International

The lira was slightly weaker on Monday after Turkey’s finance minister was cited as saying he expected some $10 billion of forex bank deposits to be converted to lira due to a new law exempting such deposits from corporate tax. Sources also cited Finance Minister Nureddin Nebati as saying he expected inflation to rise to about 40 per cent in …

A journalist was killed in Tijuana on Sunday, the local prosecutor said, the second media worker murdered in less than a week in the northern Mexican border city. Lourdes Maldonado Lopez was “attacked with a firearm while she was in a vehicle,” said the Baja California state prosecutor’s office. Mexico is one of the world’s deadliest countries for reporters. Media …

The United Arab Emirates intercepted and destroyed two Houthi ballistic missiles targeting the Gulf country on Monday with no casualties, its defence ministry said, following a deadly attack a week earlier. For more than six years, the Houthis have been battling a Saudi-led coalition that includes the UAE, repeatedly carrying out cross-border missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, and launching an …

BERLIN: Germany’s centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) on Saturday elected arch-conservative Friedrich Merz their party leader to follow the more centrist Armin Laschet, who lost September’s national election to Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats. Merz, who has promised a break with the CDU’s centrist course pursued by Angela Merkel during her 16-year tenure as chancellor, got nearly 95pc of the valid …

LONDON: A British politician who accuses the government of blackmailing opponents of Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he will take his allegations to the police. William Wragg, a lawmaker from the governing Conservative Party, said legislators calling for a challenge to Johnson’s leadership have faced intimidation that amounted to blackmail. Wragg alleged that rebellious lawmakers were threatened with a loss …

KYIV: The first shipment of the United States’ $200 million security support package for Ukraine arrived in Kyiv, the US Embassy said on Saturday. The delivery followed US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Kyiv this week amid concerns from Kyiv and its Western allies over tens of thousands of Russian troops amassed at the border with Ukraine. Russia …

HASAKEH: Fighting raged for a third day on Saturday between the militant Islamic State group and Kurdish forces in Syria after IS attacked a prison housing jihadists, with the violence killing nearly 90 people, a monitor said. The assault on Ghwayran prison in the northeastern city of Hasakeh is one of IS’s most significant since its “caliphate” was declared defeated in Syria …

SAADA: The Saudi-led coalition on Saturday denied carrying out an air strike on a prison in Yemen’s rebel-held north that aid groups said killed at least 70 people, including migrants, women and children. Claims the military coalition ordered the raid, which reduced buildings to rubble and left rescuers scrabbling for survivors with their bare hands, were “groundless”, the alliance said. The attack, …

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has banned the flying of drones in the country for recreation after Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed a fatal drone attack on an oil facility and major airport in the country. As of Saturday, drone hobbyists and other operators of light electric sports aircraft face “legal liabilities” if caught flying the objects, the Interior Ministry said, adding it …

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has cancelled her wedding as the nation imposes new restrictions to slow the community spread of the Covid-19 Omicron variant, she told reporters on Sunday. New Zealand will impose mask rules and limit gathering from midnight on Sunday after a cluster of nine Covid-19 Omicron cases showed community spread from the North to South …