KARACHI: Muhammad Rafiq Abbasi pushed a handcart laden with a water tank that he delivered to a nearby building. After completing the delivery, he entered a small storeroom in a narrow street in Karachi’s old Ramswami neighborhood to pick up a drum. As he struck the instrument, a cloud of dust rose from it, evoking in him memories of a once-glorious past ..read more

JERUSALEM: The top Israeli court heard responses by the state on Sunday to challenges against exemptions granted to ultra-Orthodox Jews from military conscription, a long-standing source of friction with more secular citizens now inflamed by the long Gaza war. In the name of equality, the Supreme Court in 2018 voided a law waiving the call-up for ultra-Orthodox men who want to study in seminaries instead. Parliament failed to come up with an alternative arrangement, and a government-ordered stay on a mandatory mobilization of ultra-Orthodox expired in March ..read more

MEXICO CITY: Mexicans started voting Sunday in a presidential election dominated by two women — a historic first in a country with a history of gender-based violence and discrimination. Ruling party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum, a former Mexico City mayor and a scientist by training, had a 17 percentage point lead over her main opposition rival Xochitl Galvez on the eve of the vote. The only man running, centrist Jorge Alvarez Maynez, was trailing far behind as a particularly violent campaign season marked by a string of candidate murders drew to an end ..read more

FRANKFURT: NATO’s recent move to strengthen its eastern border is aimed at deterring Russia, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Sunday, adding it should be clear to Moscow that the alliance will be ready to defend itself if necessary.Speaking at the Eastern German Economic Forum also attended by Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte, Scholz said Germany has played a leading role in NATO’s presence in the Baltics on Russia’s border, stretching back nearly a decade ..read more

KARACHI: The International Air Transport Association (IATA) on Sunday urged Pakistan and Bangladesh to release airline revenues amounting to $731 million to ensure air carriers can continue to provide essential air connectivity. Pakistan and Bangladesh are on top of a list of eight countries holding 87 percent of the total blocked airline funds for the last 40 months, according to the IATA. The situation has become “severe,” with airlines unable to repatriate $411 million revenues earned in Pakistan and $320 million in Bangladesh ..read more

SEOUL/TOKYO: The United States, Japan and South Korea agreed to hold new trilateral joint exercises this summer, a joint statement issued by USDepartment of Defense said on Sunday, after a meeting of the three allies’ defense ministers. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Japan’s Defense Minister Minoru Kihara and South Korea’s Defense Minister Shin Won-sik met on Sunday in Singapore on the sidelines of the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security summit there ..read more

BEIRUT: Two Lebanese shepherds were killed in an Israeli strike that hit their house in the town of Houla near the Lebanon-Israel border on Sunday, state media reported. Lebanon’s National News agency said the men were civilians who used to sell sheep milk to neighboring villages. Lebanese Agriculture Minister Abbas Hajj Hassan said in a statement that a separate Israeli strike Sunday morning had damaged his ministry’s office in the town of Bint Jbeil, as well as the city’s commercial market and local government headquarters ..read more

WASHINGTON: Donald Trump warned in an interview aired Sunday that if he is sentenced to prison after his historic conviction it could mark a ‘breaking point’ for his supporters. Trump told Fox News he was personally “OK with” the idea of being imprisoned over the 34 felony counts in his hush money trial but warned, “I think it would be tough for the public to take. You know at a certain point there’s a breaking point ..read more

ISTANBUL: Emergency workers were trying to rescue people trapped under a collapsed apartment building in Istanbul on Sunday. TV images showed firefighters shifting rubble by hand from the flattened three-story building in Kucukcekmece on the city’s European side. Two injured people were pulled from the debris, broadcaster CNN Turk reported. The Istanbul governor’s office said the structure collapsed at 8:40 a.m. local time (0545 GMT). The cause was not immediately clear ..read more

Lucknow, INDIA: At least 33 Indian polling staff died on the last day of voting from heatstroke in just one state, a top election official said Sunday, after scorching temperatures gripped swathes of the country. While there have been reports of multiple deaths from the intense heatwave — with temperatures above 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in many places — the dozens of staff dying in one day marks an especially grim toll ..read more