International

HANOI/COLOMBO: More than 300 suspected migrants from Sri Lanka were rescued off the coast of Vietnam after their boat began taking on water, Vietnamese authorities said on Tuesday. The Myanmar-flagged Lady 3 fishing vessel encountered difficulties around 250 nautical miles off Vung Tau on Vietnam’s southern coast, according to Vietnam’s Maritime Search and Rescue Coordination Centre which said the boat …

OSLO: Norway’s Princess Martha Louise on Tuesday relinquished her royal duties in order to focus on her alternative medicine business with her fiance, a self-proclaimed shaman. The 51-year-old princess’ relationship with Durek Verrett, a popular Hollywood spiritual guru, caused waves in Norway after the African-American “sixth-generation shaman” suggested in his book “Spirit Hacking” that cancer was a choice. He also …

WASHINGTON: Medium to high voter turnout was reported from across the United States on Tuesday as Americans began voting in the 2022 midterm elections. The results will determine whether Republicans or Democrats control congress for the final two years of President Joe Biden’s term. Polls opened in the second smallest state of Vermont — which has about half a million …

US President Joe Biden’s agenda hung in the balance on Tuesday on a tense election night, with one potential 2024 challenger, Ron DeSantis, winning a crushing victory for a new term as Florida’s governor. As polls closed in the midterm elections, Republicans were projected to have picked up at least two seats in the House of Representatives but did not …

A Palestinian teenager was killed on Wednesday in clashes with Israeli troops that erupted during a visit by right-wing politicians to a sensitive religious site in the occupied West Bank, multiple sources said. The Palestinian health ministry said: “Mahdi Mohammad Hashash died of serious wounds caused by shrapnel that hit different parts of his body during the occupation’s incursion into …

An earthquake of magnitude 6.6 in Nepal early on Wednesday killed four children and two adults, seriously injured five others as several houses collapsed in the western district of Doti, and shook New Delhi in neighbouring India. Local media showed mud and brick houses destroyed by the quake in the Himalayan country and rescuers digging through the rubble to look …

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden warned Americans on Monday that the 2022 mid-term contest was between democratic and non-democratic forces as his predecessor Donald Trump indicated that he would not accept the results if his candidates lost. “An overwhelming majority of Americans believe that our democracy is under threat,” said Mr Biden in one of his speeches on the last …

LAHORE: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Monday appealed to the international financial institutions and to the G20 nations to create mechanisms of debt relief for middle-income countries impacted by natural disasters, including Pakistan, while Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif highlighted how some countries will be more exposed and vulnerable to climate change than those in cooler regions. Addressing a joint …

MOGADISHU: At least 10 soldiers were killed when Somalia’s Al Shabaab militants assaulted a military base in the central Galgaduud region on Monday, a military officer said, days after government forces said they had regained control of the area. The army eventually pushed the militants out of the base in Qayib, a village captured from Al Shabaab last week, defence …

BEIJING: China reported its highest daily Covid caseload in six months on Monday, despite grinding lockdowns that have heavily disrupted manufacturing, education and day-to-day life. Beijing over the weekend quas­hed hopes that its strict zero-Covid policy — in which spot lockdowns, quarantines and mass testing are employed to quash outbreaks — might be relaxed anytime soon. But a torrent of …