International

18-05-2023 TOKYO: The G7 countries all agree on the threat of China’s economic coercion but reaching a consensus on concrete action to counter Beijing promises to be a challenge for the club of wealthy democracies amid divisions over how to manage ties with the world’s second-biggest economy. The leaders of …

18-05-2023 BEIRUT/ DAMASCUS: For seven years, Moussa al-Omari has been postponing his military service in Syria but knowing he was running out of legitimate reasons, he left the country in August last year and entered Lebanon legally through the airport. Seeing March this year was the final month of his …

18-05-2023 WELLINGTON: New Zealand police say they believe a deadly hostel fire in the capital, Wellington, was likely a result of arson and they are treating it as a homicide investigation. Smoke and flames engulfed the four-storey Loafers Lodge early on Tuesday, resulting in the deaths of at least six …

18-05-2023 LILONGWE: A one-year-old child died and 23 people were missing and feared dead after a hippopotamus charged into and capsized a canoe on a river in southern Malawi, according to authorities. Police in the southern African country’s southern district of Nsanje said on Tuesday that the vessel was carrying …

18-05-2023 ABUJA: A convoy of United States embassy staff has come under fire in southeast Nigeria, an attack that killed two employees and two police officers. Gunmen also kidnapped three individuals two other police officers and a driver during the attack on Tuesday near the town of Atani in Nigeria’s …

18-05-2023 LESOTHO, SOUTH AFRICA: Authorities in Lesotho have declared an indefinite curfew in the hope that curtailing the movement of people at night will help curb gun violence in the small southern African kingdom. The curfew, which came into force on Tuesday, comes just days after a prominent radio journalist …

18-05-2023 ISTANBUL: Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has promised his supporters a “bigger victory” when they return to the polls in 12 days’ time in a run-off vote for the country’s top job. Erdogan, who is seeking a third term as president and a five-year extension of his 20-year rule, …

18-05-2023 KHARTUM: Warring rivals continue to spar in Sudan in a conflict where its citizenry is bearing the brunt of the crisis trying new moves as they wrestle for power. Sudan’s military chief on Sunday ordered the freezing of all bank accounts belonging to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), …

18-05-2023 POMPRII, ITALY: Archaeologists at Pompeii have uncovered two new skeletons of male victims who likely died in an earthquake that accompanied the devastating volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which buried the Italian city in ash in 79 AD. The skeletons, believed to be of men aged at least 55, …

18-05-2023 Bureau Report + Agencies SYDNEY/ WASHINGTON: A summit of the Quad countries scheduled to be held in Sydney next week will be postponed after US President Joe Biden pulled out because of debt ceiling negotiations in Washington, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says. The leaders of Australia, India, Japan …