KYIV: President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called on Ukraine’s Western partners to allocate 0.25% of their GDP to helping Kyiv ramp-up weapons production and said the country plans to sign agreements this summer to start exporting weapon production technologies. In remarks released for publication by his office on Saturday, Zelenskiy said Ukraine was in talks with…
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday that France and its European partners would ramp up talks with Iran following more than a week of hostilities between the Islamic republic and Israel. On Friday, British, French, German and EU top diplomats held talks in Geneva with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi a week after…
MOSCOW: Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko met with U.S. special envoy Keith Kellogg, Belarusian state news agency Belta reported on Saturday. Lukashenko discussed with Kellogg the political situation in the world and the bilateral relations between Belarus and the United States, Belta reported. Earlier this week, sources in Washington told Reuters of Kellogg’s plan to visit…
CAIRO: Gulf Cooperation Council ambassadors have expressed concerns to U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi about the safety of nuclear facilities close to their countries amid the Israeli-Iranian crisis, Qatar state news agency reported on Saturday. The ambassadors warned Grossi during a meeting in Vienna about the “dangerous repercussions” of targeting nuclear facilities. The warning…
SYRIA’S security forces have detained Wassim al-Assad, a cousin of toppled leader Bashar al-Assad, state news agency SANA said on Saturday. Wassim al-Assad was sanctioned by the United States in 2023 for leading a paramilitary force backing Assad’s army and for trafficking drugs including the amphetamine-like drug captagon. Bashar al-Assad was toppled by an Islamist-led…
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said on Saturday it would recommend U.S. President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, an accolade that he has said he craves, for his work in helping to resolve the recent conflict between India and Pakistan. Some analysts in Pakistan said the move might persuade Trump to think again about potentially joining…
VATICAN CITY: Pope Leo warned politicians on Saturday of the challenges posed by the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), addressing its potential impact on younger people as a prime concern. Speaking at an event attended by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and parliamentary delegations from 68 countries, Leo revisited a topic that he has raised…
BANGKOK: Thailand’s embattled prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra will not resign, or dissolve parliament, a senior official of the ruling Pheu Thai party said on Saturday. Sorawong Thienthong, who also serves as Thailand’s tourism minister, said in a Facebook post that the prime minister will not quit, despite growing calls for her resignation after her mishandling…
JAKARTA: Indonesia has evacuated 100 of its citizens from Iran and Israel amid rising tensions in the region, Foreign Minister Sugiono, who goes by a single name, said on Saturday. Of those evacuated, 96 individuals — including 93 Indonesian citizens, three embassy staff, and one Iranian national married to an Indonesian — crossed the Iran–Azerbaijan…
ANKARA: Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told his counterparts from Muslim countries that Israel was dragging the region into “total disaster” with its attacks on Iran, and added world powers must prevent the war from spiralling into a wider conflict. Speaking at a foreign ministers’ meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in Istanbul, Fidan…
