KABUL: Anti-Taliban fighters in Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley said today they were battling to repulse “heavy” assaults, as the Islamists seek to capture the last holdout province defying their rule. Efforts to strike a peace deal between the two sides have failed, and the Taliban are keen to cap their lightning […]
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PARIS: Former French prime minister Francois Fillon, who is appealing a five-year jail sentence for embezzling public funds, is under investigation again by financial prosecutors over payments to an assistant, his lawyer said today. Lawyer Antonin Levy accused the National Financial Prosecutor’s (PNF) office of a witch hunt and said […]
KABUL: Taliban co-founder Mullah Baradar will lead a new Afghan government set to be announced shortly, sources in the Islamist group said on Friday, as it battled rebel fighters in the Panjshir Valley and strived to ward off economic collapse. Baradar, who heads the Taliban’s political office, will be joined […]
US President Joe Biden has condemned a new law in Texas banning abortion from as early as six weeks and vowed to defend women’s constitutional rights. The “extreme” law “blatantly” violated rights and would “significantly impair” women’s access to healthcare, he said. On Wednesday the Supreme Court refused, by a […]
TOKYO: Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga told reporters today yesterday that he had no plans to dissolve the country’s lower house because of the severity of the coronavirus situation. Domestic media reported this week that he intended to dissolve the lower house of parliament in mid-September after a cabinet and […]
ISLAMABAD: There is growing concern among Pakistani officials about security in neighbouring Afghanistan, as the Taliban tries to form a government and stabilise the country following the departure of US and other foreign forces. Islamabad is particularly worried about militant fighters from a separate, Pakistani Taliban group crossing from Afghanistan […]
TOKYO : The Bank of Japan must avoid reducing stimulus even if rising raw material costs push up inflation, deputy governor Masazumi Wakatabe said, reinforcing expectations it will fall behind major counterparts in dialling back crisis-mode policies. An advocate of aggressive monetary easing, Wakatabe also said the BOJ was unlikely […]
NEW YORK: Less than 40 per cent of Americans approve of President Joe Biden’s handling of the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan, and three quarters wanted US forces to remain in the country until all American civilians could get out, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released yesterday. The national […]
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden announced he will address the nation today on the final US exit from Afghanistan after 20 years of war against the Taliban. “Tomorrow afternoon, I will address the American people on my decision not to extend our presence in Afghanistan beyond 8/31,” he said in a […]
KABUL: Afghanistan’s Taliban, who staged a lightning swift takeover this month, today were celebrating the withdrawal of the last US troops after 20 years of military intervention in the country. The hardline Islamists first governed the country between 1996 and 2001, imposing a strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law, before […]