Author: News Desk

The qualifying stage of the “His Royal Highness Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa Quran Award” has started with the participation of as many as 600 contestants, the organisers announced. Patronisied by HH Shaikha Lulwa bint Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, the award is organised by the Al-Noor Charity Welfare Society for the second straight year. The organising committee said that there is a fierce competition among the participants, noting that the competitions are held for 61 contestants every night, after the Al-Taraweeh prayers, via Teams application. The panel asserted that the award jury comprises specialists in the holy Quran…

Saudi Crown Prince, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saudi, today held a telephone call with President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China. During the telephone conversation, the distinguished bilateral relations between the two countries and ways of developing them within the Saudi-Chinese Joint Committee were discussed, Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported. The two sides also agreed to exert more effort to enhance partnership and strategic relations between the two friendly countries. The overall international situations and issues were also reviewed. During the telephone conversation, China’s President lauded…

Russia’s warplanes bombed Lviv and its missiles struck Kyiv and Kharkiv on Saturday, as Moscow followed through on a threat to launch more long-range attacks on Ukrainian cities after its Black Sea Fleet’s flagship was sunk. In besieged Mariupol, scene of the war’s heaviest fighting and worst humanitarian catastrophe, Russian troops pressed recent advances, hoping to make up for their failure to capture Kyiv by seizing their first big prize of the war. Moscow said its planes had struck a tank repair factory in the capital, where an explosion was heard and smoke seen in the southeastern Darnytskyi district. Kyiv’s…

Ukraine’s richest man has pledged to help rebuild the besieged city of Mariupol, a place close to his heart where he owns two vast steelworks that he says will once again compete globally. Rinat Akhmetov has seen his business empire shattered by eight years of fighting in Ukraine’s east but remains defiant, sure that what he calls “our brave soldiers” will defend the Sea of Azov city reduced to a wasteland by seven weeks of bombardment. For now, though, his Metinvest company, Ukraine’s biggest steelmaker, has announced it cannot deliver its supply contracts and while his financial and industrial SCM…

Dozens of people gathered in the Crimean city of Sevastopol on Friday to mourn the sinking of the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, a symbol, the crowd heard, of hope, revival and power until its demise. Some embraced and others laid flowers in memory of the Moskva missile cruiser at a monument to the 1696 foundation of the Russian navy in the centre of Sevastopol, headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet. Moscow, which annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, said the ship sank while being towed in stormy seas after a fire caused by an ammunition explosion. Ukraine said…

Ukraine Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said nine humanitarian corridors had been agreed for Saturday to evacuate civilians, including from the besieged city of Mariupol by private cars. Vereshchuk said in a statement that five of the nine evacuation corridors were from Ukraine’s Luhansk region in the east of the country, which local officials have said is under heavy shelling.

Russian gas producer Gazprom continued to supply natural gas to Europe via Ukraine on Saturday in line with requests from European consumers, it said in a statement. Requests stood at 57.2 million cubic metres for April 16, it said.

Three Chinese astronauts returned to earth on Saturday after 183 days in space, state television reported, completing the country’s longest crewed space mission to date. The astronauts landed nine hours after they left a key module of China’s first space station. While in orbit, the Shenzhou-13 mission astronauts took manual control in the Tianhe living quarters module for what state media called a “docking experiment” with the Tianzhou-2 cargo spacecraft. Following their launch in October, the astronauts – Zhai Zhigang, Ye Guangfu and a female crew member Wang Yaping – spent 183 days in space, completing the fifth of 11…

Twitter Inc adopted a ‘poison pill’ on Friday to limit Elon Musk’s ability to raise his stake in the social media platform, as a buyout firm emerged to challenge his $43 billion bid for the company. Thoma Bravo, a technology-focused private equity firm that had more than $103 billion in assets under management as of the end of December, has informed Twitter that it is exploring the possibility of putting together a bid, people familiar with the matter said. It is not clear how much Thoma Bravo would be prepared to offer and there is no certainty that such a rival…

Pakistan’s new ruling alliance took control of the lower house of parliament on Saturday with the election of a new speaker, cementing control of the assembly after former premier Imran Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote. The previous speaker and his deputy, both Khan allies, had attempted to block and then delay the vote, only for the country’s top court to deem their actions illegal. The lower house of parliament eventually voted in favour of removing Khan from office on Sunday. The new ruling alliance has already elected their candidate, Shehbaz Sharif as the new prime minister. The new…