New York: India, China and Russia abstained in the United Nations Security Council on a draft resolution that demanded an immediate end to violence and the release of all arbitrarily detained prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi and ex-president Win Myint. The 15-member Council has been split on Myanmar for decades and was previously only … Read more
Google-parent Alphabet said on Wednesday it had approved a new equity award for Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai that ties more of his pay to performance. The board recognizes Pichai’s “strong performance” as CEO, the company said, adding that the vesting of a significant portion of the award would depend on Alphabet’s total shareholder return … Read more
Washington: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet US leader Joe Biden and address Congress in Washington on Wednesday, a visit the White House said will send Russia a strong message of Western unity. The secretly arranged trip comes on the same day Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to meet his top military officials to assess … Read more
Beijing: Is the Chinese government losing control over COVID-19 management as the cases continue to increase in China? Epidemiologists predict at least three waves of the virus to hit the country during winter. It is certain that the Chinese government was “under-prepared” as it decided to end its zero-COVID policy abruptly after people held protests … Read more
London: Britain’s first Indian-origin Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has defended the UK’s record on race amid a brewing row over controversial remarks by a columnist attacking Prince Harry’s wife Meghan Markle, who is of African-American heritage. Rishi Sunak was addressing questions posed by reporters during a visit to the Latvian capital of Riga on Monday … Read more
Accra: Ghana on Monday suspended payments on most of its external debt, effectively defaulting as the country struggles to plug its cavernous balance of payments deficit. Its finance ministry said it will not service debts including its Eurobonds, commercial loans, and most bilateral loans, calling the decision an “interim emergency measure”, while some bondholders criticized … Read more
Pakistan’s ousted prime minister Imran Khan on Monday said he wanted to improve strained relations with India during his tenure but the revocation of Kashmir’s special status became a “hurdle.” Khan, the 70-year-old former cricketer-turned-politician, also said that then Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa was even more inclined to have better ties with India. … Read more
Beijing: The World Bank today slashed its China growth forecast for the year as the pandemic and weaknesses in the property sector hit the world’s second-largest economy. In a statement, the institution slashed its forecast to 2.7 percent from 4.3 percent predicted in June. It also revised its forecast for next year from 8.1 percent … Read more
UN chief Antonio Guterres has said he believes Russia’s war in Ukraine “will go on” and does not see a prospect for “serious” peace talks in the immediate future. Speaking to reporters during his annual end-of-year conference in New York on Monday, the UN Secretary-General said he strongly hoped that the war would be over … Read more
San Francisco: Twitter users voted on Monday to oust controversial owner Elon Musk as CEO in a poll he organized and promised to honor, just weeks after he took charge of the social media giant. A total of 57.5 percent of more than 17 million accounts voted for him to step down. Musk, who is … Read more
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s views on the use of nuclear weapons had an impact on the Russians and could well have averted a global disaster in the context of the Ukraine war, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Bill Burns said, according to PBS. “I think it’s also been very useful that Xi Jinping … Read more
Beijing/Shanghai: Funeral homes across China’s Covid-hit capital Beijing, a city of 22 million, scrambled on Saturday to keep up with calls for funeral and cremation services as workers and drivers testing positive for the novel coronavirus called in sick. After declaring that the Omicron strain has weakened, and unprecedented public protests against a zero-Covid policy … Read more
An Indian Ph.D. student at the University of Cambridge has finally solved a Sanskrit grammatical problem that has baffled scholars since the 5th century BC. 27-year-old Rishi Atul Rajpopat, reportedly decoded a text written by the Sanskrit language master Panini, a master of the ancient Sanskrit language who lived around two-and-a-half-thousand years ago, according to … Read more
The United Kingdom on Friday announced that the visit visas for Indians travelling to the country will now be allocated within 15 working days. “Good news for those travelling from India to UK – visit visas now within standard time of 15 working days (with a small number of trickier cases taking longer),” said Alex … Read more
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar scorned a journalist from Pakistan on Thursday who asked him how long South Asia will see terrorism from New Delhi, Kabul, Pakistan. The minister gave a witty response to the journalist and said, “You are asking the wrong minister. It is the minister of Pakistan who will tell you how … Read more