International

Cairo, March 22-2026-The ongoing Middle East conflict entered its fourth week with a significant escalation, as Iran reportedly attempted to strike the joint UK-US military base at Diego Garcia, raising serious concerns about its missile capabilities. The attempted strike, though unsuccessful, suggests Tehran may possess longer-range missiles than previously disclosed, …

21-03-2026 BEIRUT/ GAZA STRIP/ DUBAI: Along Beirut’s downtown waterfront, Alaa is looking for somewhere to rest his head. The Syrian refugee, originally from the occupied Golan Heights, is now homeless. He explained that he had already spent the day wandering around the Lebanese capital trying to find shelter. He used …

21-03-2026 WASHINGTON: The top intelligence official in the US said on Wednesday that the Iranian regime was “intact” but “largely degraded”. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and other top Trump administration officials testified at a congressional hearing for more than two hours about worldwide threats to the US. It …

21-03-2026 NEW YORK: Music giant Sony Music says it has requested the removal of more than 135,000 songs by fraudsters impersonating its artists on streaming services. The so-called deepfakes were created using generative AI, and targeted some of the company’s biggest acts, who include Beyonce, Queen and Harry Styles The …

21-03-2026 BANGKOK: Thailand’s Anutin Charnvirakul sailed through a parliamentary vote on Thursday to become the first reelected prime minister in two decades, a ‌fresh mandate that could bring rare stability for the turbulent politics of the Southeast Asian nation. The Bhumjaithai Party’s Anutin led from the start in rout of …

21-03-2026 Bureau Report NEW DELHI: Foreign selling in Indian equities surged in the first half of March, led by financials, marking the heaviest fortnightly selling in 17 months and dragging the Nifty 50 to its worst fortnight since the COVID-19-led ‌rout in March 2020. Foreign portfolio investors’ offloaded stocks worth …

21-03-2026 BERLIN/ PARIS: For a self-described transatlanticist like German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, the language has been unusually blunt. When President Donald Trump asked countries to join a global effort against Iran and deploy ships to prize open the Strait of Hormuz, whose near closure has held the global economy in …

21-03-2026 JERUSALEM/ TEHRAN: Iran has ratcheted up the pressure on several Gulf nations by attacking their energy facilities in retaliation for an Israeli strike on its South Pars gasfield, as the war threatens to further ignite the entire region into an even more ominous phase, all-out conflagration. The dangerous new …

21-03-2026 MADRID: King Felipe of Spain appears to have helped thaw frosty relations with Mexico by acknowledging abuses carried out by his country during its conquest but in doing so he has reopened a fierce debate over the colonization of the New World. The arrival of Spaniards in America from …

20-03-2026 COLOMBO: Sri Lanka has declared every Wednesday a holiday for public institutions to conserve fuel as the island nation grapples with possible shortages in the wake of the US and Israel’s war with Iran. “We must prepare for the worst, but hope for the best,” President Anura Kumara Dissanayake …