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12-07-2022 MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin signs a decree simplifying the process of acquiring Russian citizenship for all Ukrainian nationals. Russian shelling in Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv killed three people on Monday and wounded dozens of others, according to regional governor Oleh Synehubov. Synehubov accuses Moscow’s forces of hitting …

12-07-2022 JAKARTA/ BEIJING: Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said on Monday that countries should avoid being used as “chess pieces” by global powers in a region that he said was at risk of being reshaped by geopolitical factors. Addressing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) secretariat in a speech …

12-07-2022 NEW YORK: About 500 couples celebrated their unions under a blue sky Sunday in a New York event aimed at healing the wounds of the COVID-19 pandemic. Garlands on their heads, the couples, many of them already married, walked in procession before a symbolic ceremony by an imam, a …

11-07-2022 BANGKOK/ PATTAYA: Mada, 21, works at a weed dispensary in eastern Thailand, her boyfriend grows cannabis plants at home, and several of her friends sell bongs, pipes and buds in pop-up stalls and bars. Thailand has gone “baa her”, or crazy, for cannabis since the plant was effectively decriminalized …

11-07-2022 WASHINGTON: Steve Bannon, a close ally of former President Donald Trump, has said he is willing to testify before a congressional panel investigating the January 6, 2021 siege at the Unites States Capitol. The message, which was conveyed to legislators on the panel in a letter, represents a stark …

11-07-2022 JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid has said his office would investigate reports of a mass grave in central Israel containing the bodies of Egyptian commandos who were killed during the 1967 Middle East war. Lapid’s office said on Sunday that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi had brought up …

11-07-2022 Bureau Report + Agencies UNITED NATIONS/ NEW DELHI/ BEIJING: The world’s population is expected to reach eight billion on November 15, the UN forecast Monday in a report that said India will surpass China as the most populous country on earth in 2023. That overall population milestone “is a …

10-07-2022 WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden on Saturday defended his decision to travel to Saudi Arabia saying human rights would be on his agenda as he gave a preview of a trip on which he aims to reset ties with the crown prince, who he previously denounced as a pariah. The …

10-07-2022 JOHANNESBURG: Two bar shootings, one in a township close to Johannesburg and another in eastern South Africa, has left 19 people dead, police said. In Soweto, 15 people were killed after as they enjoyed a night out, police said on Sunday, when assailants drew up in a minibus taxi …

10-07-2022 COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has agreed to step down next week, an official said, after protesters stormed the presidential palace and set fire to the prime minister’s home to vent their anger over a worsening economic crisis. Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena said in a televised statement …