International

ZURICH: Switzerland said on Wednesday it had drafted new rules to tighten perceived cracks in its money laundering regulations, holding lawyers and consultants accountable for reporting risks and stepping up oversight of legal entities, such as trusts. The new rules, drafted by the Swiss government, will be presented to parliament in 2024 following consultation. Switzerland, whose banks make it the …

MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Wednesday that investigators were considering the possibility that the plane carrying mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was downed on purpose, the first explicit acknowledgement that he may have been assassinated. “It is obvious that different versions are being considered, including the version — you know what we are talking about let’s say, a deliberate atrocity,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry …

NEW DELHI: Indian officials preparing for the G20 summit next week have hired teams of “monkey-men” and erected primate cutouts to deter marauding monkeys from munching on the floral displays laid out for global leaders. New Delhi’s city council has hired more than 30 “monkey wallahs”, or “monkey-men”, who mimic the hoots and screams of the aggressive langur monkey — …

SEOUL: The US and South Korean militaries want to more closely integrate their systems for tracking North Korean missile launches, an effort that may soon see more cooperation with Japan as well, US Space Force officials said on Wednesday. Led by a small contingent of US Space Force personnel — the branch’s first official component set up overseas — the …

TAMPA: Airlines in the United States cancelled more than 1,000 flights on Wednesday as Hurricane Idalia slammed into the Big Bend region of Florida, but the storm’s power ebbed as it headed toward Georgia. Southwest Airlines cancelled more than 220 flights, while Delta Air Lines cancelled 157 flights, as of 12pm ET, according to flight-tracking website Flightaware.com. About 2,000 flights …

US President Joe Biden’s administration has for the first time approved direct US military aid to Taiwan under an assistance programme aimed at foreign governments, officials said on Wednesday, as worries grow over China. The State Department informed Congress on Tuesday of the $80 million package, which is small compared with recent sales to Taiwan but marks the first assistance …

GENEVA: More than 1,300 schools have been totally destroyed in government-held areas of Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion and others have been badly damaged, the UN children’s fund Unicef said on Tuesday. Persistent attacks mean that only about a third of school-age children there are attending classes fully in person and many are forgetting what they have already learned, it …

LONDON: The British government said on Tuesday it will delay introducing post-Brexit border controls on food and fresh produce from the European Union, postponing the start date to January 2024. The UK had delayed implementing the checks several times since leaving the EU’s customs union and single market in January 2021, but British exports have faced controls for products heading …

STOCKHOLM: The tritium concentration in wastewater being released from Japan’s stricken Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant is under expected levels and poses no risk to the population, the head of the UN atomic watchdog said on Tuesday. “So far we have been able to confirm that the first releases of these waters do not contain any radionuclide at levels that would be harmful,” Rafael …

BEIJING: China’s premier warned US officials on Tuesday that moves to “politicise” trade issues would prove “disastrous” for the global economy, state media reported. US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is currently on a four-day bridge-building visit to China aimed at better managing tensions between the world’s two largest economies. But a meeting with Premier Li Qiang on Tuesday saw the …