International

14-12-2023 BEIJING/ HANOI: China and Vietnam agreed to step up co-operation on security matters in their move towards becoming a community with a “shared future”, they said on Wednesday, as Chinese President Xi Jinping wrapped up a visit to Hanoi. On Xi’s two-day trip, the Communist-ruled neighbors, close in economic …

14-12-2023 LONDON: At -49, the British Prime Minister’s net favorability rating is comparable to that Boris Johnson’s at the time of his resignation while Rishi Sunak will be breathing a sigh of relief that he managed to pass his flagship Rwanda bill through the Commons last night in the face …

14-12-2023 JERUSALEM/ GAZA CITY: In November, Israel’s public broadcaster, Kan, uploaded on its official X page a video of Israeli children singing a song celebrating their country’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. The broadcaster deleted the video clip after a huge online backlash. Even after the video was silently …

14-12-2023 Bureau Report + Agencies NEW DELHI: Two men jumped into the legislators’ area of the Indian parliament’s lower house on Wednesday and opened canisters that emitted yellow smoke in a major security breach for a heavily-secured building in New Delhi, Reuters reported. The breach at the high-security zone in …

14-12-2023 WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden has said Israel is starting to lose global support over its “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza. His comments, made to donors at a fundraising event on Tuesday, marked his strongest criticism yet of Israel’s leadership. Biden has offered unwavering public support to the country since …

14-12-2023 DUBAI: The COP28 climate talks went into overtime on Tuesday as countries engaged in shuttle diplomacy to bridge deep international divisions over how to deal with fossil fuels in the summit’s final text. Where the conference lands on the issue will send a powerful message to global investors and …

United Nations demands humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza 13-12-2023 UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations on Tuesday demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war after more than three-quarters of the 193-member General Assembly backed the move, which had been vetoed by the United States in the Security Council last week. …

13-12-2023 WARSAW: The Polish parliament has given former Prime Minister Donald Tusk a mandate to form a new coalition government. The incoming administration will be sworn in at the presidential palace by President Andrzei Duda on Wednesday. It will put an end to the eight-year rule of the right-wing nationalist …

13-12-2023 Bureau Report + Agencies MELBOURNE/ SYDNEY: More than four decades after they were convicted in one of Australia’s longest-running criminal trials, the evidence used to jail six former Yugoslav migrants is being re-examined to determine if they were victims of a miscarriage of justice. A rare judicial inquiry in …

13-12-2023 UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations has called for $46bn in funding for 2024 as it scrambles to get aid to millions hit by humanitarian crises around the globe. Noting the situations in the Palestinian territories, Sudan and Ukraine, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said …