World News Today: Iran-backed Houthis attack Najran airport, Aramco facilities in Saudi Arabia

Pakistan's Supreme Court on Thursday (Aug 20) returned the federal government's review petition challenging its Aug 18 order directing the transfer of incarcerated PTI founder Imran Khan to Shifa International Hospital, according to The Dawn.

Citing incomplete paper books as the reason, the SC registrar’s office returned the petition.

PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja, reacting to the development, said that the state had "withdrawn its review petition from the SC after objections were placed on it by the SC filing branch."

"There is no excuse whatsoever for not complying with the SC order of 18 August. Imran Khan Sb must be transferred to Shifa International Hospital forthwith. Today is the day," he said in a post on X.

An earthquake of magnitude 5.9 struck the Flores region of Indonesia on Thursday, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said.

The earthquake occurred at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles), according to the EMSC.

This is the second earthquake that hit Indonesia’s Flores region. Earlier on Monday, August 17, an earthquake of magnitude 5.9, according to Germany’s GFZ Research Centre for Geosciences, hit the Flores region. The quake hit at a shallow depth of 10 km (6 miles), rattling nerves in a region already reeling from a far more destructive earthquake just two days earlier. The tremor comes as rescue teams on Flores continue digging through landslides and rubble from Saturday’s 7.7-magnitude earthquake, which has now killed at least 53 people.

Over 53 people have been killed since last week’s earthquake in the region as rescue teams continued digging through landslides and rubble from Saturday’s 7.7-magnitude earthquake.

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Evergrande founder Hui Ka Yan has been sentenced to life in prison by a court in China after the real estate giant's collapse brought China’s financial system to the brink.

Yan, in April, pleaded guilty to several charges, including fraud and misuse of funds.

The Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court found Yan and Evergrande committed large-scale financial fraud and committed crimes between 2016 and 2021, including fund misuse, fundraising fraud and illegal public deposits.

The court ordered the seizure of Yan’s assets and fined Evergrande Group and Evergrande Real Estate Group a combined $2.35 billion in the case.

Iranian General Naqdi criticised Donald Trump as short-sighted and childish, saying the US president's statements lacked foundation and consistency. He said that he would trust a taxi driver's word more than the statements made by the US president.

“The current president of the United States is extremely short-sighted and childish,” Naqdi said in a video, according to the Gulf News.

“He has no long-term vision.” He added that Trump’s statements had “no foundation or consistency,” arguing that “I trust a taxi driver much more than I trust him.”

Strait of Hormuz shipping traffic showed no uptick as US-Iran talks stalled, signalling continued uncertainty over the strategic waterway, the latest shipping data showed, according to Reuters.

Commodity vessel transits totalled nine on Wednesday, unchanged from the previous day, according to Kpler data.

South Korea estimates North Korea has 80 to 120 nuclear warheads, far above President Donald Trump's recent estimate of 57 nuclear weapons, Defence Minister Ahn Gyu-back said on Thursday.

He told lawmakers that Pyongyang was believed to have 80 to 120 warheads but cautioned that it was difficult to determine the exact figure.

"We usually see it as around 80 to 120, but it is considerably limited to state ​an ​exact number," Ahn told a parliamentary committee.

On being asked bout Trump's remarks a day earlier that Kim possessed 57 "very powerful nuclear weapons", Ahn said, "the numbers appear somewhat different."

The total US national debt has surpassed $40 trillion for the first time, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday (Aug 19), as rising interest costs and spending pressures deepen concerns over the country’s fiscal outlook.

The Treasury's latest daily cash and debt balances statement showed total public debt outstanding at $40.047 trillion, which includes $32.266 trillion held by the public and $7.782 trillion in intragovernmental debt. The federal government's IOU, in less than a decade, has more than doubled, with COVID-19 borrowing, tax policies and long-running spending imbalances driving the rise.

US President Donald Trump announced what he described as the “most crushing economic operation” ever directed against Iran, warning that any nation conducting business with Tehran will face severe economic consequences. In a statement released on Wednesday (Jul 19), Trump stated that while he had previously offered Iran a deal, the Islamic Republic failed to take advantage of the opportunity.

“No one has given the Islamic Republic of Iran a greater opportunity to make a Deal than me. TRAGICALLY, for them, they have failed to take it. Therefore, today, I am announcing the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY,” he said in a post on his Truth Social account.

Comparing the “operation” to an “Economic D-Day,” Trump said that the isolation campaign would be the most crushing ever enacted against a country.

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