Heavy rain and flash floods kill 33 in Afghanistan
At least 33 people have been killed over three days of heavy rains and flash flooding in Afghanistan, the government’s disaster management department said on Sunday. “From Friday onward, because of the rains there were flash floods which caused high human and financial losses,” department spokesman Janan Sayeq said. “The primary information shows that, unfortunately, […]
Biden ‘considering’ Australian request to drop Assange case
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday he was “considering” a request by Australia to drop the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on espionage charges. Australia’s parliament passed a motion in February with the prime minister’s support calling for an end to the legal saga surrounding Assange, who has been held in Britain […]
UN Security Council begins review of Palestinian bid for full UN membership
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations Security Council said on Monday that it would decide this month on the Palestinians’ bid for full UN membership, with the longshot campaign unlikely to survive US opposition. As the Gaza war rages on into its seventh month, the council’s move was described as “historic” by the Palestinians, but angrily […]
Hopes dampened for speedy Gaza ceasefire agreement
• Egyptian media claims ‘significant progress’ on contentious points; Hamas, Israeli officials insist deadlock persists • Tel Aviv prepares military operations in Rafah; US opposes the assault GAZA STRIP: Israel and Hamas both dampened hopes on Monday of a speedy breakthrough in Cairo talks towards a Gaza truce and hostage release deal after Egyptian state-linked […]
China won’t ‘sit idly by’ on tech curbs, Xi tells Biden
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden and Xi Jinping clashed in a telephone call on Tuesday about US trade restrictions on technology and on Taiwan, but they looked to manage their tensions, with two top US officials to head shortly to Beijing. The telephone conversation was the two leaders’ first direct interaction since a summit in November […]
Iran president says Israel’s Syria attack ‘will not go unanswered’
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi on Tuesday condemned a deadly air strike blamed on Israel against his country’s consular annex in Damascus, saying the “cowardly crime will not go unanswered”. “After repeated defeats and failures against the faith and will of the Resistance Front fighters, the Zionist regime has put blind assassinations on its agenda in […]
Climate change messing with how we measure time
PARIS: Struggle to wrap your head around daylight savings? Spare a thought for the world’s timekeepers, who are trying to work out how climate change is affecting Earth’s rotation — and in turn, how we keep track of time. In a strange twist, global warming could even help out timekeepers by delaying the need for […]
China moves WTO against US subsidies to EV industry
GENEVA: China has initiated dispute settlement proceedings against the United States at the World Trade Organisation to safeguard its interests in the electric vehicle industry, the Chinese mission said on Tuesday and the WTO confirmed. China said it was contesting “discriminatory subsidies” under the US Inflation Reduction Act that it said resulted in the exclusion […]
For first time KCR’s family stays away from polls
New Delhi: For the first time since floating TRS (now BRS) 23 years ago, the family of party founder K. Chandrasekhar Rao is staying away from Lok Sabha elections. The former Chief Minister or his family member fought every Parliament and Assembly election since 2004. There were speculations that KCR, as the BRS chief is […]
Trump wins lifeline in civil fraud case
NEW YORK: Donald Trump was thrown a huge lifeline on Monday when an appeals court slashed what could have been a crippling demand for a nearly half-billion-dollar bond payment and also gave him 10 more days to pay. The Republican presidential candidate got the unexpectedly positive news about his New York civil fraud case while […]