Cairo, Oct 8: Several explosions were heard in Saudi Arabia’s capital of Riyadh on Thursday, including a large blast at the city’s international airport, a witness told The Associated Press, a day after the kingdom said an attack there killed one person and wounded others.

The cause of the blasts was not immediately known. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Iran-backed Houthi rebels in neighbouring Yemen have repeatedly claimed attacks against airports, military and oil facilities in Saudi Arabia in recent days.

The blasts had an immediate effect on markets and oil prices as the price of crude jumped.

King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh “closed again,” the Flightradar24 monitor said Thursday on X. “Last landing 80+ minutes ago. Last take off 90+ minutes ago.”

Fire and ambulance crews were deployed and smoke was visible, the witness said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

The witness said outgoing flights were halted and passengers were instructed to leave all checked-in luggage behind and evacuate the airport. It was not immediately clear how many flights were disrupted.

Saudi authorities did not respond to requests for comment.

On Wednesday, Saudi officials said two attacks on airports claimed by the Houthis had killed three people, as the kingdom was pulled deeper into the latest front in the Iran war. The attack on King Khalid airport killed a Sudanese national and wounded eight other people, and the attack on Abha airport killed Moroccan and Algerian residents and wounded 28 others, officials said.

Attacks on the kingdom, the world’s top oil exporter, have raised alarm. Over the weekend, Saudi Arabia and allied Yemeni forces launched a major ground and air offensive aimed at retaking territory that the Houthis seized a month ago along Yemen’s western Red Sea coast and on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

The rebels’ presence on the waterway poses a threat to the crucial shipping alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, where traffic has been curtailed due to the Iran war.

Also Wednesday, the spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis, Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki, said forces destroyed a platform in Yemen’s rebel-held capital of Sanaa that had been used to launch attacks on the Saudi capital. The AP could not independently verify these claims. (AP)

Stockholm, Oct 8: Canadian author Anne Carson won the Nobel Prize in literature Thursday “for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature.”

The prize was announced by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm.

The prize money this year is 12 million Swedish kronor (about USD 1.2 million). (AP)

Jerusalem, Oct 08: Israel said on Thursday that the British Consulate in east Jerusalem has “ceased to function” in that capacity and that 20 staffers would leave the country, the latest in what has been the biggest diplomatic friction between the close allies in decades.

Britain said the building would continue to deliver “vital services” and work with Palestinians, and that it would not retaliate by expelling Israeli diplomats as it seeks to rebuild its staff. The sign outside the consulate was taken down.

The dispute began last month when the United Kingdom banned trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The United Nations and much of the international community consider all settlements as illegal.

“Israel will no longer turn its cheek to diplomatic attacks against it,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said in a statement, adding that the building would continue to operate with a “task force” of seven diplomats and a “very limited” scope of activity. Twenty British diplomats will leave Israel, including the consul general.

British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said in a statement that the building “will be known as the UK Mission, Jerusalem” after discussions with Israel’s government, and a small team of diplomats would continue to operate there.

“This will ensure that we maintain our longstanding British presence and the UK’s role in support of a two-state solution,” Miliband added.

Britain had threatened to expel Israeli diplomats if the consulate was closed, but said it would not do so for now because it’s in talks with Israel about increasing the UK presence at the mission.

“We will work in the coming months to build back up our presence,” Miliband said.

Meanwhile, “our diplomats are going to be able to carry out their important work in relation to, for example, relations with the Palestinians, but also supporting British nationals visiting the area,” Middle East Minister Stephen Doughty told Times Radio.

Miliband made clear that Britain does “not accept that the government of Israel has the legal right to close the British Consulate General in Jerusalem, which has been there for nearly 200 years.”

The foreign secretary added that the UK government reiterates its view that east Jerusalem “is occupied territory.”

Israel captured the West Bank, along with Gaza and East Jerusalem, in the 1967 Middle East war, territories the Palestinians want for a future state.

Since then, the Israeli government has built scores of settlements that are home to well over 500,000 Jewish settlers. Many settlements resemble fully developed suburbs.

The current government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the most nationalist and religious in Israel’s history, views the West Bank as the biblical and historical homeland of the Jewish people and sees the settlements as key to maintaining security.

United Nations, Oct 08: Exposing Pakistan’s doublespeak on terrorism at the UN, India has called out Islamabad’s efforts to gloss over its state support for terror by announcing rewards for JeM chief Masood Azahar, underlining that the world has not forgotten 9/11, 26/11 and Pahalgam attacks.

India on Wednesday exercised its Right of Reply in response to the Pakistan representative’s statement in the Sixth Committee of the UN General Assembly on the Agenda Item: Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism.

“Pakistan speaks of combating terrorism while seeking to obscure the very question that this committee must confront: What happens when terrorists are financed, facilitated, trained, sheltered, or supported from the territory of a state?” First Secretary in the Permanent Mission of India to the UN Raghoo Puri said.

He said India has been consistent on this question, underscoring that terrorism cannot be defeated by declarations and instead requires action against its perpetrators, organisers, financiers, and sponsors.

“For years, Pakistan has presented itself as a frontline state in combating terrorism and as a victim while masking the fact that the Frankensteins the Pakistani state has created and lost control over have moved from wreaking havoc in neighbouring countries to doing the same in Pakistan,” Puri said.

Calling out Pakistan’s doublespeak on terrorism, Puri said the country “glosses over its state support for terrorism by announcing enhanced rewards for apprehending UN-listed head of Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist and mastermind of several attacks against my country, Masood Azhar.”

He said the world is aware of Pakistan’s financial support to terrorism.

“Yet, we also remember that just a few months ago, Pakistani representatives used this forum to call the Jaish-e-Mohammed a defunct organisation. The world has seen the script play earlier, and we are clear-eyed that this time also it is going to be no different,” he said.

Puri said that when the media can reach Azhar and get confirmation from him about the success of Operation Sindoor, “surely the Pakistani state knows his whereabouts”.

In May last year, India had launched Operation Sindoor targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in retaliation for the dastardly April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir perpetrated by The Resistance Front, a proxy of Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, in which 26 civilians, mostly tourists were killed.

Earlier this month, India had dismissed as “gimmicks” Pakistan’s fresh announcement of a bounty of seven million rupees on Azhar, demanding that Islamabad take “concrete action” to combat terrorism.

India has for years accused Pakistan of sheltering Azhar, while Pakistan has maintained that he fled to Afghanistan – a claim rejected by Afghanistan’s Taliban government.

For the last few years, Islamabad has claimed that the JeM founder has been operating from Afghanistan.

However, the Taliban regime dismissed Pakistan’s repeated claims, with a senior Afghan Foreign Ministry official saying he is not in the country.

Islamabad’s fresh announcement on the reward for information on Azhar came as it faces pressure from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to crack down on terror groups and their leadership.

The Paris-based global watchdog is set to review Pakistan’s anti-terrorism efforts at its upcoming plenary.

Pakistan was placed under the FATF grey list between 2018 and 2022 for its systemic deficiencies in anti-money laundering and its failure to counter-terror financing.

Puri also recalled a recent statement by Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, daughter of former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who had said,“The unfortunate thing is that the threat [Punjab] faces comes less from my neighbouring countries and more from my neighbouring provinces.”

Exposing this “dark secret”, Puri said, “You cannot run with the hares and hunt with the hounds. Reality never works like that.”

“When terrorist groups are allowed to operate under state political power, international commitments become meaningless and when perpetrators are provided safe havens, the victims of terrorism are denied justice,” he said.

“The world has not forgotten 9/11 and where its perpetrators, including Osama bin Laden, were caught. The world has not forgotten 26/11. The world has not forgotten Pahalgam,” Puri said, adding that the list, “unfortunately”, is painfully long.

“The victims in Pahalgam were not asked about their political orientation, they were asked about their religion. It is therefore deeply ironic that Pakistan speaks of combating religious hatred while allowing the conditions that enable it to persist and thrive, especially by fomenting cross-border terrorism,” he said.

“Pakistan continues with its narrative building, misinformation, and disinformation. If bombed-out airfields and cratered runways look like victory to Pakistan, they are of course welcome to enjoy it,” Puri said.

“Any regime against terrorism to be effective must do two things: assign responsibility and ensure accountability. India will defend its people, and continued terrorism against India will have consequences,” he added.

In another Right of Reply, Puri said India rejected Pakistan’s “circular economy” of words and narratives.

“If this much effort had actually been made in countering terrorism rather than narrative building, misinformation, and disinformation, the world would have been a better place. But nothing more can be expected from a Form 47 government,” he said, referring to a term used to describe allegations of rigging and manipulation in Pakistan’s 2024 general elections.