COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s top court on Friday ordered the government to proceed with a delayed local election, overruling President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who said the country was too broke to pay for it. The Supreme Court ordered Sri Lanka’s treasury to grant funds for the polls which were originally planned for March 9, but put off indefinitely last week when the …

NEW DELHI: Indian police on Friday arrested three employees of a pharmaceutical firm whose cough syrups were linked to the deaths of 19 children in Uzbekistan, as the country looks to recover from recent setbacks to the industry. The arrests were made after tests by an Indian government laboratory found 22 drug samples of Marion Biotech, based near New Delhi, …

ISLAMABAD: The global pace of reforms towards equal treatment of women under the law has slumped to a 20-year low, constituting a potential impediment to economic growth at a critical time for the global economy, a new World Bank report shows. In 2022, the global average score on the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law index rose just half …

BEIJING: Xi Jinping will secure a third term as China’s president at a rubber-stamp parliament that starts this weekend, enjoying unchallengeable status despite criticism over his handling of Covid and the economy. Xi is certain to be reappointed as president after he locked in another five years as head of the Communist Party (CCP) and the military — the two …

Tom Sizemore, a talented but troubled actor who made a career of playing tough guys, but struggled to stay on the right side of the law, has died at the age of 61, his manager said on Friday. He suffered a brain aneurysm in February and on Friday was removed from life support, days after doctors concluded no more could …

US President Joe Biden had a skin lesion removed from his chest in February that was a basal cell carcinoma — a common form of skin cancer — and no further treatment is needed, White House physician Kevin O’Connor said on Friday. All cancerous tissue was successfully removed, the White House physician said in a letter, adding that Biden will …

WASHINGTON: An unspecified number of Pakistani companies have been added to a list of 14 entities put on a US trade blacklist for their alleged involvement in missile and nuclear activities. On Thursday, the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) added 37 entities to its Entity List (blacklist) for allegedly contributing to Russia’s military and/or defence industrial …

Israel’s closest ally, the United States, on Wednesday demanded Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repudiate a call by his hardline Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich for a Palestinian village to be erased. Further pressuring the Israeli leader were images unseen for years in Tel Aviv where police fired stun guns and scuffled with Israeli protesters on a main road during a national …

A provincial governor in the central Philippines and five other people were shot dead by unknown gunmen on Saturday, his widow said, in the latest attack against local officials. Local police said six suspects carrying rifles and dressed in uniforms similar to those worn by the armed services entered the governor’s home in Pamplona town and opened fire. Roel Degamo, …

ISLAMABAD: President Arif Alvi on Friday returned the Electricity Gene­ration, Transmission and Distribution (Amendment) Bill, 2022 to the parliament for “reconsideration”, the Presidency said in a statement. The bill was sent back on the advice of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in accordance with articles 48(1) and 75(1) of the Constitution. The bill will now be tabled again in the parliament …