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13-01-2023 Bureau Report CANBERRA/ SYDNEY: Australian Cardinal George Pell – who was convicted then acquitted of child sex abuse – will not be offered a state funeral in his home state to avoid distress for victims of abuse, Victoria’s premier says. The former Vatican treasurer died on Tuesday aged 81. …

13-01-2023 NEW YORK: Collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX has located more than $5bn (£4.1bn) of assets, an attorney for the firm says. However, a US bankruptcy court was told on Wednesday that the extent of losses to customers is still not known. Prosecutors have accused FTX’s former chief executive Sam Bankman-Fried …

13-01-2023 DUBAI: The head of one of the world’s biggest oil companies has been named to lead the COP28 global climate talks in Dubai, later this year. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber is currently the chief executive officer of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. He is also the minister for …

13-01-2023 WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden’s aides have found a fresh batch of classified government records at a second location, in a growing political embarrassment for the White House. The first cache was found at a private office in Washington DC that Biden used after his vice-presidency. The matter is …

13-01-2023 Bureau Report + Agencies NEW DELHI/ MUMBAI: In the hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a shock announcement making 86 percent of India’s currency notes invalid on November 8, 2016, Mujammil Khan’s life changed at a pace he could not keep up with. Overnight, Khan’s livelihood as an …

13-01-2023 BEIJING: People in China worried on Thursday about spreading COVID-19 to aged relatives as they planned returns to their hometowns for holidays that the World Health Organization warns could inflame a raging outbreak. The Lunar New Year holiday, which officially starts from Jan. 21, comes after China last month …

13-01-2023 JERUSALEM/ MOSCOW: Israel’s new government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has primarily made headlines domestically, and for its policies towards Palestinians, since coming into power late last year but on foreign policy, particularly regarding Russia’s war in Ukraine, some argue that Israel’s most right-wing government yet is inclined …

13-01-2023 By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report + Agencies ISLAMABAD/ LONDON: Islamabad has denied reports in the British media that a package containing uranium, which arrived at London’s Heathrow airport in December, originated from Pakistan. Newspapers including ‘The Sun’, a tabloid, and the Guardian made the claim, as well as …

12-01-2023 By SJA Jafri + Bureau Report KABUL/ ISLAMABAD: A suicide bomber killed at least five people outside the Afghan foreign ministry on Wednesday, police said, but some officials put the death toll higher. Kabul police spokesperson Khalid Zadran said the official confirmed death toll was five. Ustad Fareedun, an …

12-01-2023 TEHRAN: One of Iran’s most prominent female activists has described how confessions are forced out of prisoners, in a letter written inside a notorious jail. Sepideh Qolian has been serving a five-year sentence since 2018 after being convicted of acting “against national security” for supporting a strike. Writing from …