PRESIDENT Joe Biden said he brought up the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in his meeting Friday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, rejecting the idea that he was ignoring the kingdom’s human rights abuses as he tries to reset a critical diplomatic relationship. “I said, very straightforwardly, for an American President to be silent on an issue of human rights is inconsistent with who we are and who I am,” Biden said. “I’ll always stand up for our values.” US Intelligence believes that the crown ..

OVER six million people or over 28 per cent of Sri Lanka’s population are “food insecure” and this situation is likely to deteriorate as the crisis unfolds in the island nation which is grappling with its worst economic crisis, the World Food Programme has said. Sri Lanka is currently reeling under a severe foreign exchange crisis with falling reserves and the Government is unable to foot the bill for essential imports. The economic crisis has led to an acute shortage of essential items like food, ..

SRI Lanka’s embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa would resign on July 13, Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena said on Saturday night. President Rajapaksa informed the Speaker about this decision after Abeywardena wrote to him asking for his resignation following the all-party leaders meeting held Saturday evening. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Saturday offered to resign and form an all-party Government, hours after thousands of protesters stormed the official residence of President ..

AMERICAN electric carmaker Tesla, which has been seeking reduction in import duties to sell its vehicles in India, will not manufacture its products locally unless it is allowed to first sell and service its cars in the country, company founder and chief executive Elon Musk has said.In a tweet responding to a user asking about Tesla setting up a manufacturing plant in India, he said, “Tesla will not put a manufacturing plant in any location where we are not allowed first to sell & service cars.”..

THE Orlando Police Pension Fund has sued Elon Musk and his $44 billion buyout of Twitter, claiming that the deal cannot close till 2025 owing to Tesla CEO’s stake in the micro-blogging platform. The proposed class-action lawsuit, filed by the Orlando Police Pension Fund in the Delaware Chancery court, alleged that since Musk was an “interested stockholder” before the merger agreement was approved by Twitter’s board, “the proposed takeover may not lawfully close until 2025 absent approval by the affirmative ..

DAYS after the Joe Biden administration announced an additional USD 800 million in military assistance to Ukraine, Russia warns the United States of “unpredictable consequences” if the country continues to transfer weapons to Ukraine. ‘Washington Post’ reviewed a diplomatic note that Russia sent the US this week and said that the note warned that US and NATO shipments of the “most sensitive” weapons systems to Ukraine could bring “unpredictable consequences,” reported ‘Aljazeera’...

SRI Lanka’s central bank has decided to hike interest rates by an unprecedented 700 basis points to tame high inflation amid the worst economic crisis that has led to protests across the country and put President Gotabaya Rajapaksa under mounting pressure to resign. The move comes as Sri Lanka’s main Opposition party SJB on Friday announced that it will move a no-confidence motion against the Government of President Rajapaksa and is prepared to impeach the embattled leader if he fails to address ..

THE motion picture academy on Friday banned Will Smith from attending the Oscars or any other academy event for 10 years following his slap of Chris Rock at the Academy Awards. The move comes after a meeting of the academy’s Board of Governors to discuss a response to Smith’s actions. It is unclear whether the ban would apply to future nominations. “The 94th Oscars were meant to be a celebration of the many individuals in our community who did incredible work this past year; however, those moments ..

SRI LANKAN President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has declared a nationwide public emergency amidst a spate of protests, including outside his house, over the worst economic crisis in the island nation. Rajapaksa issued a special gazette notification late on Friday night, declaring a public emergency in Sri Lanka with immediate effect from April 1. In the gazette, the President states: “Whereas I am of opinion that by reason of a public emergency in Sri Lanka it is expedient to do so in the interests of ..

UKRAINE’S President made a surprise video appearance Saturday at Qatar’s Doha Forum, calling on the energy-rich nation and others to boost their production to counteract the loss of Russian energy supplies. Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on the United Nations and world powers to come to his aid, as he has in a series of other addresses given around the world since the start of the war Feb. 24. He compared Russia’s destruction of the port city of Mariupol to the Syrian and Russian destruction wrought ..

A PREGNANT woman who was injured during the Russian shelling of a maternity hospital in Ukraine’s Mariupol city on March 10, has died, which increased the overall fatalities in the attack to four, a media report said citing a journalist as saying. The Ukayinska Pravda newspaper quoted Voice of America journalist Asya Dolina as saying in a Facebook post that “the pregnant girl seen in video/photo reports from the bombing site of the children’s hospital no.3 in Mariupol (maternity hospital), the one ..

UKRAINES First Lady Olena Zelenska has released her first public statement in a letter addressed to the global community. In the statement, she relays the horrors of war, particularly for women and children. She also named some child casualties of the war so far: “Eight-year-old Alice who died on the streets of Okhtyrka while her grandfather tried to protect her.” “Polina from Kyiv, who died in the shelling with her parents.” “Fourteen-year-old Arseniy was hit in the head by wreckage, and could not ..

RUSSIAN forces intensified shelling of cities in Ukraine’s centre, north and south, a Ukrainian official said, as a second attempt to evacuate besieged civilians collapsed. With the Ukrainian leader urging his people to take to the streets to fight, Russian President Vladimir Putin shifted blame for the invasion, saying, Moscow’s attacks could be halted “only if Kyiv ceases hostilities.” The outskirts of Kyiv, Chernihiv in the north, Mykolaiv in the south, and Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest ..

A BOY from Zaporizhzhia in southeast Ukraine, was hailed “a hero of the night” by Slovakian authorities after they said he crossed Ukraine’s border into Slovakia on his own, CNN reported. The 11-year-old was carrying a backpack, a plastic bag and a passport, and had a telephone number written on his hand, according to the Slovak Ministry of Interior. The statement said that thanks to the information written on the boy’s hand and on a piece of paper that was folded in his passport, the staff at the ..

THE Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MEA)on Saturday said that almost all Indians have left Kharkiv city of Ukraine and the main focus of the Government is to evacuate citizens from Sumy as it is challenging amid ongoing violence and lack of transportation. The MEA said that over 13,300 people returned to India so far and 13 flights are scheduled for the next 24 hours...

RUSSIA’S Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned that a Third World War ‘will be nuclear and destructive’ as the fallout of his nation’s invasion of neighbour Ukraine intensifies, Daily Mail reported. In a thinly veiled threat for NATO not to get involved in Ukraine, Lavrov said that any future world war would be fought with nuclear weapons- a statement that comes just days after President Vladimir Putin warned that any country sending troops to Ukraine would be met with severe consequences, the ..

RUSSIAN shelling pounded civilian targets in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv again on Tuesday and a 40-mile convoy of tanks and other vehicles threatened the capital — tactics Ukraine’s embattled President said were designed to force him into concessions in Europe’s largest ground war in generations. With the Kremlin increasingly isolated by tough economic sanctions that have tanked the rouble currency, Russian troops attempted to advance on Ukraine’s two biggest cities. In strategic Kharkiv, ..

IN THE port city of Mariupol, where Ukrainians are trying to fend off a Russian advance, an ambulance raced into a city hospital on Sunday, carrying a 6-year-old girl mortally injured in Russian shelling. She was pale. Her brown hair was pulled back with a rubber band. Her bloody pyjama pants were decorated with cartoon unicorns. She was brought in with her wounded father, his head bloodied and bandaged. A medical team pumped her chest, fighting desperately to revive her. Her mother stood outside ..

FOR THE second time in as many days, India abstained on a UN Security Council resolution to convene a rare emergency special session of the UN General Assembly on Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, even as New Delhi asserted that there is no other choice but to return to the path of diplomacy and dialogue to settle the Ukraine crisis. The 15-nation Council met Sunday afternoon to vote on a procedural resolution to refer the Ukrainian situation to an emergency session of the 193-member UN General ..

UKRAINE landed a significant blow on Russia after it allegedly killed a large group of bloodthirsty Chechen special forces dispatched to assassinate the country’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, ‘Daily Mail’ reported. The armed group -- famed for their barbaric violence and human rights abuses -- are said to have been obliterated after their convoy of 56 tanks was blown to smithereens near Hostomel, just northeast of Kyiv, by Ukrainian missile fire on the second day of the Chechens’ deployment. It is ..

RUSSIA’S special military operation in Ukraine is a ‘forced measure’ and Moscow was left without other options, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday while assuring the international community that Russia did not intend to ‘damage’ the global economic system. Addressing top Russian business leaders here, Putin explained that the security risks for Russia were made so high it was impossible to react with other means...

US President Joe Biden has announced a set of sweeping sanctions targeting Russia’s ability to do business with the West, asserting that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin’s decision to order troops into parts of eastern Ukraine was “a flagrant violation of international law”. Announcing the “first tranche” of US sanctions on Russia for its moves against Ukraine, including on two large financial institutions, Russian sovereign debt and Russian elites and their family members, Biden said the American ..

TOUTED as the “most beautiful building in the world,” the Museum of the Future received a gala opening here, heralding the arrival of another much-awaited landmark in the UAE that has been nine years in the making. A sprawling seven-storeyed circular building standing at 77 meters, spread across 30,000 square meters, this imposing structure is situated just a stone’s throw away from the world’s tallest construction, the Burj Khalifa, another iconic structure that has been an intrinsic part of Dubai’s ..

A LONG-FEARED Russian invasion of Ukraine appeared to be imminent on Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin ordering forces into separatist regions of eastern Ukraine. A vaguely worded decree signed by Putin cast the order as an effort to “maintain peace.” But it appeared to dash the slim remaining hopes of averting a major conflict in Europe that could cause massive casualties, energy shortages on the continent and economic chaos around the globe. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ..

EVIDENCE suggests that Russia is planning “the biggest war in Europe since 1945”, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the BBC. “All the signs are that the plan has already in some senses begun,” he said on Saturday from Munich where world leaders are meeting for an annual security conference. Intelligence suggests Russia intends to launch an invasion that will encircle Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Johnson told the BBC. “I’m afraid to say that the plan we are seeing is for something that could be really ..

AT LEAST 25 students from Madhya Pradesh’s Indore are stuck in Ukraine and their family members have urged the Centre to help them bring home safely at the earliest amid the threat of Russian invasion. “In the last two-three days, about 25 people from Indore have contacted me and informed me that their children are stranded in Ukraine. These students want to return to their homes at the earliest due to the threat of Russian invasion,” Indore’s Lok Sabha MP Shankar Lalwani told PTI on Wednesday. Lalwani ..

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that he welcomed a security dialogue with the West as his military reported pulling back some of its troops near Ukraine — signals that may indicate the Kremlin has opted for a diplomatic path for now despite Western fears of an imminent Russian invasion of its neighbour. Putin said, he doesn’t want war and would rely on negotiations as he presses his demand for the West to halt Ukraine’s bid to join NATO. At the same time, he didn’t commit to a full ..

“I BELIEVE that COVID-19 can be the last pandemic (and) I know that might be hard to believe while we’re still trying to get (the present outbreak) under control,” says Bill Gates in a new book about the lessons learnt in the past two years and how to apply them to avoid a future disaster. “How To Prevent The Next Pandemic” (Penguin/Allen Lane), to be published on May 3, is a clear and hopeful plan of what countries, Government leaders, and individuals must do to help prevent another pandemic. Grounded ..

A GROWING number of crosswalk traffic signals have been installed across Seoul as a way to enhance the safety of pedestrians glued to their smartphones, according to the South Korean capital’s ward offices on Tuesday. Nearly 1,200 in-ground crosswalk traffic signal systems were in operation across the city’s total 25 boroughs as of Tuesday, led by the southern ward of Gangnam, which was operating 138 of them, reports ‘Yonhap News Agency’. Installed on the ground at the foot of a crosswalk, the ..

YUTU-2, the lander and rover of China’s Chang’e 4 lunar probe which scripted history in 2019 when it made the first-ever soft landing on the far side of the moon, has travelled 1,003.9 metres of the region and captured an obscure intriguing image of a mysterious object, the official media reported on Saturday. The distance covered by Yutu-2, or Jade Rabbit-2, was 1,003.9 metres as of Thursday midnight, the Xinhua news agency reported, citing the Lunar Exploration and Space Programme Centre of the ..

IDENTIFYING several occurrences of interchanging intense and weak monsoon circulation events during the 145 kyr period (roughly a millennia), Indian scientists have found that warm/cold conditions in Antarctica show a near one-to-one coupling with weak/strong monsoon phases, suggesting a strong mechanistic link between them during the period. Four scientists from National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research (NCPOR), Goa, under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, and the School of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric ..

THE World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that blanket travel bans will not prevent the international spread of the COVID-19 Omicron variant, even as dozens of countries have already introduced such restrictions. Although Omicron has been labeled a “variant of concern” by the WHO, it said on Tuesday that blanket travel bans will only place a heavy burden on lives and livelihoods, while also “disincentivizing countries to report and share epidemiological and sequencing data.”..

THE new Omicron variant of coronavirus has reportedly got over 30 mutations in the spike protein region giving it the potential to develop a immunoescape mechanism, and thus the efficacy of vaccines against it needs to be evaluated critically, AIIMS chief Dr Randeep Guelria has said. The presence of spike protein facilitates a virus’ entry into the host cell and is responsible for making it transmissible and causing infection. “The new variant of coronavirus reportedly has got more than 30 mutations ..

WOMEN have been banned from appearing in television dramas in Afghanistan under new rules imposed by the Taliban-led Government, the BBC reported. Female journalists and presenters have also been ordered to wear headscarves on screen, although the guidelines do not say which type of covering to use. Reporters say some of the rules are vague and subject to interpretation, according to the BBC report. The latest set of Taliban guidelines, which have been issued to Afghan television channels, features ..

GLOBAL wealth tripled over the last two decades, with China leading the way and overtaking the US for the top spot worldwide, Bloomberg reported. A report by McKinsey & Co. that examines the national balance sheets of 10 countries representing more than 60 per cent of the world’s income. China accounted for almost one-third of gains in global net worth over the past two decades. “We are now wealthier than we have ever been,” Jan Mischke, a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute in Zurich, said in ..

NEGOTIATORS at the this year’s UN climate talks pored over fresh proposals on Saturday aimed at sealing a deal that could credibly be said to boost the world’s efforts to tackle global warming. British officials chairing the talks in Glasgow, Scotland, released new draft agreements a day after the official deadline passed. A proposal for the overarching decision retains contentious language calling on countries to accelerate “efforts towards the phase-out of unabated coal power and inefficient fossil ..

WHILE conducting research in Greenland, ice scientist Twila Moon was struck this summer by what climate change has doomed Earth to lose and what could still be saved. The Arctic is warming three times faster than the rest of the planet and is on such a knife’s edge of survival that the UN climate negotiations underway in Scotland this week could make the difference between ice and water at the top of the world in the same way that a couple of tenths of a degree matter around the freezing mark, scientists ..

ENVIRONMENT experts on Monday hailed as “real climate action” India’s pledge to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2070, saying that by making this big promises at COP 26, India has put the ball in the court of developed nations to fulfill promise of climate finance. Lauding the national statement delivered by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the 26th international climate conference in Glasgow, experts said India is rightly demanding USD 1 trillion from the developed nations. “I want to congratulate ..

THE US will lift all restrictions for fully-vaccinated international travellers, including from India, from November 8 but they will have to show proof of a negative coronavirus test before boarding a flight to the country, the White House has announced. The updated travel guidelines issued on Monday also include new protocols around testing. To further strengthen protections, unvaccinated travellers - whether US Citizens, lawful permanent residents (LPRs), or the small number of accepted unvaccinated ..

SOUTH Korea test launched its first domestically produced space rocket on Thursday in what officials describe as an important step in the country’s pursuit of a satellite launch programme. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the three-stage Nuri rocket succeeded in delivering a dummy payload – a 1.5-ton block of stainless steel and aluminum – into orbit 600 to 800 km (372 to 497 miles) above Earth. Live footage showed the 47-meter (154 foot) rocket soaring into the air with bright yellow flames ..

THE death toll from a fire in southern Taiwan that engulfed a building overnight has further risen to 46 killed, according to local officials on Thursday who said at least another 41 people were injured. The 13-story building caught fire around 3 a.m. Thursday, fire officials in the city of Kaohsiung said. A fire department statement said the blaze was “extremely fierce” and destroyed many floors. At least 11 bodies were sent straight to the morgue, Fire Chief Li Ching-hsiu told reporters at the scene. ..

TWO scientists won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for their discoveries into how the human body perceives temperature and touch, revelations that could lead to new ways of treating pain or even heart disease. Americans David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian identified receptors in the skin that respond to heat and pressure. Their work is focused on the field of somatosensation, which explores the ability of specialised organs such as eyes, ears and skin to see, hear and feel. The committee said ..

BRITAIN’S royals joined Daniel Craig, Lea Seydoux and the cast of “No Time to Die” on the red carpet for the new Bond film’s world premiere Tuesday, a glittering event that marked the movie’s release after multiple delays caused by the pandemic. The film, the 25th in the long-running series and Craig’s last outing as 007, was initially due to be released in April 2020...

INDIA and the US have called on the Taliban to adhere to its commitments and respect the human rights of all Afghans, including women, children and minority groups, and asked the new rulers in Kabul to make sure that the war-torn country’s territory is never again used to threaten or attack any country or to shelter or train terrorists. In a US-India Joint Leaders’ Statement issued after the first in-person bilateral meeting between US President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the ..

CHINA on Friday announced that the manned mission to construct its first space station was a complete success after three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth after 90 days, concluding the country’s longest crewed mission. The Shenzhou-12 manned spaceship carrying astronauts Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo touched down at the Dongfeng landing site in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region at around 13:35 local time, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said. The mission to construct ..

THE World Bank is cancelling a prominent report on business conditions around the world after investigators found staff members were pressured by the bank’s leaders to alter data about China and some other Governments. The bank said on Thursday it would discontinue “Doing Business” following an investigation prompted by internal reports of “data irregularities” in its 2018 and 2020 editions and possible “ethical matters” involving bank staff. Staff members changed data on China to improve its ranking ..

US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry on Monday lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi for setting ambitious climate targets and added that India has demonstrated that economic development and clean energy can go hand-in-hand. While congratulating India for making significant progress in climate targets, Kerry said that the 450 gigawatts renewable energy goal will be reached by India. “PM Modi has set very ambitious targets in India. The target of 450 GW by 2030, of renewable energy, ..

THE United Nations is making an emergency appeal for $606 million to help nearly 11 million people in Afghanistan for the four remaining months of 2021. It says they face a humanitarian crisis exacerbated by drought, displacement, chronic poverty and the sharp increase in hostilities as the Taliban swept to power. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs already has a $1.3 billion appeal for Afghanistan for the entire year of 2021, but it is only 39% funded -- at just $498 million. ..

A NUMBER of men and women took to the streets of Kabul chanting slogans against Pakistan as they claim the latters jets conducted airstrikes in Panjshir province. They have gathered at the gate of the Pakistani embassy in Kabul and said that they do not support a puppet government in Afghanistan and asked for an inclusive government. The people gathered after co-leader of the resistance front in Panjshir province Ahmad Masoud in a voice clip called on people of Afghanistan to resurrect against the ..

AFTER days of consultations, the Taliban have nominated Mullah Mohammad Hasan Akhund as the new head of state, according to senior leaders, a media report said. They said the new Government was likely to be installed on Wednesday, “or may get delayed for a few more days”, The News International reported. “Ameerul Momineen Sheikh Hibatullah Akhunzada had himself proposed Mullah Mohammad Hasan Akhund as Raees-e-Jamhoor, or raees-ul-wazara or the new head state of Afghanistan. Mullah Baradar Akhund and ..