International

29-04-2023 MANILA/ BEIJING: A Chinese Coast Guard ship blocked a Philippine patrol vessel in the South China Sea, causing a near collision in waters where Beijing’s vast claims have alarmed the US and its allies. Media witnessed the tense encounter near Second Thomas Shoal in the remote Spratly archipelago last …

29-04-2023 ISTANBUL: Turkey’s pro-Kurdish party and its leftist allies have asked their voters to back President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s main rival in the May 14 presidential election. Friday’s announcement pushes one of Turkey’s largest voting blocs behind opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the head of the People’s Republican Party, and further …

29-04-2023 WASHINGTON: Former US vice president Mike Pence testified before the grand jury on Thursday in the case by the special counsel against former US president Donald Trump for sabotaging the election results of 2020 and the Capitol Hill incident of January 6, NBC reported citing sources. Pence’s testimony holds …

29-04-2023 GEORGIA: A group of scientists from the University of Georgia have devised a new approach for finding and classifying new planets that are far away from Earth. They have found an exoplanet utilizing machine learning, an extension of Artificial Intelligence (AI). A recent study demonstrated that AI can correctly …

29-04-2023 BUDAPEST/ VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis has landed in Hungary for a three-day pastoral visit his first full trip to the country since he became Pope 10 years ago. What kept him away was the tough anti-migrant stance of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, in contrast to the 86-year-old pontiff’s compassion …

29-04-2023 DUBAI/ TEHRAN: Iran captured a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman in international waters on Thursday, the US Navy said; the latest in a series of episodes or seizures on commercial ships in sensitive Gulf waters since 2019. Iranian state media reported that Iran’s military had …

29-04-2023 LONDON: Richard Sharp tendered his resignation as British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Chairman on Friday, saying the loan guarantee to former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was “inadvertent”. The resignation comes after a report revealed that he was favored by Boris Jhonson as he facilitated him in an £800,000 loan, …

28-04-2023 By Syed Najaf Ali Shoukat Bottom Line In early March 2023, China mediated an agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia to normalize diplomatic relations. While normalization between the two Middle Eastern rivals was in the works for some time, that Beijing brokered the detente sent geopolitical shockwaves around the …

28-04-2023 WASHINGTON: US prosecutors say Jack Teixeira, the airman charged with leaking secret military information, may still have access to a trove of classified files. They said he should remain in jail pre-trial as he could cause “extraordinary” damage to national security. Prosecutors also said the 21-year-old had a history …

28-04-2023 BANGKOK: Thai police say they have arrested a woman suspected of killing 12 of her friends and acquaintances by poisoning them with cyanide. Sararat Rangsiwuthaporn was arrested in Bangkok on Tuesday following recent inquiries into a friend’s death. The victim’s family had raised suspicions after she died on a …