20-08-2025 Bureau Report NEW DELHI: India aims to slash taxes on small cars and insurance premiums as part of a sweeping reform of its Goods & Services Tax (GST), a government source said on Monday, sparking a rally in Indian stock markets. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration revealed plans over …

20-08-2025 NAYPYIDAW: Myanmar will begin its general elections on 28 December, its military government announced, in a phased poll widely condemned as a sham that will be used to entrench the junta’s power. This will be the first vote since the junta seized power in a bloody coup in 2021 …

20-08-2025 DOHA/ CAIRO: Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani has held talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to discuss a ceasefire agreement in Gaza, as Israel intensifies its offensive to seize Gaza City. “El-Sisi and the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister …

20-08-2025 WASHINGTON: It is quite possible that Monday’s meeting in the White House could prove even more crucial to the future of Ukraine and for all of Europe’s security than last Friday’s US-Russia summit in Alaska. On the surface, that Putin-Trump reunion seemed to live down to every expectation. There …

20-08-2025 NASSAU: HISPANIOLA: Hurricane Erin has strengthened to a Category 4 storm as it threatens to bring life-threatening surf and rip currents to the eastern coast of the United States. The rains caused by the storm are already beginning to hit the south-eastern Bahamas and the Turk and Caicos Islands, …

20-08-2025 WEST BANK/ GAZA CITY: From among the broken remains of Brahim Hamaiel’s olive trees, in the occupied West Bank, we saw the masked men approach. A dozen settlers, charging down from the illegal outpost above his farm and across the field towards us, moving fast and carrying large sticks. …

19-08-2025 BAGHDAD/ MOSUL: Iraqi officials have begun the excavation of what is believed to be a mass grave left behind by Islamic State/ ISIL (ISIS) during its years of carnage exacted upon the civilian population after it seized large swaths of the nation from 2014 onwards, until being vanquished three …

19-08-2025 By SJA Jafri PESHAWAR/ BAYSHONAI KALAY: Aziz Ahmed, a local schoolteacher in Buner, northwestern Pakistan said the thunder accompanying recent torrential rains was so loud he thought the “end of the world had come”. Water, rocks and trees were swept down the mountainside after two days of intense monsoon …

19-08-2025 KUWAIT CITY: Kuwaiti authorities have arrested 67 people accused of producing and distributing locally made alcoholic drinks that killed 23 people in recent days, including a Bangladeshi national said to head the criminal network, the Interior Ministry has said. In a statement on social media late on Saturday, the …

19-08-2025 TEL AVIV/ JERUSALEM: Thousands of Israelis took part in a nationwide strike on Sunday in support of families of hostages held in Gaza, calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach an agreement with Hamas to end the war and release the remaining captives. Demonstrators waved Israeli flags and …