International

WASHINGTON: A search by US law enforcement of President Joe Biden’s Delaware beach house turned up no classified documents, the president’s lawyer said on Wednesday. “No documents with classified markings were found,” attorney Bob Bauer said in a statement after the latest search of the president’s belongings for improperly stored documents. Agents did however take “for further review some materials …

SYDNEY: A tiny but dangerously radioactive capsule that fell off a truck on a remote Australian outback highway has been found, relieved authorities said on Wednesday. The silver-coloured cylinder — smaller than a human fingernail — was recovered by the side of the road near the town of Newman, Western Australia, state emergency services said. The capsule disappeared from a …

BENGALURU: Indian billionaire Gautam Adani on Wednesday lost his position as the richest person of Asia, as shares of his listed companies slide further as a rout in his companies deepened to $86 billion, while his empire fights allegations of serious fraud made in a report by US-based short-seller Hindenburg Research. Wednesday’s stock losses saw Adani slipping to 15th on …

LONDON: Half a million workers went on strike in Britain on Wednesday, calling for higher wages in the largest such walkout in over a decade, closing schools and severely disrupting transport. As Europe battles a cost-of-living crisis, Britain’s umbrella labour organisation the Trades Union Congress (TUC) called it the “biggest day of strike action since 2011”. The latest strikes come …

KARACHI: While the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has rebranded itself as a country open to investment, tourism and engagement with the rest of the world under powerful Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, also known as MBS, the desert kingdom’s reputation as one of the largest executioners in the globe persists. Figures compiled in a fresh report by UK-based human rights NGO Reprieve, …

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed his sorrow on Tuesday for “innocent” Palestinians killed in a spike of violence in the occupied West Bank, after meeting Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas. Washington’s top diplomat met Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah on the final stop of a Middle East tour aimed at curbing the bloodshed, following meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin …

PARIS: Protests against French President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to reform the pension system gathered momentum on Tuesday, with more than 1.27 million people in the street according to the interior ministry. The number of demonstrators increased slightly compared to a first round of protests on Jan 19, putting pressure on the government which is struggling to convince voters of the …

LONDON: Britain is the only Group of Seven nation to have suffered a cut to its 2023 economic growth outlook in International Monetary Fund forecasts published on Tuesday, adding to pressure on Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt to come up with a growth plan. Britain’s flagging economy now looks set to shrink by 0.6 per cent this year, a sharp downgrade …

BERLIN: A German-Iraqi woman murdered a lookalike she found on social media to fake her oere arrested on suspicion of manslaughter. However, police are now working on the theory the pair murdered the victim after tracking herwn death, police have said as new details emerge of the bizarre case that first came to light last year. The body of a …

KYIV: Ukraine hopes to secure widespread international support for banning Russian and Belarusian athletes from the Paris Olympics due to Moscow’s invasion, the sports minister said on Tuesday. The International Olympic Committee is open to including Russian and Belarusian athletes as neutrals at the 2024 Games and has opened a door to them competing in qualifiers. “This is unacceptable for …