Category: Featured

HALLANDALE BEACH: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio held high stakes talks with a Ukrainian delegation in Florida on Sunday, as the United States pushes to end Russia’s war against its neighbor. The negotiations come as Kyiv faces mounting military and political pressure, along with the fallout from a corruption scandal. They could set the stage for next week’s visit to Moscow by President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff, who is expected to discuss Ukraine diplomacy. “This is not just about peace deals. It’s about creating a pathway forward that…

DHAKA: A commission set up to investigate a violent mutiny that saw dozens of senior army officers massacred 16 years ago on Sunday said former premier Sheikh Hasina had ordered the killings. Rampaging troops from the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) murdered 74 people, including military officers, during the two-day revolt that began in Dhaka and spread across the country in 2009, destabilising the government of then-premier Hasina weeks after she took office. After Hasina was ousted last year following a student-led uprising, the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus formed a…

BEIRUT: Visiting Pope Leo XIV urged the Lebanese people on Sunday to embrace reconciliation and remain in their crisis-hit country, while calling on its leaders to put themselves fully at the service of their citizens. The pope, bearing what he described as a message of peace, had previously visited Turkey, where he kicked off his first overseas tour since being elected leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics in May. Long hailed as a model of coexistence, multi-confessional Lebanon is nonetheless plagued by sectarian and political rifts, and has seen…

Iran and Turkiye have agreed to begin constructing a new joint rail link to serve as a strategic gateway between Asia and Europe, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday. The planned route, known in Iran as the Marand-Cheshmeh Soraya railway transit line and running towards Turkiye’s Aralik border region, will cover around 200 kilometres (120 miles}. It will cost roughly $1.6 billion and is expected to take three to four years to complete, Iranian authorities have said. Earlier this month, Iran’s transport minister Farzaneh Sadegh said the rail line…

WARSAW: Germany will return valuable artefacts looted during the Second World War to Poland, local media reported on Sunday. A meeting on Monday to discuss Polish-German cooperation will include the “historic return of cultural goods looted during World War II”, according to local news website Onet.pl. The Polish side describes the return as having “groundbreaking character”, according to the reports. The artefacts are said to include a sculpture of a saint’s head stolen from Malbork castle, a royal residence in northern Poland. The items reportedly also include documents from the…