International

MANDVI: Cyclone Biparjoy tore down power poles and uprooted trees Friday after pummelling the Indian coastline, but the storm was weaker than feared and there were two confirmed deaths. Two men in Bhavnagar district died on Thursday evening after drowning in flood waters, the Gujarat state government said. Another 23 people had been injured in the storm, relief director C.C. …

BEIJING: President Xi Jinping told his “old friend” Bill Gates on Friday that China had always placed its hopes in the American people, after the Microsoft co-founder’s foundation pledged $50 million to help Chinese efforts to battle disease. Gates — one of the world’s richest men — is the latest in a string of Western business leaders to visit China …

WASHINGTON: The US Department of Energy and several other federal agencies were hit in a global hacking campaign that exploited a vulnerability in widely used file-transfer software, officials said on Thursday. Data was “compromised” at two entities within the energy department when hackers gained access through a security flaw in MOVEit Transfer, the department said in a statement. A DOE …

WASHINGTON: The State Department has said former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan “is a private citizen, and the US government does not have a stance” on private citizens. At a regular news briefing on Thursday afternoon, journalists pointed out that the Pakistani government was advising news outlets “not even to mention Mr Khan’s name” in their news bulletins and talk …

MINNEAPOLIS: Police in Minneapolis, Minnesota, routinely resort to violent and racist practices, the US Justice Department said on Friday in findings of a review three years after George Floyd was murdered by city police officers. The Minneapolis police department (MPD) “uses excessive force, including unjustified deadly force” and “unlawfully discriminates against Black and Native American people when enforcing the law”, the department …

SINGAPORE: Singapore will “progressively deploy” more patrol robots across the city-state, police said on Thursday, after more than five years of small-scale trials. Robots were deployed at Changi Airport’s Terminal 4 starting in April “to augment frontline police officers in conducting premises patrol”, the Singapore Police Force (SPF) said. More deployments are expected across the city of 5.6 million people, …

At least 15 people were killed in the Canadian prairie province of Manitoba on Thursday after a semi-trailer truck hit a small bus that was carrying a group of mainly elderly people, police said. The crash is one of the most lethal road accidents in recent Canadian history.     The crash occurred at the junction of two major roads …

The US expects a “transformational moment” in India ties during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s upcoming trip to Washington, US President Joe Biden’s national security adviser said as he downplayed chances for a diplomatic breakthrough in China when US State Secretary Antony Blinken visits next week. “Secretary Blinken’s trip to China will be a significant event, but its likely not even …

Xi Jinping called Bill Gates “an old friend” and said he hoped they could carry out activities together beneficial to both China and the United States, in the Chinese president’s first meeting with a foreign entrepreneur in years. In a meeting at Beijing’s Diaoyutai state guesthouse, where China’s leaders have historically received senior foreign guests, Xi told the Microsoft co-founder …

PARIS: Average global temperatures at the start of June were the warmest the European Union’s climate monitoring unit has ever recorded for the period, trouncing previous records by a “substantial margin”, it said on Thursday. The news comes as the El Nino climate phenomenon has officially arrived, raising fears of extreme weather and more temperature records. “The world has just experienced its …