16-01-2025 BRASILIA: Brazilian authorities have expressed “serious concern” over a recent announcement by the social media giant Meta that they will ease their policies restricting incendiary speech and fact-checking. In a statement on Tuesday, the Brazilian attorney general’s office (AGU) said that it would ask for more information from Meta, …
Read More »Israel-Hamas deal for Gaza ceasefire in ‘final stages’: Qatar
16-01-2025 DOHA: A ceasefire in the Israel and Hamas war in Gaza is at its “closest point” yet, Qatar has said, as hopes grow that a deal to end the devastating 15-month conflict is imminent. Negotiations to bring the conflict to an end are in their final stages, Qatar’s Ministry …
Read More »Composer Arnold Schoenberg’s archive destroyed in LA fires
16-01-2025 LOS ANGELES: At least 100,000 scores by the pioneering 20th century Austrian-American composer Arnold Schoenberg have been destroyed in the Los Angeles wildfires. The sheet music was kept at his family’s music production company which burnt down in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood last week. While no original manuscripts were …
Read More »NATO launches new mission to protect crucial undersea cables
16-01-2025 BRUSSELS: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has launched a new mission to increase the surveillance of ships in the Baltic Sea after critical undersea cables were damaged or severed last year. NATO chief Mark Rutte said the mission, dubbed “Baltic Sentry”; would involve more patrol aircraft, warships and …
Read More »Trump engaged in ‘criminal effort’ to overturn 2020 election
15-01-2025 WASHINGTON: US Special Counsel Jack Smith concluded that Donald Trump engaged in an “unprecedented criminal effort” to hold on to power after losing the 2020 election, but was thwarted in bringing the case to trial by the president-elect’s November election victory, according to a report published on Tuesday. The …
Read More »Pakistan watches with caution as Taliban gets closer to India
15-01-2025 ISLAMABAD/ NEW DELHI/ KABUL: When the Taliban took over Kabul in August 2021, then-Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan famously said the Afghan group had “broken the shackles of slavery” as they returned to power for the first time since 2001. Taliban’s ascension was seen as a boost to …
Read More »‘Extreme of extreme fire weather scenario’
15-01-2025 LOS ANGELES: Firefighters are battling several blazes in the Los Angeles area as US officials urged residents to prepare for the return of strong winds that could “potentially cause explosive fire growth”. Authorities say progress is being made to contain the major Palisades, Eaton and Hurst fires, which have …
Read More »Australia’s economy was the envy of the world
15-01-2025 Bureau Report SYDNEY: When Racheal Clayton was attending primary school in Sydney, Australia at the height of the 2007-2009 Global Financial Crisis, the Australian economy was the envy of governments around the world. Unlike every other major developed economy, Australia emerged from the worst economic downturn since the Great …
Read More »Qatar says deal is ‘very close’
15-01-2025 DOHA/ JERUSALEM: Talks are resuming in Doha on a deal for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages, as key mediator Qatar says an agreement is “very close”. A Palestinian official familiar with the negotiations tells media that, for the first time in the war, delegations …
Read More »Millions take Holy Dips for India’s Maha Kumbh Festival
15-01-2025 Bureau Report + Agencies NEW DELHI/ PRAYAGRAJ: Tens of thousands of naked Hindu ascetics and millions of pilgrims took dips in freezing water at the confluence of sacred rivers in northern India on Tuesday, in the first of a series of major baths in the Maha Kumbh festival, the …
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