International

WASHINGTON: US lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, on Sunday pressed Democratic Presi­dent Joe Biden to take action to manage an expected wave of asylum seekers at America’s southern border when Covid-era restrictions are set to end this week. US border cities are bracing for an influx of asylum seekers after a US judge in November moved to strike down a …

SAN FRANCISCO: Twit­ter said on Sunday that it would remove accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social platforms and content that contains links or usernames. The move would impact content from platforms like Meta Plat­forms Facebook and Instagram, along with Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr and Post while allowing cross-content posting, Twitter said in a tweet. Former …

TOKYO: The majority of Japanese people do not support raising taxes to fund military expansion, Kyodo reported on Sunday, citing a survey the news agency conducted after the government announced Japan’s biggest military build-up since World War Two. Japan on Friday announced a $320 billion military spending plan to buy missiles capable of striking China and to ready the country …

UNITED NATIONS: No one should have to surrender their human right to migrate in order to find a living wage, the UN human rights office, OHCHR, said in a report highlighting the importance of temporary migratory labour programmes. The report, “We wanted workers, but human beings came,” coincided with International Migrants Day on Sunday, zeroes-in on schemes in operation across the …

Lionel Messi and his teammates set off for Argentina with the most coveted prize in football as millions of compatriots waited to welcome them home on Monday and catch a glimpse of the World Cup trophy. In the capital Buenos Aires and throughout the country, millions took to the streets to celebrate Sunday’s remarkable penalty shoot-out victory over France in the …

China officially reported on Monday its first Covid-related deaths since the government began dismantling strict anti-virus controls earlier this month, feeding anxiety that this could be the start of a grim trend as the virus rips through the country Monday’s two deaths were the first to be reported by the National Health Commission (NHC) since December 3, days before Beijing announced …

CHAPRA (India): Toxic hooch has killed at least 37 people in the eastern Indian state of Bihar where alcohol is banned, officials said on Saturday, with unconfirmed reports putting the death toll at over 70. Selling and consuming liquor is banned in several parts of India, driving a thriving black market for potent and sometimes lethal backstreet moonshine that kills …

NEW YORK/NEW DELHI: As the ruling BJP organised demonstrations in various parts of India to protest Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s remarks about the Indian prime minister, the Pakistani foreign minister urged the Narendra Modi-led party on Saturday to protest against unrelenting discrimination and hatred that Indian Muslims face in their own country, instead of protesting against him. At a news conference inside …

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon’s new push to investigate reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) has so far not yielded any evidence to suggest that aliens have visited Earth or crash-landed here, senior military leaders have said. However, the Pentagon’s effort to investigate anomalous, unidentified objects — whether they are in space, the skies or even underwater — led to hundreds of …

WARSAW: Polish police chief Jaroslaw Szymczyk revealed on Saturday that a Ukrainian gift which exploded and left him hospitalised with minor injuries earlier this week had been an anti-tank grenade launcher. Szymczyk met the heads of Ukraine’s police and state emergency services during a visit to the country on December 11 and 12 and returned with a gift from each …