18-03-2023 Bureau Report CANBERRA/ VIENNA : Australia said a deal to buy 220 US Tomahawk cruise missiles was essential for keeping “adversaries at bay” Friday, as Canberra ratchets up defence spending to counter growing Chinese military clout. Defence industry minister Pat Conroy said the potent long-range weapons would be deployed …

18-03-2023 NAYPYIDAW: At least 29 people, including three Buddhist monks, were shot dead at close range in central Myanmar last week, according to a doctor’s post-mortem report, in what opponents of military rule say was a massacre of civilians conducted by the army. A spokesman for Myanmar’s junta, which staged …

17-03-2023 LONDON: Global cocaine production has reached record levels as demand rebounds following COVID lockdowns, a new report has found. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime said coca cultivation rose by 35% between 2020 and 2021 to record levels. Findings suggest new hubs for trafficking have emerged in West …

17-03-2023 WASHINGTON: The United States military has released footage it says is of an unsafe interception of a US drone by a Russian jet over the Black Sea. The US on Tuesday alleged that a Russian Su-27 fighter jet struck one of its Reaper drones during a surveillance and reconnaissance …

17-03-2023 TAIPEI, BEIJING: Chinese search engine giant Baidu has revealed its artificial intelligence-powered chatbot Ernie, the latest rival to OpenAI’s groundbreaking ChatGPT. Baidu Chief Executive Robin Li said on Thursday that Ernie, known as Weixin in Chinese, was the result of “decades of Baidu’s hard work and efforts” at a …

17-03-2023 VIENNA/ UNITED NATIONS/ TRIPOLI: Two and a half tons of uranium have gone missing from a site in Libya, the UN’s nuclear watchdog has said. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) sounded the alarm after a visit by its inspectors to the undisclosed site earlier this week. They found …

17-03-2023 ISTANBUL: Flash floods killed dozens of people living in tents and container housing set up across Turkey’s quake-hit region on Wednesday, piling more pressure on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ahead of crunch elections. Several more people were swept away by the rushing water, which turned streets into muddy rivers …

17-03-2023 SEOUL/ PYONGYANG: North Korea fired a suspected Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) into the sea between the Korean peninsula and Japan on Thursday, hours before South Korea’s president was due to fly to Tokyo for a summit expected to discuss ways to counter the nuclear-armed North. North Korea has conducted …

17-03-2023 By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report + Agencies KABUL/ ISLAMABAD: Amidst the Afghan capital, a madrassa witnesses rows of teenage girls fervently reciting verses from the holy Quran, while a religious scholar keeps a close eye on their progress. Following the return of the Taliban to power in August …

17-03-2023 DAMASCUS/ MOSCOW: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said that he would welcome any Russian proposals to set up new military bases and boost troop numbers in the Middle Eastern country, suggesting Moscow’s military presence there should become permanent. When Russia intervened in the war in Syria in 2015, four …