24-01-2025 MOSCOW/ KYIV: The Kremlin says it is ready for a “mutually respectful dialogue” with US President Donald Trump about the war in Ukraine. This comes after Trump warned that Russia will face more sanctions if Putin doesn’t stop what he described as the “ridiculous war”, a message Ukraine says …

24-01-2025 WASHINGTON: Meta, the company which owns social media networks Facebook and Instagram, has denied forcing users to follow official accounts belonging to senior figures in the new Trump administration. Some users of the platforms had complained following Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday that they had “automatically” been made to …

24-01-2025 NEW DELHI: RAJOURI: Officials are investigating the “mysterious” deaths of dozens people most of them children, in the same village in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). The deaths, including those of 12 children, have occurred in the remote village of Badhal in Jammu’s Rajouri district since 7 December. The …

24-01-2025 LOS ANGELES: A new, fast-moving wildfire has erupted in Los Angeles County, prompting tens of thousands of people to evacuate a region already reeling from the most destructive fires in its history. The Hughes fire ignited 45 miles (72km) north-west of the city of Los Angeles on Wednesday morning, …

23-01-2025 CANBERRA: Australia is investigating suspicions that funding from outside the country is behind a surge in anti-Semitic crime. Detectives investigating the anti-Semitic attacks across the country have concluded that foreign actors have been paying local criminals to commit them, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Wednesday. However, he declined …

23-01-2025 Bureau Report NEW DELHI: Having unexpectedly won two Indian state votes late last year, in big part due to a slew of handouts, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party is deploying the same playbook in a bid to wrest back Delhi for the first time in nearly three decades next …

23-01-2025 BEIJING/ MOSCOW: Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had a video call hours after Donald Trump was sworn in on Monday, pledging to bring bilateral ties to “greater heights”, according to state media on both sides. Calling Xi a “dear friend”, Putin said Russia and …

23-01-2025 Warning: This story contains details some may find distressing. KHARTOUM/ TRIPOLI: “We live in terror,” whispers Layla over the phone so nobody can hear. She fled Sudan with her husband and six children early last year in search of safety and is now in Libya. Like all the Sudanese …

23-01-2025 JERUSALEM: Israel’s military chief has resigned, saying he recognized his responsibility for its failure on 7 October 2023, when the Palestinian armed group Hamas carried out a deadly attack on the country that triggered the Gaza war. In a letter to the defence minister, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi admitted …

23-01-2025 ISTANBUL: At least 76 people have been killed in a fire that engulfed a popular Turkish ski resort hotel, leaving some to jump out of windows. The fire broke out at the wooden-clad 12-storey Grand Kartal Hotel in Bolu at 03:27 local time (00:27 GMT) during a busy holiday …