International

12-01-2023 MONTECITO: Tens of thousands of people were under evacuation orders in California on Tuesday as the state was ravaged by the latest in a barrage of storms that have left at least 17 people dead. Torrential downpours caused flash flooding, closed key highways, toppled trees and swept away drivers …

12-01-2023 ROME/ SYDNEY: Australian Cardinal George Pell, a leading Roman Catholic conservative and former top Vatican official who was acquitted in 2020 of sexual abuse accusations, died on Tuesday at the age of 81, his private secretary said. Fr. Joseph Hamilton told Reuters Pell died in a Rome hospital on …

11-01-2023 Brussels BRUSSELS: In a study of 13 different breeds, the Belgian malinois was discovered to be the most intelligent dog, reported Daily Mail. By giving 1,000 dogs three behavioral and seven cognitive tasks, researchers evaluated the canines. Tests included determining if the animals could navigate a transparent V-shaped barrier …

11-01-2023 ATHENS: A group of 24 volunteers have gone on trial on the Greek island of Lesbos more than four years after they were arrested for carrying out migrant rescue missions off Greece. Their case was denounced in a European Parliament report as Europe’s “largest case of criminalization of solidarity”. …

11-01-2023 NAYPYIDAW: Myanmar has jailed 112 people, including 12 children, from the minority Rohingya after they were caught attempting to leave the country. The court in Bogale in the southern Ayeyarwady region of Myanmar sentenced the group on January 6, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar reported on Tuesday, …

11-01-2023 Bureau Report + Agencies NEW DELHI: “I don’t know what our fault is. What have we done to deserve this?” says a distraught Kanta Sharma, pointing to a shuttered cement plant in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. It’s one of two plants – the other is located …

11-01-2023 GAZA: Gazans drove a convoy of ambulances along the Israeli border Monday to protest import restrictions on medical equipment, which the health ministry in the Palestinian enclave warned puts patients at risk. Israel bans the transfer of goods to Gaza which it deems could be used for military purposes, …

11-01-2023 BRASILIA/ ORLANDO: Far-right former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was admitted to a hospital in Florida on Monday with stomach pains as 1,500 of his supporters were rounded up in Brasilia after storming key buildings in the capital over the weekend. President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a leftist who …

11-01-2023 CAIRO: Egypt continues to battle surging inflation amid a dramatic slide of its currency as many Egyptians struggle with price hikes, the country’s statistics bureau has said. The state-run Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) released figures on Tuesday showing that the annual inflation was at 21.9 …

11-01-2023 UNITED NATIONS/ TEHRAN: The UN human rights chief says the flurry of death sentences handed down following the outbreak of civil unrest in Iran amount to “state sanctioned killing”, with executions being used to strike fear into the population and stamp out dissent. “The weaponization of criminal procedures to …