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27-05-2024 BEIJING/ LONDON: China has accused the UK of false accusations, “wanton stigmatization” and arbitrary arrests after the unexplained death of a man charged with illegally assisting Hong Kong’s foreign intelligence service. China’s foreign ministry office in Hong Kong said in a statement on its website on Saturday that it …

27-05-2024 CAIRO/ JERUSALEM/ GAZA CITY: A spokesman for Hamas’ armed wing said on Sunday its fighters had captured Israeli soldiers during fighting in Jabalia in northern Gaza on Saturday, though the Israeli military denied the claim. The Hamas armed wing spokesman did not say how many soldiers had been abducted …

27-05-2024 TAIPEI: Taiwan President Lai Ching-te again offered talks with China on Sunday following two days of Chinese war games near the island, saying he looked forward to enhancing mutual understanding and reconciliation. China, which views democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory, carried out the military drills on Thursday and …

26-05-2024 Bureau Report + Agencies NEW DELHI/ RAJKOT: At least 24 people have died in a “massive fire” at a games arcade in India, local officials say. Flames and a huge pall of smoke could be seen rising into the sky at the building in Rajkot, in the western state …

26-05-2024 BERLIN: “We are witnessing a great endangerment of academic freedom and this has started since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza,” says Cecilia, an undergraduate student at Berlin’s Free University. After her university published what she saw as a one-sided statement of support for Israel following the Hamas …

26-05-2024 SYDNEY: More than 300 people and over 1,100 houses were buried by a massive landslide that levelled a remote village in northern Papua New Guinea, local media reported on Saturday. Hundreds are feared dead in the landslide that hit Kaokalam village in Enga Province, about 600 km (370 miles) …

26-05-2024 Bureau Report NEW DELHI: The sixth phase of voting in India’s seven-phase election is under way in 58 seats, including all the seven seats in the national capital, Delhi. India’s weather bureau has issued a heatwave “red alert” for Delhi and surrounding states. The first five phases of the …

26-05-2024 MOGADISHU/ NAIROBI: Extreme weather events that have relentlessly hit parts of Africa in the last three years have caused crises of hunger and displacement. The storms, floods and drought also leave another deadly threat behind: some of the continent’s worst outbreaks of cholera. In Southern and East Africa, more …

26-05-2024 JERUSALEM/ GAZA CITY: Israel calls the ICJ binding order to immediately stop its assault on Rafah “outrageous, morally repugnant and disgusting”, says accusations it is committing genocide in Gaza “are false”. UN’s emergency aid chief says Israel’s war on Gaza has been “a tragedy beyond words”, and it must …

26-05-2024 UNITED NATIONS/ KHARTOUM: Sudan’s Darfur region is facing a growing risk of genocide as the world’s attention is focused on conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, a UN expert warns. “We do have circumstances in which a genocide could be occurring or has occurred,” the UN Special Adviser of the …