20-04-2026 SYDNEY: Australia and Japan signed contracts on Saturday launching their landmark AU$10 billion ($7 billion) deal to supply Australia with warships, Tokyo’s most consequential military sale since ending a military export ban in 2014. Defence Ministers Richard Marles and Shinjiro Koizumi signed a memorandum “reaffirming the Australian and Japanese …
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20-04-2026 Bureau Report NEW DELHI: India’s government has decided not to go ahead with a proposal to require Apple, Samsung and others to pre-install the country’s biometric identification app Aadhaar on phones, a state body said on Friday; a move that had been opposed by the smartphone giants. Media reported …
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20-04-2026 WASHINGTON: Court filings have indicated that lawyers for President Donald Trump are seeking a resolution with the Department of Justice over a $10bn lawsuit he filed against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) but the trouble, critics say, is that such a settlement would leave Trump essentially negotiating with an …
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20-04-2026 TEHRAN: Speaker of Iran’s parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has said that recent claims by US President Donald Trump regarding Iran “were false” and warned that the Strait of Hormuz “will not remain open” if the US blockade of Iranian ports continues. Trump told media that there were no “sticking …
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19-04-2026 By SJA Jafri ISLAMABAD/ TEHRAN/ WASHINGTON: Standing on the South Lawn of the White House before boarding his helicopter for Las Vegas on Thursday, United States President Donald Trump offered his most optimistic assessment yet of the war with Iran. “We’re very close to making a deal with Iran,” …
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19-04-2026 YAOUNDE: More than 120,000 people have joined Pope Leo XIV in Cameroon for an open-air Mass, the biggest crowd so far during his 11-day Africa tour. Arriving in the economic city of Douala on Friday, the Pope reiterated his message of peace after visiting the country’s Anglophone region hit …
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19-04-2026 GENEVA: Nearly 900 Rohingya refugees were reported missing or dead in the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal in 2025, making it the deadliest year on record for the route, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Friday. More than one in seven of the estimated …
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19-04-2026 HOUSTON: Oil prices plunged by about 13% on Friday after Iran’s foreign minister said passage for all commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz was open for the remaining ceasefire period and US President Donald Trump said Iran has agreed to never close the strait again. Brent crude futures …
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19-04-2026 Bureau Report NEW DELHI: An Indian government bill to expand assemblies that would have brought forward plans to reserve a third of the seats for women did not get enough votes to get through parliament on Friday, in a rare defeat for Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Opposition groups said …
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19-04-2026 TEHRAN/ WASHINGTON: Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz “completely open” for the 10-day period of the Lebanon ceasefire, but said ships would have to use a “coordinated route.” Military and diplomatic analyst Alexandru Hudisteanu told media that this route would take ships into Iran’s territorial waters, giving Tehran a …
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