International

Three-time prime minister Nawaz Sharif arrived back in Pakistan Saturday after four years of self-imposed exile, primed to make a political comeback ahead of elections. The South Asian nation is facing overlapping security, economic and political crises ahead of polls already pushed back to January 2024, with Sharif’s primary opponent, the fiercely popular Imran Khan, languishing in jail. Sharif spent ...

The first of 20 trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered the war-torn and besieged Gaza Strip on Saturday through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, said AFP correspondents on both sides. UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said he was “confident that this delivery will be the start of a sustainable effort to provide essential supplies… to the people of Gaza” and ...

Hamas released two American hostages held in Gaza on Friday, offering a “sliver of hope” to desperate families, as Israel pounded the densely-populated territory where millions are still awaiting promised aid deliveries. The Islamist group took more than 200 people hostage when it stormed into Israel from the Gaza Strip on October 7, and killed at least 1,400 people, mostly ...

As the Israel-Hamas war intensifies, the United States Thursday launched a visa waiver program allowing Israelis wishing to visit the United States for 90 days or less to come without applying for a visa. The US announced Sept. 27 that it was admitting Israel into the visa waiver program, adding the country to a select group of 40 mostly European ...

President Joe Biden made an impassioned call for the United States to show global leadership by backing Israel and Ukraine, saying in a speech from the Oval Office Thursday that defeating Hamas and Russia was a vital US interest. Biden, 80, said he would make an “urgent” request to Congress on Friday for funding to help Ukraine and Israel, arguing ...

The Hamas-controlled interior ministry said several displaced people sheltering at a church compound in Gaza were killed and injured after an Israeli strike late Thursday. The strike left a “large number of martyrs and injured” at the compound of the Greek Orthodox Saint Porphyrius Church in Gaza City, the ministry said, reports AFP. Witnesses told AFP the strike appeared to ...

Canada said Thursday it had withdrawn 41diplomats from India — fallout from a bitter row over the killing of a Sikh separatist on Canadian soil. New Delhi planned to revoke diplomatic immunity for all but 21 of Canada’s diplomats and their families by Friday, forcing Ottawa to pull out the others, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly said, reports AFP. “We ...

Some 500 people have been arrested during a sit-in at the United States Congress in Washington, DC, where they protested against “Israel’s ongoing oppression of Palestinians”, according to Jewish Voice for Peace, the group that organised the demonstration. The protesters, many wearing shirts emblazoned with the words “Not in our name”, were surrounded by police on Wednesday as they sat ...

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has agreed to open the Rafah crossing into Gaza to allow a first batch of around 20 humanitarian aid trucks through, US President Joe Biden said Wednesday. “He agreed to… let up to 20 trucks through, to begin with,” Biden told reporters after calling Sisi from Air Force One while returning from a visit to ...

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has canceled a planned meeting with US President Joe Biden, a senior official said. This came after an Israeli strike on a Gaza hospital killed hundreds on Tuesday. The meeting was scheduled to take place in Jordan. The senior Palestinian official said Abbas was returning to Ramallah, the seat of his government in the occupied West ...