International

01-10-2021 NEW DELHI: With more than 150,000 branches loaded with $2tn (£1.46tn) worth of deposits and serving over a billion customers, India’s banks look impressive on paper. In reality, they are in a mess. A clutch of banks is saddled with tens of billions of dollars of bad loans after …

01-10-2021 Bureau Report MELBOURNE/ SYDNEY: Australia will reopen its international border from November, allowing vaccinated travelers into the country for the first time in 18 months. Currently only citizens and people with exemptions can enter. Outbound travel is also banned without an exemption. The policy has been praised for helping …

30-09-2021 WASHINGTON: Republican US lawmakers tried on Wednesday to pick apart President Joe Biden’s defence of his withdrawal from Afghanistan as they attacked his judgment and honesty during the second day of contentious Congressional hearings with Pentagon leaders. Democrat Biden has faced the biggest crisis of his presidency over the …

30-09-2021 By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report + Agencies WASHINGTON/ KABUL/ ISLAMABAD: The Foreign Office on Wednesday responded to a draft bill tabled by US senators regarding a probe of the country’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and Pakistan’s alleged support for the Taliban offensive, saying that the proposed legislation is “uncalled for …

30-09-2021 TEHRAN: An informed source denied media reports that Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani has held a meeting with Saudi Arabia’s officials. The informed source from the secretariat of the Supreme National Security Council told Nour News that Shamkhani has not had any meeting or contact …

Bureau Report 30-09-2021 MELBOURNE: Australia’s Daintree, the world’s oldest tropical rainforest has been returned to its Aboriginal custodians in a historic deal. The UNESCO World Heritage site is over 180 million years old and has been home to generations of Aboriginal people. The Eastern Kuku Yalanji people will now manage …

30-09-2021 Bureau Report NEW YORK/ NEW DELHI: The New York Times (NYT) had issued a clarification on a recent image of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that was going viral on the internet, calling it “completely fabricated”. An image of the Indian prime minister, featured on what seemed like the …

29-09-2021 LONDON: The Army is ready to help ease fuel supply problems after a fourth day of long queues and pump closures. Up to 150 military tanker drivers will prepare to deliver to forecourts which have run dry because of panic buying. The surge in demand came amid fears a …

29-09-2021 Bureau Report + Agencies NEW DELHI/ ISLAMABAD/ UNITED NATIONS: In his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India is known as the “mother of democracy”. This was a repetition of the statement he gave in April while addressing the …

29-09-2021 BEIRUT: When the first convoy of Hezbollah-brokered Iranian diesel fuel arrived in Lebanon earlier this month, it was met with a mixed reaction. While some feared that the Iran-backed party would use it to further assert its dominance, others welcomed the fuel as a temporary relief in the middle …