World

LONDON: The British government has ordered the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States to face spying charges. He is likely to appeal. Home Secretary Priti Patel signed the extradition order on Friday, her department said. It follows a British court ruling in April that Assange could be sent to the U.S. […]

Colombo: P Nandalal Weerasinghe, Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, said that the island nation could have avoided the ongoing economic crisis if it had approached the International Monetary Fund (IMF) earlier. Speaking to the BBC, the Governor said on Thursday night: “If we had taken the decision to go to the IMF earlier, […]

Paris: Upbeat with India being recognized as the “country of the year” at Europe’s biggest start-up conference – Vivatech 2020, an Indian diplomat in France said that India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and Rupay cards will soon be accepted in France. In an exclusive interview with ANI, Jawed Ashraf, Indian Ambassador in France, said, “India […]

Vestavia Hills: A shooting at a church in a suburb of one of Alabama’s major cities left one person dead and two others wounded Thursday evening, police said, adding a suspect was taken into custody. The shooting occurred at Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Church in the Birmingham suburb of Vestavia Hills, Police Capt. Shane Ware said […]

London: Researchers believe to have identified the origins of Black Death, a bubonic plague that killed tens of millions in Europe, Asia and north Africa during the mid-14th century. In 1347, plague first entered the Mediterranean via trade ships transporting goods from the territories of the Golden Horde in the Black Sea. The disease then […]

London: Apple is set to face another class-action lawsuit seeking damages worth $935 million in the UK over intentionally slowing down the performance of older iPhones to encourage customers to buy newer models. Consumer rights campaigner Justin Gutmann is filing the lawsuit in the Competition Appeal Tribunal in London, on behalf of up to 25 […]

Moscow: Russian gas giant Gazprom has announced that it will shut down another turbine engine on the Nord Stream 1 natural gas pipeline, thus significantly reducing the amount of gas delivery to Europe. “As Germany’s Siemens, the manufacturer of the gas turbine engines, failed to provide the overhaul service in time, Gazprom decided to stop […]

Washington: The US Federal Reserve raised the interest rate by 0.75 percentage points, the highest on-shot increase since 1994, to tackle inflation that is at its highest in 40 years. The rate hike was announced at the end of the two-day policy meeting of the fed. It ran contrary to smaller rate hikes of 0.50 percentage […]

New Delhi: The World Health Organisation (WHO) is considering changing the name of the monkeypox virus to tackle the stigma and racism associated with it. The organisation is “working with partners and experts from around the world on changing the name of monkeypox virus, its clades and the disease it causes,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the […]

Dharamsala: For the Tibetans in exile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day visit to Dharamsala beginning Thursday has given rise to the pious hope of his meeting with their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in northern India for over six decades. The expectation stems from the fact that Modi had only […]

Ankara: Turkey plans to have a total of 10 satellites in space by 2023 as part of its national space programme, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said. “This satellite marks another turning point in our space adventure. With the national space programme, it is our duty of honor to defend our country’s rights in space […]

London: Average human brain temperature is 38.5 degrees Celsius, with deeper brain regions often exceeding 40 degrees Celsius, particularly in women during the daytime, finds a study. Normal human brain temperature varies much more than previously thought, and this could be a sign of healthy brain function, said researchers at the Medical Research Council (MRC) […]

Berlin: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Tuesday of a “dangerous disconnect” between what scientists and citizens are demanding to curb climate change, and what governments are actually doing about it. Guterres said global greenhouse gas emissions need to drop by 45 per cent this decade, but are currently forecast to increase by 14 per cent. […]

Tehran: An explosion at a chemical factory in southern Iran injured scores of people, most of them lightly, the country’s state TV reported Tuesday. The report said a leak from an ammonium tank caused the blast on Monday evening in the southern city of Firouzabad in Fars province, located about 770 kilometers (480 miles) south […]

Washington: US President Joe Biden has signed into law a bill to explore the possibility of establishing a museum of Asian Pacific American history and culture, a move which will recognize and document the history and culture of Indian Americans. “I am honoured to sign into law something that is long overdue, and — the […]

Los Angeles: About 88,000 child Covid-19 cases were reported across the US in the week ending June 9, according to a latest report released by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children’s Hospital Association. Over 13.5 million children have tested positive for Covid-19 since the onset of the pandemic in the country, and […]

Colombo: Nearly 10 per cent of Sri Lanka’s 22 million population were already staring at food security issues before the pandemic, which turned even direr when authorities shut down the economy and imposed a blanket ban on the use of chemical fertilisers, according to data released by the country’s central statistical agency on Monday. At […]

Bangkok: A 32-year-old previously healthy female veterinarian contracted Covid after being exposed to an infected cat, according to the first documented case of suspected cat-to-human transmission. Researchers from the Prince of Songkla University in Thailand reported the case of the vet who was diagnosed with Covid after being sneezed on by a cat owned by […]

Kabul: Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban has claimed that its forces have killed the commander of terrorist group ISIS (ISIL) and captured and another member in an operation conducted in the Bagrami district of Kabul province. TOLO News reported on Monday citing Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesperson said that these main key figures had attacked mosques, monasteries, […]

Kiev: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia may lose more than 40,000 soldiers by the end of June. In a video address on Sunday, the President said: “The Russian army is trying to deploy reserve troops in Donbas. But what reserves can they speak of right now? “It seems that they will throw poorly trained […]

Quetta: Pakistan’s Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) has said that the mastermind behind some suicide attacks and blasts has been arrested in Quetta. The suspect has been identified as Nazimuddin alias Khalid and was arrested while he was carrying an explosive-laden motorcycle to conduct a terrorist attack in Quetta, Dawn reported on Sunday. The suspect had also […]

Islamabad: Pakistani President Arif Alvi has said that his country is committed to its international obligations toward the prevention of child labour. Alvi also urged stakeholders to speak against the social evil to prevent child labour, Xinhua news agency reported. “Child labor is a growing curse in the world, particularly in the developing countries. Pakistan […]

San Francisco: A shooting, which preliminary investigation indicates may have been a murder-suicide, left three people dead in San Jose, the third-largest city in California, police said. Two men and one woman were pronounced dead at the scene, police added on Sunday. A man fatally shot two people and then killed himself after a domestic […]

Chicago: While the US is discussing tough measures on gun violence, Chicago on Saturday (local time) witnessed multiple incidents of shootouts resulting in the death of five persons and 16 injured. At least five people have been killed and another 16 have been injured in shootings across the city of Chicago so far this weekend, […]