India yesterday began voting in a six-week election with an all but assured victory for Hindu nationalist Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.A total of 968 million people are eligible to take part in the world’s biggest vote — a staggering logistical exercise that critics say follows a concerted ef
AIRPORT ASSASINATION: The suspect had been tasked with gathering and transmitting to Russia information about security at Rzeszow-Jasionka airport
A man suspected of aiding a plot by Russian intelligence services to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been arrested in Poland, Polish and Ukrainian prosecutors said on Thursday.The Polish national, named only as Pawel K, is suspected of supplying information to Russian militar
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday.The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science,
South Africa’s most famous cartoonist, Zapiro, says the upcoming elections brought an unexpected gift — the surprise comeback of his favorite subject, former South African president Jacob Zuma.The caricaturist has depicted the 82-year-old politician with a shower head poking out of his skull for alm
US President Joe Biden raised eyebrows when he hinted that cannibals on the island of New Guinea might have eaten his uncle’s body after he was shot down during World War II.The White House and official records on Thursday indicated that — as with many a family legend — the facts might indeed be a b
Kenya’s defense chief and nine other top brass died on Thursday in a military helicopter crash in a remote area of the nation, Kenyan President William Ruto said.“Today at 2:20pm, our nation suffered a tragic air accident... I am deeply saddened to announce the passing of General Francis Omondi Ogol
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’
US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania.Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh.“They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon yesterday agreed to deepen defense cooperation and expressed serious concern over the South China Sea, where the Philippines and China have had maritime run-ins.China claims almost the entire South China Sea, a
SOLOMONS VOTE: Peter Kenilorea said the nation does not have natural enemies, lamenting that it has become a focal point for US-China competition
A leading contender to become the Solomon Islands’ next prime minister yesterday vowed to rip up a security pact with China as the Pacific nation began counting votes in its general election.“If we are in government, we will abolish the security treaty,” Peter Kenilorea told reporters from his villa
The mayor of a small mining town in Ecuador was shot dead on Wednesday, just days before a national referendum on whether to take tougher measures against crime, authorities said.Jose Sanchez, mayor of Camilo Ponce Enriquez canton in the southern province of Azuay, “was shot and killed,” the mayor’s
A Sydney bishop who was stabbed on Monday during a live-streamed sermon yesterday said that he was recovering and forgives his attacker, telling him: “You are my son.”Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was slashed in the head and chest by a 16-year-old suspect, sparking a protest by followers of the Assyrian
Two German-Russian men have been arrested in Germany on suspicion of espionage, one of them accused of agreeing to carry out attacks on potential targets including US military facilities in hopes of sabotaging aid for Ukraine, prosecutors said yesterday.The two, identified only as Dieter S. and Alex
UAECloud seeding deniedThe nation yesterday was still grappling with the aftermath of a record-breaking storm this week, with experts denying that cloud-seeding was to blame for the scale of the rainfall. “It’s likely that the storm was kind of supercharged by climate change because there’s just mor
Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency personnel in Tagulandang, Indonesia, yesterday look toward Mount Ruang after it erupted on Wednesday. The Indonesian Center for Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation said that the eruption was at level IV, its highest alert. As a result of the er
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’
Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region.The Solomon
NINE NAMES: A decree named the seven voting members and two non-voting observers after the government demanded documents to approve their postings
An official decree on Tuesday named the members of Haiti’s transitional ruling council, a further step toward installing a body meant to bring a semblance of order to the nation.A decree in Haiti’s official gazette Le Moniteur on Friday last week announced the establishment of the council, a month a
Heavy thunderstorms on Tuesday lashed the United Arab Emirates (UAE), dumping the heaviest rain ever recorded in the country in the span of hours as it flooded out portions of major highways and Dubai’s international airport.The state-run WAM news agency called the rain “a historic weather event” th
Leonardo Muylaert was just another mild-mannered professional on vacation with his girlfriend when the 36-year-old Brazilian went viral on social media thanks to an unexpected superpower that has changed his life: his uncanny resemblance to Superman.Muylaert — a strapping, bespectacled civil rights
The British government’s plan for a landmark smoking ban that aims to stop young people from ever smoking on Tuesday cleared its first hurdle in parliament, despite opposition from within British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party.The bill, a key policy announced by Sunak last year, wou
INDONESIAMount Ruang eruptsA volcano erupted several times in North Sulawesi Province, forcing hundreds of people to be evacuated after it spewed lava and a column of smoke into the sky. Mount Ruang, a stratovolcano, first erupted at 9:45pm on Tuesday and twice again in the early hours of yesterday,