International

OUAGADOUGOU: Sixty-six women and children kidnapped by armed assailants in northern Burkina Faso last week have been freed, national broadcaster Radiodiffusion Television du Burkina (RTP) said on Friday. The mass kidnapping was unprecedented in Burkina Faso, which is facing a violent terrorist insurgency that spread from neighboring Mali in 2015. …

22-01-2023 ISTANBUL: Turkey on Saturday called off a visit by Sweden’s defence minister over a planned demonstration by right-wing activists in Stockholm. Turkey has been angered by permission obtained by Rasmus Paludan, a Swedish-Danish politician whose anti-Islam actions sparked riots across Sweden last year, to stage a protest in front …

22-01-2023 WASHINGTON: Canada on Friday announced a multi-year plan to support the first privately built rocket launches in the country and develop new launch regulations, as global demand for space-based services soars. The goal, presented at the Canadian Space Agency’s headquarters by transportation minister Omar Alghabra, is aimed at significantly …

22-01-2023 BEIJING: China reported almost 13,000 deaths related to COVID-19 in hospitals between January 13 and 19, adding to the nearly 60,000 in the month or so before that, as its experts say the wave of infections across the country has already peaked. The death toll update, from China’s Center …

21-01-2023 Bureau Report NEW DELHI/ LONDON: India’s foreign ministry has dismissed as “propaganda” a BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi that questions his leadership during the deadly 2002 Gujarat riots. Modi was the chief minister of the western state of Gujarat when it was gripped by communal riots that …

21-01-2023 LONDON: What is a Woman? Wasn’t this question already settled? Didn’t the fight for women’s equality end with protections being enshrined in law, in the case of the UK, in the 2010 Equality Act that covers women’s sex-based protections? Apparently not. This week, the UK has witnessed an explosion …

21-01-2023 NEW YORK: Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX is looking into the possibility of reviving its business, Chief Executive Officer John Ray told the Wall Street Journal on Thursday. Ray, who took the reins in November, has set up a task force to explore restarting FTX.com, the company’s main international exchange, …

21-01-2023 JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed normalizing ties with Saudi Arabia in talks with visiting White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Thursday, his office said. Netanyahu, who returned to office last month with the formation of a new government, was at the helm in 2020 when …

21-01-2023 TOKYO: Japan’s inflation rate has jumped to a fresh 41-year high as businesses pass on higher costs to their customers. Core consumer prices for last month rose by 4% from a year earlier, double the Bank of Japan’s (BOJ) target level. It puts further pressure on the central bank …

21-01-2023 BEIRUT: Two politicians have spent the night inside Lebanon’s parliament building in protest at MPs’ failure to elect a new president for the 11th time. Najat Saliba and Melhem Khalaf refused to leave the chamber after the latest round of voting, spending the night inside the darkened building. The …