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25-03-2025 VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis has appeared at his window of the Gemelli hospital in Rome and offered a blessing for the first time since being admitted on 14 February. The 88-year-old pontiff was discharged minutes later and doctors say he will need at least two months of rest at …

25-03-2025 CAIRO/ GAZA STRIP: More than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed during Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry has announced. That number, 50,021 equates to about 2.1% of the 2.3 million pre-war population of the territory, or around 1 in 46 people. A total of 113,274 …

24-03-2025 WASHINGTON: United States President Donald Trump’s administration will revoke the temporary legal status of 530,000 people including Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans in the United States, according to a Federal Register notice. The move, the latest expansion of Trump’s crackdown on immigration, is effective from April 24, and cuts …

24-03-2025 LONDON: London’s Heathrow Airport resumed full operations on Saturday and ordered a probe into how it dealt with a power outage that shut Europe’s busiest air hub for almost a day as airlines warned of further delays and cancellations. British Airways, opens new tab, whose main hub is Heathrow, …

24-03-2025 WASHINGTON: The United States has lifted a $10m reward for information leading to the arrest of a major Taliban leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, an Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs spokesperson says. Despite the announcement on Saturday, the FBI still lists the reward on its website, saying Haqqani was “believed to …

24-03-2025 UNITED NATIONS/ JOHANNESBURG: Another conflict is looming in the world’s youngest country, South Sudan, which gained independence from Sudan in 2011 and saw civil war erupt shortly after its foundation. A tenuous power-sharing deal is teetering on the brink. An evacuation of non-emergency US government employees is underway, and …

24-03-2025 ISTANBUL: Prosecutors early Sunday requested that detained Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, the top challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, be formally arrested over allegations of corruption and terror links. A court is now set to decide whether the popular opposition figure will be charged and jailed pending a trial. …

24-03-2025 ORLANDO: Orlando police have recovered two sets of earrings worth a combined $769,500 (£597,000) after an alleged thief swallowed them more than two weeks ago. Jaythan Gilder, 32, swallowed the Tiffany & Co. diamond earrings around the time he was taken into custody on 26 February, police said. Gilder …

24-03-2025 CARACAS: Venezuela will resume flights for its nationals deported by the US, after reaching an agreement with the Trump administration. Venezuela, which does not have diplomatic relations with the US, had initially agreed to accept deportees in February but President Nicolas Maduro halted flights in March after a dispute …

24-03-2025 WASHINGTON/ LONDON: Sir Keir Starmer’s plan for an international force to support a ceasefire in Ukraine has been dismissed as “a posture and a pose” by Donald Trump’s special envoy. Steve Witkoff said the idea was based on a “simplistic” notion of the UK Prime Minister and other European …