29/03/2026

theSun on Sunday MAR 29, 2026

WORLD 8 Pakistan to host talks

between and Tehran in the war launched by the US and Israel on Feb 28, and all are acutely vulnerable to threats to energy supplies and trade ߑ routes. Pakistan has conveyed to Tehran a US proposal for ending the war and offered to host talks, with Iranian officials indicating any negotiations could take place in Pakistan or Turkiye. US President Donald Trump has said talks with Iran were going “very well”, but Tehran denies talking with ߑ Washington. Iran has been reviewing the 15-point US proposal, although one official has dismissed it as “one-sided and unfair”. Its demands range from dismantling Iran’s nuclear programme to curbing its missile development and effectively handing over control of the Strait of Hormuz. On the war front, Gulf countries and Israel came under missile fire and Israeli forces struck Iran yesterday. Washington

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will host Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Egypt for talks today on the Iran war as Islamabad positions itself as a potential venue for US-Iran negotiations on the month-old conflict. The four countries’ foreign ministers ߑ will hold “in-depth discussions on a range of issues, including efforts to de-escalate tensions in the region” during the two-day talks, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement yesterday. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said the meeting would seek to establish a mechanism aimed at de escalation. “We would discuss where the negotiations in this ߑ war are heading and how these four countries assess the situation and what can be done,” he told broadcaster A Haber on Friday. The four nations have been involved in trying to mediate No letup in attacks

Iranian firefighters looking for victims at a residential building in southern Tehran on Friday. – AFPPIC

New York Times and The Wall Street Journa l. Iranian reported strikes on Friday on three Iranian nuclear facilities and two steel plants, with officials saying there was no radioactive release. Israel confirmed it had struck the Khondab heavy water complex and a uranium processing plant in Ardakan, while the UN nuclear watchdog said Iran had informed it of another strike on the Bushehr power plant. – Reuters/AFP

said a blaze caused by the “Iranian aggression” had been brought under control. In Israel, air raid sirens sent people to shelters, including in Tel Aviv where one man was killed and two others wounded, and in the country’s north, where a simultaneous attack from Iran and Hezbollah. An Iranian missile and drone attack on the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia wounded at least 12 US soldiers, two of them seriously, according to The

Israel’s military said air defences responded to a missile launched from Yemen. It reported fresh strikes on Tehran and an AFP journalist in the city reported 10 intense blasts. Emirati authorities said debris from a missile interception started fires at an Abu Dhabi industrial zone, injuring five Indian nationals. Saudi Arabia said it had intercepted a missile and several drones, and Bahrain

Displaced mothers welcome babies with hope, fear BEIRUT: When Israeli strikes rained down on southern Lebanon early this month, Hawraa Houmani, 29 years old and almost nine months pregnant, fled her village near Nabatieh to a shelter in a school in Beirut. She no longer had access to the doctor that had cared for her throughout her pregnancy.

Help those in need, pope tells Monaco MONACO: Pope Leo yesterday made a day trip to Monaco, a tax-free microstate on the French Riviera known as a haven for billionaires and their luxury yachts, and urged its residents to share their wealth and help those in need. “In God’s eyes, nothing is received in vain!” the pope told Monaco’s royal family and leading residents. “Every good placed in our hands ... bears an intrinsic need not to be held back, but to be shared, so that everyone’s life may be better.” Leo is the first pope in nearly five centuries to visit the wealthy Mediterranean enclave. He arrived after a 90-minute helicopter ride from the Vatican and met Prince Albert, Monaco’s head of state and son of the late Hollywood star Grace Kelly. The pope appeared to reiterate his message that the wealthy should help those less fortunate in his gift to Albert. He gave the prince a colourful artwork created by the Vatican’s mosaic studio, an image of St Francis of Assisi, a 13th-century son of a prosperous Italian merchant who renounced his inheritance to help the poor. The second smallest state in the world after the Vatican, and one of the last countries with Catholicism as the state religion, Monaco has the highest concentration of billionaires per capita in the world. In his speech at Albert’s official residence, a 12th-century fortress with lavish apartments overlooking blue-green Mediterranean waters, Leo urged Monaco’s residents to “put your prosperity at the service of law and justice”. His visit to Monaco is only his second outside Italy, but opens what is expected to be a busy year of travel. Leo, 70,will undertake a four-country tour of Africa next month and is also due to make a week-long visit to Spain in June. – Reuters

“I had prepared myself physically and mentally for that doctor, for her to be the one delivering,” Houmani said. A Beirut hospital turned her away for a pre-delivery check-up, though when she started having contractions a week later, it admitted her. She gave birth to her son, Ali, on March 11. The next day, she returned to the classroom where she now lives with her husband, four-year-old son, and other displaced relatives. They are among over a million people who have been displaced in Lebanon since a new war between Israel and Hezbollah erupted on March 2. There are 13,500 displaced pregnant women in Lebanon, according to the UN Population Fund UNFPA, the world body’s reproductive health agency. As many as 1,500 women are expected to give birth in the next 30 days. In the shelter, where multiple families share bathrooms, Houmani worries about cleanliness, breastfeeding and bathing her children. Within the first two weeks of his life, Ali has caught a cold and a rash has spread across his face. His family is anxious for a pediatrician to treat him, but so far, none have come to the shelter. Grandmother Sabah Marji, 64, cradled Ali in one arm and his cousin Fatima, born just days before the war started, in the other. “Right now, I feel great about them, but the joy is incomplete. It’s not the same as when a person is living in their own home with everything around them,” she said. Midwife Ahlam Sayegh, who also fled Nabatieh, supports displaced pregnant

Houmani feeds her newborn Ali. – REUTERSPIC women and new mothers in Beirut as best she can with limited means. “We are giving support, but at the same time most of that support is mainly psychological support – support by telling them what they should do, when the necessities required to put that into practice on the ground are not reaching them,“ she said. When the strikes began, 31-year-old Sarah Shahla was five months pregnant with a baby girl. She too fled from

Nabatieh with her husband and two sons. In the shelter, she has opened a small stand selling candy and snacks. As Lebanon approaches one month of renewed conflict, Israel has threatened an occupation of the south. Still, Sarah hopes to return to her home before giving birth. “Of course, I hope that she comes into a life better than this one, that she comes into a life with stability, safety, a family atmosphere, a sense of home, all of these things.” – Reuters