Jerusalem: The newly-opened US embassy in Jerusalem has said ambassador David Friedman was duped into being pictured receiving a photo of east Jerusalem with the revered Al-Aqsa mosque erased. In a picture published Tuesday night by ultra-Orthodox Jewish news site Kikar Hashabbat, the Islamic shrine on a flashpoint site holy to both Muslims and Jews is replaced by a simulation...
WASHINGTON: North Korea released three American prisoners and handed them over to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday, clearing a major obstacle to an unprecedented summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Trump said the three men, who were freed after Pompeo met Kim, were on the way home from Pyongyang on the...
LONDON: Britain, Germany and France have urged the United States not to take steps that would make life harder for other countries that still wanted to stick to the nuclear deal with Iran. “We urge the US to ensure that the structures of the JCPOA (deal) can remain intact, and to avoid taking action which obstructs its full implementation by...
A series of huge explosions rocked Kabul on Wednesday followed by gunshots, in the latest attacks on the Afghan capital. AFP journalists heard several blasts in the heart of the city that were confirmed by police spokesman Hashmatullah Estanakzai. "An explosion happened in front of police precinct 13 in west Kabul," Estanakzai told AFP. "We also have reports of small...
US President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal prompted furious reaction in Tehran, regret in Europe and cheers from Israel and Saudi Arabia. The following is a selection of reactions from around the globe to Trump’s biggest foreign policy move since taking office: ‘Psychological warfare’ “This decision was an act of psychological warfare against Iran” —...
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysians went to the polls Wednesday in one of the country´s closest ever elections which pits scandal-hit Prime Minister Najib Razak against his one-time mentor, 92-year-old former authoritarian leader Mahathir Mohamad. Najib is seeking to retain power at the head of a regime that has ruled Malaysia since independence in 1957, but veteran ex-leader Mahathir´s shock comeback has...
KABUL: Afghanistan's air force sprayed an outdoor religious gathering with rockets and heavy machine gun fire last month killing and wounding 107 people, mostly children, a UN report said Monday. The April 2 airstrike struck a ceremony attended by hundreds of men and boys in Dasht-e-Archi district, a Taliban stronghold in the northern province of Kunduz, the United Nations Assistance...
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies welcomed President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from a nuclear agreement with Iran after years of warning that it gave their arch-rival cover to expand its regional influence. The quick embrace of Trump’s announcement on Tuesday reflects a sense of vindication by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates,...
TEHRAN: Iranian state television said on Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Iran nuclear deal was “illegal, illegitimate and undermines international agreements”. Trump said he was reimposing economic sanctions on Iran and pulling the United States out of an international agreement aimed at stopping Tehran from obtaining a nuclear bomb. Agencies
WASHINGTON/PARIS: President Donald Trump on Tuesday pulled the United States out of an international agreement aimed at stopping Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb, and said he would reimpose economic sanctions on Tehran immediately. "I am announcing today that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal," Trump says in his address. The decision is likely to raise the...
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un met in northeast China on Tuesday in an unannounced visit by the North Korean leader ahead of an expected summit with US President Donald Trump. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV showed Xi and Kim taking a seaside stroll in the northeastern city of Dalian and holding talks, while the official Xinhua news agency...
SANAA: Two air raids hit the office of the presidency in Yemen’s rebel-held capital Sanaa on Monday, killing at least six people and wounding 30, a medical source said. The presidential office is used by the administration of Yemen’s Iran-allied Houthis, whose Al-Masirah television channel blamed the Saudi-led coalition for the strikes. The Shia rebels expelled pro-government forces from Sanaa...
New York state's top prosecutor, a public champion of the #MeToo movement, resigned on Monday hours after being accused by The New Yorker magazine of physically assaulting four women. It was an abrupt fall from power for Eric Schneiderman, the New York attorney general and a Donald Trump opponent whose office had launched multiple legal challenges against the Republican administration....
A former Chinese Communist Party official who was once tipped as a potential successorto President Xi Jinping was sentenced to life in prison for bribery on Tuesday, the latest senior cadre to fall in Xi’s sweeping anti-corruption crusade. Sun Zhengcai, a former Politburo member and party chief of the southwestern mega-city of Chongqing, was found guilty of taking more than...
WASHINGTON/ANKARA: President Donald Trump will announce on Tuesday whether he will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and a senior US official said it was unclear if efforts by European allies to address Trump’s concerns would be enough to save the pact. Trump has repeatedly threatened to withdraw from the deal, which eased economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for Tehran...
Workmen on Monday put up street signs to the US embassy due to open in Jerusalem on May 14, a move hailed as historic by Israel but loathed by Palestinians. Municipal workers erected signposts reading "US Embassy" in Hebrew, Arabic and English around the site, currently a US consular building, in the city’s Arnona neighbourhood. Breaking with decades of US...
Vladimir Putin was sworn in for another six years as Russian president on Monday. Standing in the Grand Kremlin Palace's ornately-decorated Andreyevsky Hall with his hand on a gold-embossed copy of the constitution, Putin swore to serve the Russian people, safeguard their rights and freedoms, and defend Russian sovereignty. Putin was inaugurated for his fourth term as president two months...