Submit your Article

Twelve people were injured at Saudi Arabia's Abha airport by shrapnel from an explosive-laden drone intercepted by air defences on Thursday, the Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi group said, Reuters reported. 

In a statement carried by Al Arabiya TV, the coalition later warned people in the Houthi-controlled Yemeni capital Sanaa to avoid civilian locations used for military purposes during the next 72 hours while it strikes drone launch sites,

Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said the group hit a military target at Abha airport with a Qasef 2 drone.

Air traffic operations at Abha civilian airport returned to normal after standard safety procedures following the drone interception, the coalition said in statements carried by state media.

Shrapnel from the drone attack at midday fell inside airport grounds and some glass facades were damaged, it said.

Light injuries were sustained by two Saudi nationals and citizens of Bangladesh, Nepal, India, the Philippines and Sri Lanka.

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in a statement condemning the "terrorist attack" that Washington was committed to supporting the kingdom in the defence of its people and territory.

The Saudi-led coalition has been fighting the Houthis since early 2015, after the group ousted Yemen's internationally recognised government from power in Sanaa.

The Houthis often launch attacks on Abha airport, which lies close to the Yemeni border in Saudi Arabia's south, and other parts of the country with drones and missiles. Most attacks are intercepted but a few people have been killed and several injured.

The coalition regularly carries out air strikes on what it says are Houthi military targets in Yemen. On Thursday it said it would take measures to neutralize the source of threats to civilians in accordance with international humanitarian law.

The United Arab Emirates, a coalition member, twice in January said its forces destroyed a Houthi ballistic missile launch area in Yemen, after unprecedented drone and missile attacks on the UAE this year claimed by the Houthis.

Nepali Congress (NC) has called its Parliamentary Party meeting for Tuesday to discuss contemporary political issues.

The meeting will be held at 9 am at the Lhotse Hall of the Constituent Assembly building tomorrow.

Earlier on Sunday, three parties of the ruling coalition registered an impeachment motion at the Parliament Secretariat against Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher JB Rana.

Russia could invade Ukraine at any time and might create a surprise pretext for an attack, the United States said on Sunday, as it reaffirmed a pledge to defend "every inch" of NATO territory, Reuters reported. 

Russia has more than 100,000 troops massed near Ukraine, which is not part of the Atlantic military alliance, and Washington - while keeping open the diplomatic channels that have so far failed to ease the crisis - has repeatedly said an invasion is imminent.

Moscow denies any such plans and has accused the West of "hysteria".

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, on the eve of a trip that takes him to Kyiv on Monday and Moscow for talks with President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, called for Russia to de-escalate and warned of sanctions if Moscow did invade.

A German official said Berlin did not expect "concrete results" but diplomacy was important.

In what could amount to a major concession to Moscow, Ukraine's ambassador to Britain told the BBC Kyiv could drop its bid to join NATO to avoid war.

Ambassador Vadym Prystaiko was quoted as saying Ukraine was willing to be "flexible" over its goal to join the Atlantic military alliance.

"We might - especially being threatened like that, blackmailed by that, and pushed to it," Prystaiko was quoted as saying when asked if Kyiv could change its position on NATO membership.

In Washington, President Joe Biden's National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said an invasion could begin "any day now".

"We cannot perfectly predict the day, but we have now been saying for some time that we are in the window," Sullivan told CNN.

US officials said they could not confirm reports that U.S. intelligence indicated Russia planned to invade on Wednesday.

Sullivan said Washington would continue sharing what it learned with the world in order to deny Moscow the chance to stage a surprise "false flag" operation that could be a pretext for an attack.

It would also "defend every inch of NATO territory ... and Russia we think fully understands that message," Sullivan added in a separate CBS interview.

Biden spoke to his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday and they agreed on the importance of continuing to pursue diplomacy and deterrence in response to Russia’s military build-up, the White House said after the call.

Zelenskiy's office said he invited Biden to visit Ukraine soon. The White House declined to comment.

Agreeing with the US assessment that an invasion could happen "at any moment," a British government spokesperson said Britain was working on a package of military support and economic aid for Ukraine to be announced in coming days. Prime Minister Boris Johnson will make a trip to Europe later this week to build support to end the standoff with Russia.

Biden told Putin in a phone call on Saturday that the West would respond decisively to any invasion and such an attack would harm and isolate Moscow.

Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Twitter that Kyiv had so far received almost 1,500 tonnes of ammunition from allies delivered on 17 flights, including about 180 tonnes from the United States.

Canada's defense ministry said it has temporarily withdrawn its Ukraine-based military personnel to an undisclosed location in Europe. Canada, which is home to the world's third-largest Ukrainian population after Ukraine and Russia, has kept a 200-strong training mission in western Ukraine since 2015.

RUSSIAN SECURITY DEMANDS

The Kremlin said Putin told Biden during their call on Saturday that Washington had failed to take Russia's main concerns into account, and that it had received no "substantial answer" on key elements of its security demands.

Putin wants guarantees from the United States and NATO that include blocking Ukraine's entry into NATO, refraining from missile deployments near Russia's borders and scaling back NATO's military infrastructure in Europe to 1997 levels.

Washington regards many of the proposals as non-starters but has pushed the Kremlin to discuss them jointly with Washington and its European allies.

"The diplomatic path remains open. The way for Moscow to show that it wants to pursue that path is simple," US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said after he held talks on Saturday with Asian allies.

Washington and its European allies and others have been scaling back or evacuating embassy staff and urging citizens to depart immediately or avoid travel to Ukraine.

US staff at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) began leaving by car from the rebel-held city of Donetsk in east Ukraine on Sunday, a Reuters witness said.

The OSCE conducts operations in Ukraine including a civilian monitoring mission in Russian-backed, self-proclaimed separatist republics in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, where a war that began in 2014 has killed more than 14,000 people.

Ukraine said on Sunday it wanted talks with Russia and members of the OSCE within 48 hours to discuss Russia's military build-up. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Moscow had not responded after Kyiv on Friday invoked a part of the Vienna Document, a set of security agreements, to demand Moscow explain its military activities.

Dutch carrier KLM said it would stop flying to Ukraine and Germany's Lufthansa said it was considering suspending flights.

An adviser to Zelenskiy, Mykhailo Podolyak, said that regardless of what airlines chose to do Kyiv would not close its airspace as that would resemble "a kind of partial blockade".

A French presidency official said on Saturday, after President Emmanuel Macron spoke with Putin, that there were no indications from what the Russian leader said that Moscow was preparing an offensive, though Paris remained "extremely vigilant".

British defence minister Ben Wallace cautioned against putting too much hope in talks, telling The Sunday Times of London that there was "a whiff of Munich in the air from some in the West", referring to a 1938 pact that failed to halt German expansionism under Adolf Hitler.

The main opposition CPN-UML has decided to boycott the all-party meeting called by Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota.

Speaker Sapkota on Sunday called the meeting for 2 pm on Monday after the ruling coalition parties registered an impeachment motion against Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher JB Rana.

The UML has been saying that they would not allow the House to proceed with its business until the Speaker takes action against 14 lawmakers expelled by the party.

The party has been demanding that either the Speaker resign from his post or paste a notice of removal of 14 lawmakers.

The UML had boycotted the all party-meeting called by the Speaker earlier also.

It has been learnt the meeting will discuss impeachment motion filed against the Chief Justice, MCC and to end the House deadlock.

A day after the ruling coalition parties file an impeachment motion against Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher JB Rana, the main opposition CPN-UML is also preparing to file the impeachment motion against four justices.

The UML is preparing to file the impeachment motion against Justices Deepak Kumar Karki, Meera Khadka, Ishwor Khatiwada and Ananda Mohan Bhattarai who overturned then Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli's decision to dissolve the Parliament. 

The party has called a Parliamentary Party meeting at 11 am today to discuss the impeachment motion.

According to a source, the party is planning to collect signatures of the lawmakers to file an impeachment motion against the justices.

Earlier on Sunday, as many as 98 lawmakers of the Nepali Congress, CPN (Maoist Centre) and CPN (Unified Socialist) registered impeachment motion against Chief Justice Rana.

During a Secretariat meeting held on Sunday evening, party Chairman KP Sharma Oli said that the impeachment motion should be filed against the justices who decided to reinstate the Parliament.

Claiming that Oli's move to dissolve the House was unconstitutional, a five-member constitutional bench led by Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher Rana on July 12, 2021 issued a directive to appoint Sher Bahadur Deuba as the Prime Minister.

Deepak Kumar Karki, Meera Khadka, Ishwor Khatiwada and Ananda Mohan Bhattarai were the members of the constitutional bench.
 

Ukraine has called for a meeting with Russia and other members of a key European security group over the escalating tensions on its border, BBC reported.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Russia had ignored formal requests to explain the build-up of troops. 

He said the "next step" was requesting a meeting within the next 48 hours for "transparency" about Russia's plans.

Russia has denied any plans to invade Ukraine despite the build-up of some 100,000 soldiers on Ukraine's borders.

But some Western nations have warned that Russia is preparing for military action, with the US saying Moscow could begin with aerial bombardments "at any time". 

More than a dozen nations have urged their citizens to leave Ukraine, and some have pulled embassy staff from the capital. CBS News reported that the US is preparing to withdraw all its personnel from Kiev within the next 48 hours, citing three sources.

Mr Kuleba said Ukraine had, on Friday, demanded answers from Russia about their intentions under the rules of the Vienna Document, an agreement about security issues adopted by the members of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which includes Russia.

"If Russia is serious when it talks about the indivisibility of security in the OSCE space, it must fulfil its commitment to military transparency in order to de-escalate tensions and enhance security for all," he said.

However, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, who criticised the "panic" that could spread from such claims, said he had seen no proof that Russia was planning an invasion in the coming days.

On Sunday, he spoke for nearly an hour by phone with US President Joe Biden. The White House said President Biden had reiterated US support for Ukraine, and that both leaders had agreed on "the importance of continuing to pursue diplomacy and deterrence".

Ukraine's statement of the call said its president thanked the US for its "unwavering support" and that, at the end, President Zelensky invited the US leader to come to Ukraine. There has been no comment on the invite from the White House.

An hour-long call between President Biden and Russian leader Vladimir Putin the day before failed to yield a breakthrough.

Western allies have previously made clear one of Russia's key demands - that Ukraine is never be allowed to join the Nato military alliance - is not up for debate, saying the alliance's door must remain open to new members.

But Ukraine's ambassador in London, Vadym Prystaiko, has told the BBC his country might be willing to drop its ambition to join Nato to avert war, saying Ukraine could be "flexible".

Asked if Kiyv was considering shelving its plans to pursue Nato membership, despite it being written into the Ukrainian constitution, he replied: "We might - especially being threatened like that, blackmailed by that, and pushed to it."

In the latest attempt to find a diplomatic solution, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has meetings scheduled with President Zelensky in Kyiv on Monday and with President Putin in Moscow on Tuesday. 

The chancellor, who took over the leadership of Germany from Angela Merkel in December, has warned of severe economic consequences for Russia if it should launch any invasion, echoing statements by other Western nations and members of the Nato military alliance.

But Berlin officials have downplayed any expectation of a breakthrough. 

Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to hold fresh diplomatic talks across Europe to bring Russia "back from the brink" of war.

In Washington, President Biden's National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said an invasion could begin "any day now".

Mr Sullivan said the US is closely monitoring for a potential "false flag" operation by Moscow as a pretext for a full-scale invasion so it can claim it is responding to Ukrainian aggression.

Russia contends that its build-up of troops along the Ukraine border is its own concern, within its own territory. On Sunday, senior foreign policy official Yuri Ushakov characterised the US warnings of imminent invasion as "hysteria has reached its peak".

The main opposition CPN-UML has decided to oppose the impeachment motion filed against Chief Justice Cholendra Shumsher JB Rana.

A Secretariat meeting of the party held on Sunday evening concluded that the ruling coalition parties registered the impeachment motion to weaken the democracy, General Secretary Shankar Pokharel said.

He said that the Parliamentary Party meeting scheduled for Monday will take further decisions on the issue.

As many as 98 lawmakers from the ruling parties--Nepali Congress, CPN (Maoist Centre) and CPN (Unified Socialist)--filed the impeachment motion this afternoon.

The UML will hold the Central Secretariat meeting on Monday to discuss the impeachment motion registered by the ruling parties against the Chief Justice.

"We have taken it not only as an attack on the court but also an attack on the democracy as a whole and an attack on the sovereignty of the Nepali people," he said. 

Leader Pokharel said that this is a conspiracy to push the local level elections.

An enraged mob stoned to death a middle-aged man for allegedly desecrating the Quran in a remote village in eastern Pakistan, police said Sunday.

The custodian of a local mosque said he saw the man burning the Muslim holy book inside the mosque Saturday evening and told others before informing police, according to police spokesman Chaudhry Imran. The violence took place in a village in the district of Khanewal in Punjab province.

Imran said police rushed to the scene, where a man was found surrounded by an angry crowd. Officer Mohammad Iqbal and two subordinates tried to take custody of the man but the group began throwing stones at them, seriously injuring Iqbal and slightly injuring the other two officers.

Munawar Gujjar, chief of Tulamba police station, said he rushed reinforcements to the mosque but they did not arrive before the mob had stoned to death the man and hung his body from a tree.

Gujjar said the victim was identified as Mushtaq Ahmed, 41, of a nearby village.

"The ill-fated man has been mentally unstable for the last 15 years and according to his family often went missing from home for days begging and eating whatever he could find," he said. He said the body was handed over to the family.

Mian Mohammad Ramzan, the mosque custodian, said he saw smoke inside the mosque, which is adjacent to his home, and rushed over to investigate. He found one Quran burned and saw a man attempting to burn another. He said people were starting to arrive for evening prayers as he was shouting for the man to stop.

Witnesses said a police team that reached the village before the stoning began took custody of a man but the mob snatched him away from them and beat the police as they tried to rescue him.

Later, more officers and constables reached the scene and took custody of the body, they said.

Gujjar, the area police chief, said investigators were scanning available videos to try to identify the assailants. He said police had so far detained about 80 men living in the mosque's surroundings but that about 300 suspects took part.

Prime Minister Imran Khan expressed his anguish over the incident and said he was seeking a report from Punjab's chief minister on the police handling of the case. He said they "failed in their duty."

"We have zero tolerance for anyone taking the law into their own hands and mob lynching will be dealt with with the full severity of the law," he said in a tweet hours after the incident.

Khan also asked the Punjab police chief for a report on the actions taken against perpetrators of the lynching.

The killing comes months after the lynching of a Sri Lankan manager of a sporting goods factory in Sialkot in Punjab province on Dec. 3 who was accused by workers of blasphemy.

Mob attacks on people accused of blasphemy are common in this conservative Islamic nation. International and national rights groups say blasphemy accusations have often been used to intimidate religious minorities and settle personal scores. Blasphemy is punishable by death in Pakistan.