International

02-12-2025 NEW YORK: AI-powered shopping tools helped drive a surge in US online spending on Black Friday, as shoppers bypassed crowded stores and turned to chatbots to compare prices and secure discounts amid concerns about tariff-driven price hikes. US shoppers spent a record $11.8 billion online, up 9.1% from 2024 …

02-12-2025 NEW DELHI: In India, a set of recently discovered photographs is drawing attention to the role of women in one of the country’s biggest anti-colonial movements, known as the civil disobedience movement, led by Mahatma Gandhi in 1930-31. The images do not simply capture female participation. They are visual …

02-12-2025 CANBERRA: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has married his partner Jodie Haydon, becoming the country’s first leader to tie the knot while in office. The pair married in the capital, Canberra, on Saturday afternoon, the day after the final sitting of the parliamentary year. “We are absolutely delighted to …

02-12-2025 ABUJA: An Anglican priest kidnapped in northwest Nigeria last month has been killed in captivity, the head of the Church of Nigeria said, as the country reels from a surge in abductions and killings that has drawn condemnation from Washington. Archbishop Henry Ndakuba said Venerable Edwin Achi, seized with …

02-12-2025 HONG KONG/ BEIJING/SINGAPORE: Residents of the housing complex that was engulfed in Hong Kong’s deadliest blaze in seven decades were told by authorities last year that they faced “relatively low fire risks” after complaining repeatedly about fire hazards posed by ongoing renovation works, the city’s Labour Department told media. …

02-12-2025 TOKYO/ NEW DELHI/ PARIS: Global airlines scrambled to fix a software glitch on Airbus A320 jets on Saturday as a partial recall by the European planemaker halted hundreds of flights in Asia and Europe and threatened US travel over the busiest weekend of the year. Airlines worked through the …

02-12-2025 KYIV: Ukrainian naval drones hit two oil tankers from Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” as they travelled through the Black Sea, Ukrainian officials have said. Footage verified by media shows waterborne drones speeding through the waves into the vessels, before detonating into a ball of flame, sending black smoke into …

01-12-2025 TUNIS: Tunisian police have arrested prominent opposition figure Chaima Issa at a protest in the capital Tunis on Saturday, lawyers said. The protest came after an appeals court on Friday handed jail terms of up to 45 years to opposition leaders, businessmen and lawyers on charges of conspiracy to …

01-12-2025 ISTANBUL: Pope Leo XIV has visited Istanbul’s famed Blue Mosque on the third day of his trip to Turkiye, his first known visit as leader of the Catholic Church to a Muslim place of worship. The first US pope bowed slightly before entering the mosque early on Saturday and …

01-12-2025 JAKARTA: Rescue workers in Indonesia are continuing to battle to reach victims in several devastated areas submerged by cyclone-driven torrential rain over the past week, as authorities said the death toll has now reached 303 and would likely continue to rise. Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency (known as the …