07-09-2024 WASHINGTON: Hunter Biden has pleaded guilty to all nine charges in his federal tax evasion case, catching federal prosecutors off guard as they prepared to begin his trial on Thursday. The son of US President Joe Biden had previously denied allegations that he intentionally avoided paying $1.4m (£1m) in …

07-09-2024 PARIS: Veteran French conservative Michel Barnier has taken over as prime minister, almost two months after France’s snap elections ended in political stalemate. He said France had come to a “serious moment” and he was facing it with humility: “All political forces will have to be respected and listened …

06-09-2024 BRAZZAVILLE: The first shipment of nearly 100,000 doses of mpox vaccines is expected to arrive in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on Thursday. The Central African country of about 100 million people is at the epicentre of an mpox outbreak that the World Health Organization (WHO) declared …

06-09-2024 Bureau Report + Agencies NEW DELHI: The leaders of India and Singapore on Thursday signed an agreement to partner and cooperate in semiconductors, in a deal aimed at giving Singaporean firms a greater role in supply chains in the Indian market, the two countries said. A Memorandum of Understanding …

06-09-2024 JAKARTA: Only rockstars and presidents can usually fill Indonesia’s national stadium, but on Thursday it was octogenarian Pope Francis who drew more than 80,000 fans to a Catholic Mass in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation. The event was the high point of the 87-year-old pope’s four days in the …

06-09-2024 BEIJING: President Xi Jinping pledged on Thursday to step up China’s support across debt-laden Africa with funding of nearly $51 billion over three years, backing for more infrastructure projects, and the creation of at least 1 million jobs. China was ready to step up cooperation with Africa in industry, …

06-09-2024 Bureau Report + Agencies NEW DELHI: Four-year-old Sandhya was sleeping outside her mud hut in India’s Uttar Pradesh state on the night of 17 August when a power cut plunged the village into darkness. “The wolves attacked within two minutes of the lights going out. By the time we …

06-09-2024 OTTAWA: Canada’s left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP) has pulled the plug on a two-and-a-half-year-old agreement with Justin Trudeau’s Liberals that had helped keep his minority government in power. In a video posted to social media on Wednesday, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said he had informed the prime minister of …

06-09-2024 WASHINGTON/ MOSCOW: The US has charged and sanctioned Russian state media executives and restricted Kremlin-linked broadcasters as it accused Moscow of a widespread campaign to interfere with the presidential election. The justice, state and treasury departments announced coordinated actions on Wednesday to “aggressively counter” the alleged operations. Attorney General …

06-09-2024 JERUSALEM: Israel’s biggest trade union has said hundreds of thousands of people joined the general strike it called to put pressure on the government to agree a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas. Businesses, schools and transport were disrupted before a court ordered everyone to return to …