International

MNA International Desk: Saudi Arabian billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, detained in the kingdom’s sweeping crackdown on corruption said on Saturday that he expected to be cleared of any wrongdoing and be released from custody within days. Prince Alwaleed was speaking in an exclusive interview with Reuters at his suite in Riyadh’s opulent Ritz-Carlton hotel, where he has been confined for over two months along with dozens of other suspects. It was the first time the prince, one of the nation’s most prominent businessmen, has spoken publicly since his detention. Prince Alwaleed said he was continuing to maintain his innocence ...

MNA International Desk: US diplomat Bill Richardson has resigned from an international panel set up by Myanmar to advise on the Rohingya crisis, saying it was conducting a “whitewash” and accusing the country’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi of lacking “moral leadership”. Richardson, a former Clinton administration cabinet member, quit as the 10-member advisory board was making its first visit to western Rakhine State, from where nearly 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled in recent months. “The main reason I am resigning is that this advisory board is a whitewash,” Richardson told Reuters in an interview, adding he did not want ...

MNA International Desk: A teenage boy opened fire with a handgun at a Kentucky high school early Tuesday, killing two fellow students and wounding more than a dozen people in the latest mass shooting to hit the United States. The unnamed 15-year-old student, now in custody, is alleged to have carried out the attack at Marshall County High School in Benton, a small town in western Kentucky. Two students of the same age died of gunshot wounds, while 12 other people were shot and five suffered other injuries during the shooting, Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin said. The suspected shooter was ...

MNA International Desk: The US government partial shutdown is ending after Republicans and Democrats voted for a temporary funding bill. The Democratic leadership agreed to back the bill after accepting promises from Republicans for a debate later on the future of young illegal immigrants. President Donald Trump, who signed the bill on Monday evening, took a swipe at Democrats. It is the fourth temporary measure since October because Capitol Hill cannot agree a longer-term budget. The spending bill passed the Senate by 81-18 and the House of Representatives by 266-150 earlier on Monday. The so-called continuing resolution keeps the government ...

MNA International Desk: Hundreds of thousands of federal workers will be unable to report for work on Monday, as the US Senate struggles to end a government shutdown. The shutdown began at midnight on Friday, when lawmakers failed to agree on an extension to federal funding. Efforts to reach a compromise ahead of the working week failed late on Sunday. A vote to end the shutdown was postponed until midday (17:00 GMT) on Monday, meaning many federal government offices will remain closed. The Senate held a rare session throughout the weekend, in an attempt to reach an agreement ahead of ...

MNA International Desk: Gunmen killed at least five people and wounded eight others in an attack on Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel, an official said Sunday, as the eleven hours-long siege continued. Afghan security forces were still trying to clear the landmark hilltop hotel with at least one attacker on the loose, a security source said. Dramatic images broadcast on Afghanistan’s Tolo News showed thick black smoke and flames billowing from the top floor of the hotel. At least one person could be seen climbing over a top-floor balcony using bedsheets to escape, before losing his grip and plunging to the ground. ...

MNA International Desk: The US federal government shut down at midnight Friday as senators continued to scramble to reach a deal to fund the government. This is the first modern government shutdown with Congress and the White House controlled by the same party, and it comes on the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Trump’s White House however immediately blamed Democrats for the shutdown. “Tonight, they put politics above our national security, military families, vulnerable children, and our country’s ability to serve all Americans,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement moments before midnight. “We will ...

MNA International Desk: President Donald Trump denied on Wednesday that the planned relocation of the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem would take place within a year, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he expected the controversial move to happen by then. Reversing decades of US policy, Trump in early December recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and set in motion the process of moving the embassy from Tel Aviv, imperiling Middle East peace efforts and upsetting the Arab world and Western allies alike. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said last month the embassy move was ‘probably no earlier than ...

MNA International Desk: Ten people were killed when a Colombian army helicopter crashed near the town of Segovia, in northern Antioquia province, on Tuesday. The Russian-made MI-17 helicopter, carrying eight army personnel and two civilians, crashed on Tuesday morning on route from the town of Caucasia. Staff onboard the helicopter were set to inspect army gasoline storage facilities. “The hypothesis is of an accident, it is being investigated,” General Juan Vicente Trujillo, head of the army’s aviation division, told journalists, ruling out an attack as the cause of the crash. The National Liberation Army (ELN) rebel group, which recently restarted ...

MNA International Desk: Fourteen people were taken to the hospital, including one in critical condition, after an explosion collapsed or severely damaged buildings in Belgium port city of Antwerp, reported news agency. Police said in a statement that 14 people were taken to hospitals, including one in critical condition and five in a serious condition. They said emergency services pulled several people from the debris of the buildings in the Paardenmarkt area of central Antwerp, a Dutch-speaking northern city, but could not rule out finding others as searches continued. Police said the explosion was not related to terrorism, while Belgium ...

MNA International Desk: US President Donald Trump insisted on Sunday ‘I’m not a racist’ in response to reports that he had described immigrants from Haiti and African countries as coming from ‘shithole countries.’ Trump also said he was ‘ready, willing and able’ to reach a deal to protect illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children from being deported but that he did not believe Democrats wanted an agreement. Donald Trump tweeted earlier on Sunday that the existing program would ‘probably’ be discontinued. The debate over immigration policy became increasingly acrimonious after it was reported on Thursday that the ...

MNA International Desk: An crisis alert was sent mistakenly on Saturday to Hawaii’s residents warning of an forthcoming ballistic missile attack when an employee at the state emergency management agency pushed the “wrong button,” Hawaii’s governor said. State officials and the U.S. military’s Pacific Command confirmed that there was no actual threat. But for more than a half hour, while the agency struggled to withdraw the warning, panicked Hawaiians jumbled to find shelter. The mistaken alert stated: “EMERGENCY ALERT BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” The alert, sent to mobile phones and ...

MNA International Desk: US Ambassador to Panama John Feeley, a career diplomat and former Marine Corps helicopter pilot, has resigned, saying he no longer felt able to serve President Donald Trump. Feeley’s departure had been communicated to State Department officials on Dec 27 and was not a response to Trump’s alleged use of the word “shithole” to describe Haiti and African countries at a meeting on Thursday, US officials said. Trump denies using the term, reported news agency. Feeley, one of the department’s Latin America specialists and among its senior most officers, made clear that he had come to a ...

MNA International Desk: Myanmar’s military said on Wednesday its soldiers had murdered 10 captured Muslim “terrorists” during insurgent attacks at the beginning of September, after local Buddhist villagers had forced the captured men into a grave they had dug. “Villagers and members of the security forces have confessed that they committed murder,” the military said in a statement. It was a rare admission of wrongdoing by the Myanmar military during its operations in the western state of Rakhine. The army launched a sweeping counteroffensive in the north of the state in response to Rohingya militant attacks on Aug 25, triggering ...

MNA International Desk: Mudslides unleashed by a ferocious storm demolished homes in southern California and killed at least 13 people, police said Tuesday. Authorities said the bodies were discovered in mud and debris during rescue operations in Montecito, northwest of Los Angeles. The Santa Barbara County Fire Department said on its Twitter feed it was using dogs to look for victims where multiple homes once stood in Montecito following heavy rain, with more than 20 people reported missing. The department posted pictures of rivers of waist-high mud flowing through neighborhoods and roads rendered impassable by fallen trees. Roads were clogged ...

MNA International Desk: Two people were injured in a brief early-morning fire near the top of Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan as the city’s workday rush began, the New York Fire Department said on Monday. US President Donald Trump was in Washington at the time. One firefighter was hospitalised with nonlife-threatening injuries and a building worker, who had an injury that was initially described as serious, was treated at the scene and declined further medical attention, the Fire Department said. Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons, said on Twitter that it was a small electrical fire in the cooling ...

MNA International Desk: President Donald Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon on Sunday backed away from derogatory comments ascribed to him about Trump’s son in a new book that sparked White House outrage and could threaten Bannon’s influence as a would-be conservative power broker. Bannon, ousted from the White House in August, was quoted in ‘Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,’ by journalist Michael Wolff, as saying a June 2016 meeting with a group of Russians attended by Donald Trump Jr. and his father’s top campaign officials was ‘treasonous’ and ‘unpatriotic.’ The president responded by saying Bannon had lost ...

MNA International Desk: Saudi Arabian authorities have detained 11 princes after they gathered at a royal palace in Riyadh in a rare protest against the government suspending payment of their utility bills, the public prosecutor said on Saturday. Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, has introduced reforms that include reducing energy subsidies, introducing value-added tax and cutting some perks to royal family members to try to cope with a drop in crude prices that has caused a budget deficit estimated at 195 billion riyals ($52 billion) in 2018. The princes had gathered on Thursday at Qasr al-Hokm palace demanding ...

MNA International Desk: Islamic Hamas movement and Islamic Jihad in Gaza on Friday called on the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) to withdraw its recognition of Israel. Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesmen in Gaza, said that the PLO ‘should immediately withdraw its recognition of the Israeli entity’, reported news agency. He also called on the Palestinian National Authority to stop security coordination with Israel. The PLO recognised Israel and signed Oslo peace agreements in 1993 throughout an exchange of letters between Palestinian and Israeli leaders, where Israel recognised the PLO as the representative of the Palestinians. Meanwhile, Khader Habib, the senior ...

MNA International Desk: At least 11 people died of cold in the United States as a prolonged stretch of strikingly bitter cold enveloped much of the country and buried some places under a record amount of snow even as a powerful winter storm was forecast to hit the eastern US. The bombogenesis—an area of low pressure that drops significantly in 24 hours—will result in what’s known as a ‘bomb cyclone’. And the bomb cyclone, expected to strike on Thursday, will likely dump 6 to 12 inches of snow in New England, which will be driven by 64 to 96 kmph ...

MNA International Desk: The United States accused Pakistan on Tuesday of playing a ‘double game’ on fighting terrorism and warned Islamabad it would have to do more if it wanted to maintain US aid. ‘They can do more to stop terrorism and we want them to do that,’ White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters. The White House said it would likely announce actions to pressure Pakistan within days, shortly after U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said at the United Nations that Washington would withhold $255 million in assistance to Pakistan. ‘There are clear reasons for this. Pakistan has played a ...

MNA International Desk: The Pakistan civil and military leadership is to hold an emergency meeting on Tuesday over US President Donald Trump’s tweet that accused Islamabad of “lies and deceit”. Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi will chair the huddle to discuss the future course of action, the media wing of the PM’s Office said. The meeting will be attended by Foreign Minister, Interior Minister, Minister for Defence, services chiefs besides, senior civil and military officers. Trump on Monday accused Pakistan of giving safe heaven to the militants that US hunts in Afghanistan, saying: “The US has foolishly given Pakistan more ...

MNA International Desk: A Costa Rican plane crashed into woodland off a popular tourist beach on Sunday, killing 10 US citizens and two local pilots, the Costa Rican government said. The accident occurred in the mountainous area off the Punta Islita beach town in the province of Guanacaste, about 230 km (140 miles) west of the capital of San Jose. Enio Cubillo, director of Costa Rica’s civil aviation agency, said the Cessna 208B Grand Caravan aircraft operated by local company Nature Air had crashed minutes after take-off, but that officials had not yet determined the cause of the crash. The ...

MNA International Desk: Nepal has banned solo climbers from scaling its mountains, including Mount Everest, in a bid to reduce accidents, an official said Saturday. The cabinet late Thursday endorsed a revision to the Himalayan nation’s mountaineering regulations, banning solo climbers from its mountains — one of a string of measures being flagged ahead of the 2018 spring climbing season. Experienced Swiss climber Ueli Steck lost his life in April this year when he slipped and fell from a steep ridge during a solo acclimatisation climb to Nuptse, a peak neighbouring Everest. The ban is likely to anger elite solo ...

MNA International Desk: A homemade bomb blast at a supermarket in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg injured 10 people Wednesday, reported news agency. “According to preliminary information, an explosion of an unidentified object occurred in a store,” Investigative Committee spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko said in a statement. The blast was caused by a “homemade explosive device with the power equivalent to 200 grammes of TNT filled with lethal fragments,” she said. “The investigation is looking at all possible causes of what happened,” she said, adding that a probe for attempted murder had been launched. “Ten people have been hospitalised, their ...

MNA International Desk: The United States announced sanctions on two North Korean officials behind their country’s ballistic missile program on Tuesday, while Russia reiterated an offer to mediate to ease tensions between Washington and Pyongyang. The new US steps were the latest in a campaign aimed at forcing North Korea – which has defied years of multilateral and bilateral sanctions – to abandon a weapons program aimed at developing nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States. The US Treasury named the officials as Kim Jong Sik and Ri Pyong Chol. It said Kim was reportedly a key figure in ...

MNA International Desk: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was barred on Monday from running in next year’s presidential election after officials ruled he was ineligible to take part due to a suspended prison sentence he says was trumped up. The decision by the central election commission was widely expected as election officials had repeatedly declared Navalny would be ineligible to run. Twelve members of the 13-member commission voted to bar Navalny. One member abstained, citing a possible conflict of interest. Navalny, 41, who polls show would struggle to beat incumbent Vladimir Putin in the March election, said he would appeal ...