19-06-2024 WELLINGTON/ PORT MORESBY: If a plane has to make an unscheduled landing, that often means there’s been some kind of medical emergency on board but an Air New Zealand plane had a very different reason for making an unplanned stop yesterday, they were picking up the country’s prime minister …

19-06-2024 MANILA/ BEIJING: China’s embassy in the Philippines accused the US military of “hypocrisy, malign intention and double standards” in response to a report of secret U.S. campaign to undermine confidence in a Chinese vaccines and other aid during the COVID-19 pandemic. The remarks made by the spokesperson of the …

19-06-2024 PARIS:  The leader of France’s far-right National Rally (RN), Jordan Bardella, appealed to voters on Tuesday to hand his party an absolute majority in upcoming parliamentary elections so that it is able to govern effectively. Bardella’s eurosceptic, anti-immigration party has its first real chance of winning national power in …

19-06-2024 Bureau Report + Agencies NEW DELHI: A scion of India’s Nehru-Gandhi dynasty is due to make her electoral debut, potentially strengthening the opposition’s challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in parliament after he was humbled in a recent election, politicians and analysts said. The family has long been the …

19-06-2024 MOSCOW: Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin congratulated South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa on his re-election as president on Monday, reflecting continued good relations with Pretoria despite uncertainty over Moscow’s more than two-year-old invasion of Ukraine. “Hope was expressed for continued joint work on further strengthening of the partnership between Russia and …

19-06-2024 BERLIN/ BRUSSELS: Chinese electric vehicle imports to Germany declined in the first four months of the year, but Asia’s economic powerhouse still managed to increase its EV import market share in Germany during the period, the German statistics office said on Tuesday. Imports of Chinese EVs to Germany fell …

19-06-2024 RIYADH/ MINA: Throngs of tightly packed pilgrims struggled through searing heat which has claimed lives during the annual Haj pilgrimage as temperatures reached 51.8 degrees Celsius (125.2 Fahrenheit) in the shade of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi state TV said on Tuesday. Six Jordanian citizens died of heat …

19-06-2024 RAFAH/ CAIRO: Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday killed at least 17 Palestinians in two of the Gaza Strip’s historic refugee camps and Israeli tanks pushed deeper into the enclave’s southern city of Rafah, residents and medics said. Residents reported heavy bombardments from tanks and planes in several areas of Rafah, …

18-06-2024 MAPUTO: “If (the jihadists) knew I was a government official, they would have beheaded me,” Tomas Langa, a civil servant in northern Mozambique, told media. He feels he had a lucky escape. We have changed his named for his safety. Woken in the early hours of 10 May by …

18-06-2024 LONDON: The UK’s main stock market retook its crown as Europe’s most valuable for the first time in nearly two years, data shows. The total value of companies listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) hit $3.18 trillion on Monday, overtaking the $3.13tn total value of companies listed in …