WELLINGTON: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern resumed campaigning in New Zealand’s virus-delayed general election today with an attention-grabbing promise to make the Maori New Year a public holiday. Electioneering had barely started last month when a sudden Covid-19 outbreak forced Auckland into lockdown and brought a temporary halt to campaign activities. […]
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WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump today again defended his support for American troops while others in his administration rallied around him after reports that Trump had disparaged fallen US soldiers in Europe and declined to visit an American cemetery during a 2018 trip to France. The Atlantic magazine reported on […]
KATHMANDU: Police in Nepal used tear gas and water cannon yesterday to break up a religious rally that defied a government ban on public gatherings imposed to fight the coronavirus pandemic. Despite the ban, about 2,000 residents poured into a major thoroughfare of Lalitpur, near Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, to pull […]
COLOMBO: Indian warships yesterday aided Sri Lanka’s navy to extinguish a fire on a massive oil tanker off the island’s eastern coast, officials said. Sri Lankan authorities said there was no immediate danger to the coastline should there be a leak from the New Diamond, which was carrying 270,000 tonnes […]
SYDNEY: Australian writer Yang Hengjun, detained by Chinese authorities for 18 months, has told family he has refused to make a false confession, as his case appears to move closer to trial. Yang’s lawyer was yesterday allowed access to the Beijing detention facility where the 55-year-old writer is being held, […]
TOKYO: Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga is now the most preferred candidate among the public to become the next prime minister, surging in popularity after he entered his party’s leadership race, an Asahi Shimbun survey showed today. The survey highlights the growing momentum for Suga, the government’s chief spokesman, […]
KENOSHA: Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden put himself squarely in the middle of ongoing national tumult over racial injustice and police brutality yesterday, meeting with residents of strife-torn Kenosha, Wisconsin, and speaking by phone with the Black man shot there by police. Biden’s trip to Kenosha, the site of sometimes […]
SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook Inc said on Thursday (Oct 3) it would stop accepting new political ads in the week before the US election day on Nov 3, in a series of moves the company billed as its final plan for reducing risks of misinformation and election interference. Facebook, the world’s […]
MANILA: A US marine convicted of killing a transgender woman will stay in detention in the Philippines while a court reviews its earlier ruling to free him halfway into his 10-year jail term, officials said today. Lance Corporal Joseph Scott Pemberton has been in prison since the October 2014 killing […]
FILE PHOTO: A Facebook logo is displayed on a smartphone in this illustration taken January 6, 2020. SYDNEY: Facebook said on Monday (Aug 31) that it would block news publishers and people in Australia from sharing news on Facebook and Instagram if a proposal to force the US tech […]