposition-held north-western areas devastated by last week’s earthquakes, the UN says. “It’s going to make a big difference. We are now using just one crossing,” a UN spokesman …

15-02-2023 NEW YORK/ LONDON: Most Super Bowl adverts plug things like fizzy drink and cars, but one of the most talked-about commercials the day after the big game was selling Jesus and it upset several very different political tribes. Advertisements for an evangelical Christian website called He Gets Us have …

15-02-2023 Bureau Report + BBC KABUL/ ISLAMABAD: “His children have been crying, they miss him,” said a member of Ismail Mashal’s family. “They keep going to the gate and asking why he’s not coming home.” Professor Mashal, a university lecturer and outspoken campaigner for women’s education in Afghanistan, was arrested …

15-02-2023 JERUSALEM/ WEST BANK: Israel’s military has jailed a soldier for 10 days after he assaulted a Palestinian activist trying to escort a US journalist around Hebron in the occupied West Bank. In a video posted by Lawrence Wright of the New Yorker, the soldier is seen grabbing Issa Amro …

15-02-2023 TEHRAN: When one of the world’s most promising chess players, 25-year-old Sara Khadem, decided to play at an international tournament without her headscarf, in solidarity with the protest movement in Iran, she thought a warning would be the worst that would happen to her. Instead, she can’t return to …

15-02-2023 WASHINGTON: The sensors from the first suspected Chinese spy balloon shot down over the US have been recovered from the Atlantic Ocean, the US military says. Search crews found “significant debris from the site, including all of the priority sensor and electronics pieces identified”, said US Northern Command. The …