International

07-01-2024 BOGOTA: Peace talks between Colombia’s government and the largest FARC dissident group managed to get the rebels to suspend kidnappings, free 10 hostages, and reduce clashes with the country’s military in under three months, a government negotiator said on Friday. The government of leftist President Gustavo Petro wants to …

06-01-2024 WASHINGTON: The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has called for a congressional hearing after expressing disappointment over the US Department of State’s continuous failure to designate India as a “Country of Particular Concern (CPC)”. The commission stated this in response to the State Department’s list of …

06-01-2024 NEW YORK: A second batch of court papers linked to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein show how dozens of girls were recruited at his beachfront mansion. A Florida detective says in testimony that 30 women had spoken to him about “performing massage and work” there. Some were paid to bring …

06-01-2024 Bureau Report + Agencies NEW DELHI: India is likely to project higher economic growth estimates of around 7% for the 2023/24 fiscal year ending in March, compared with earlier government forecasts when the National Statistical Office releases its first advance GDP estimates on Friday. An increased estimate of annual …

06-01-2024 BEIRUT: The slain deputy chief of Hamas, Saleh al-Arouri, was buried in the Palestinian camp of Shatila in Beirut on Thursday, amid throngs of mourners launching volleys of gunfire. Arouri was killed in a drone strike on Tuesday on the southern suburb of Beirut, a stronghold of allied Lebanese …

06-01-2024 LONDON: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak fired the starting gun on Britain’s next election on Thursday, saying his “working assumption” was it would take place in the second half of the year, all but ruling out an earlier vote opposition parties had called for. With his governing Conservatives heavily trailing …

06-01-2024 BAGHDAD/ WASHINGTON: The US military launched a retaliatory strike in Baghdad on Thursday that killed a militia leader it blames for recent attacks on US personnel, the Pentagon said, a move condemned by Iraq’s government. The US strike took place at about 0900 GMT and targeted Mushtaq Jawad Kazim …

06-01-2024 TEHRAN/ DUBAI: Islamic State claimed responsibility on Thursday for two explosions in Iran that killed nearly 100 people and wounded scores at a memorial for top commander Qassem Soleimani. In a statement posted on its affiliate Telegram channels, the militant Sunni Muslim group said two IS members had detonated …

06-01-2024 WASHINGTON: Donald Trump made millions from foreign governments during his presidency, according to a report by House Democrats on the Committee on Oversight and Accountability. Ranking member Rep Jamie Raskin wrote that the information obtained from the former president’s accountant “allows America to glimpse the rampant illegality and corruption …

05-01-2024 TEHRAN: Iran blamed Israel and the United States on Wednesday for twin bomb blasts that killed at least 84 people in the country’s south, ripping through a crowd commemorating Revolutionary Guards general Qasem Soleimani four years after his death in a US strike. The two explosions labelled a “terrorist …