INDONESIA: Soldiers from the US, Indonesia and Australia joined a live-fire drill on Friday, part of annual joint combat exercises on Sumatra island amid growing Chinese maritime activity in the Indo-Pacific region. A total of more than 5,000 personnel from the US, Indonesia, Australia, Japan and Singapore are participating in this year’s Super Garuda Shield […]
LONDON: India and the UK will continue to work intensively to meet the Diwali deadline at the end of October for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) announced during the India visit of outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a UK government statement said. In a joint outcome statement on the ongoing FTA negotiations released on […]
BEIJING: China on Thursday renewed its threat to attack Taiwan following almost a week of war games near the island. Taiwan has called Beijing’s claims to the self-governing democracy “wishful thinking” and launched its own military exercises. “Taiwan’s collusion with external forces to seek independence and provocation will only accelerate their own demise and push […]
GENEVA: The total global number of unemployed youths should fall to 73 million in 2022, down by two million from the year before, the United Nations said on Thursday. However, the figure is still six million higher than the pre-pandemic level of 2019, with the recovery in youth unemployment lagging behind the bounceback in other […]
LONDON: Britain’s prime ministerial candidate Rishi Sunak has insisted that he would rather lose the Conservative Party leadership race to replace Boris Johnson than win on a false promise on how he plans to tackle the economic crisis. In an interview with the BBC, the former UK Chancellor said he was committed to helping the […]
COLOMBO: Several features, including curbing the Sri Lankan President’s power to sack the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, have been included in the draft of a constitutional amendment bill that seeks to reduce the concentration of power in one person, justice minister Wijeyedasa Rajapakshe has said. He said the text of the draft of the […]
BEIJING: China on Wednesday reaffirmed its threat to use military force to bring self-governing Taiwan under its control, amid threatening Chinese military exercises that have raised tensions between the sides to their highest level in years. The statement issued by the Cabinet’s Taiwan Affairs Office and its news department followed almost a week of missile […]
LONDON: The UK on Wednesday summoned China’s ambassador demanding he explains Beijing’s “aggressive behaviour” and “escalation” of actions targeted at Taiwan in recent days. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, the favourite to become the UK’s next prime minister, said she had called in ambassador Zheng Zeguang to explain Chinese missile launches and incursions into Taiwanese air […]
Colombo: Sri Lanka’s unprecedented anti-government protests that removed the influential Rajapaksa family from power for mishandling the country’s worst economic crisis formally ended after 123 days on Tuesday, even as the demonstrators vowed that their campaign for a “system change” continue. The protesters left the main anti-government protest camp at Galle Face promenade where they […]
KYIV: Ukraine’s air force said Wednesday that nine Russian warplanes were destroyed in massive explosions at an air base in Crimea amid speculation they were the result of a Ukrainian attack that would represent a significant escalation in the war. Russia denied any aircraft were damaged in Tuesday’s blasts — or that any attack took […]