21-06-2024 Bureau Report + Agencies NEW DELHI/ PRAYAGRAJ: India’s opposition parties and the country’s students on Thursday hit out at the new government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for irregularities in recent government-run tests for college admissions and government teaching jobs. Modi surprisingly lost a parliamentary majority in a general …

21-06-2024 NAIROBI: Kenyan police have clashed with anti-tax protesters in the capital, Nairobi, as demonstrations have spread to across the country, including to the president’s home town of Eldoret. Anti-riot police, some on horseback, fired tear gas to disperse crowds of protesters on the streets of Nairobi. There were similar …

21-06-2024 OTTAWA: Canada has listed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, after years of pressure from opposition legislators and some members of the Iranian diaspora. Announcing the decision on Wednesday, Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc called it a “significant tool in fighting global terrorism”. The move …

21-06-2024 LOS ANGELES: Human-induced climate change made recent extreme heat in the US south-west, Mexico and Central America around 35 times more likely, scientists say. The World Weather Attribution (WWA) group studied excess heat between May and early June, when the US heatwave was concentrated in south-west states including California, …

21-06-2024 HANOI: The leaders of Vietnam and Russia have said they want to boost ties as the pair met in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi. Vietnamese President To Lam was full of praise for his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, congratulating him on his recent re-election. Putin, in return, said strengthening …

20-06-2024 MAKKAH/ MINA: At least 1200 of those who died were Egyptians, most of them succumbing to heat-related illnesses, two Arab diplomats coordinating their countries’ responses told media. “All of them (the Egyptians) died because of heat” except for one who sustained fatal injuries during a minor crowd crush, one …

20-06-2024 GENEVA: Israeli forces may have repeatedly violated fundamental principles of the laws of war and failed to distinguish between civilians and fighters in their Gaza Strip military campaign, the United Nations human rights office said on Wednesday. In a report assessing six Israeli attacks that caused a high number …

20-06-2024 CANBERRA: Chinese officials appear to have blocked a formerly imprisoned journalist from the view of cameras at an event between Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Canberra. Cheng Lei, who was imprisoned by Beijing for three years, later said she believed two embassy officials …

20-06-2024 MEXICO CITY: New Mexico’s governor has declared a state of emergency as two wildfires sweep through a mountain range, forcing thousands to evacuate and leaving one person dead. The conflagrations converged near the village of Ruidoso inside a tribal reservation, prompting its 7,800 residents to flee. The South Fork …

20-06-2024 Bureau Report + Agencies NEW DELHI: India’s capital Delhi is reeling under a prolonged heatwave that has sent power demand soaring to a record 8,647 megawatts (MW) this week. Temperatures have hovered around 44-45C in the city and other parts of northern India for weeks. The widespread use of …