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Prime Minister's Office
Japan's parliament is set to elect ultraconservative Sanae Takaichi as the country's first female prime minister on Tuesday, one day after her struggling party struck a coalition deal with a new partner that would pull her governing bloc further to the right. Takaichi will replace Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, ending a three-month political vacuum and wrangling since the Liberal Democratic Party's disastrous election loss in July. Ishiba, who lasted only one year in office, resigned with his Cabinet earlier Tuesday, paving the way for his successor. The LDP's off-the-cuff alliance with the Osaka-based rightwing Japan Innovation Party, or Ishin no Kai, ensures her premiership in a vote later in the day because the opposition is not united. Takaichi's untested alliance is still short of a majority in both houses of parliament and they need to court other opposition groups to pass any legislation -- a risk that could make her government unstable and short-lived. Political stability i
Albania's prime minister on Wednesday thanked hundreds of thousands of voters who supported his Socialist Party in the last parliamentary elections, backing his pledge to take the country into the European Union in five years. Edi Rama, leader of the left-wing Socialist Party, held a celebratory rally in Tirana's main Skanderbeg Square. The event, attended by thousands of supporters waving Albanian and EU flags, took place in front of a big poster prepared for Friday's European Political Community summit, or EPC, a forum that gathers European leaders with the aim of boosting security and prosperity across the continent. With only diaspora ballots remaining to be fully counted, the ruling Socialists achieved a landslide victory, winning 83 seats in the 140-seat Parliament in the May 11 polls, according to the Central Election Commission. With those numbers, the Socialists are likely to govern alone. Rama's Socialist Party says it can deliver EU membership in five years, with ...
French Prime Minister Franois Bayrou arrived Monday in the Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte to unveil a recovery plan three weeks after Cyclone Chido brought devastation. Bayrou, recently appointed as prime minister, also updated the death toll to 39 but urged caution, saying the final number could range from a few dozen to a few hundred. Days after the cyclone, Mayotte's prefect, Franois-Xavier Bieuville, had warned of the possibility of several hundred or even a few thousand deaths. Bayrou's visit follows that of French President Emmanuel Macron as some Mayotte residents have alleged that the French government had long neglected them. The prime minister said a draft emergency law aiming to rebuild Mayotte within two years will be submitted to parliament in January. And he said local authorities agreed to ban the rebuilding of informal settlements, home to an unknown number of migrants from African nations in the region who hope to make their way to Europe. Many of the makeshift
The government is working on a new law to govern the space sector which has witnessed reforms over the past four years with private players making a mark in building and launching satellites, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on Wednesday. Singh said India's maiden human spaceflight programme -- Gaganyaan -- was also progressing well and the first uncrewed mission was expected to be launched early next year. "We are working on that," the minister of state in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) told a press conference here in response to a question on the timeline for the space activities bill, which would grant statutory cover to the reforms in the sector. Singh said the government had announced space sector reforms in 2020 with the aim to increase India's share in the global space economy. "Indian Space Policy was released in April 2023 as an overarching, composite and dynamic framework to implement the space reform vision approved by the Union Cabinet," he said. The minister sa
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Monday his office has become a "catalytic agent" which infuses new energy and dynamism into the system, and claimed that it used to be seen as a big power centre 10 years ago. Addressing staffers of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) after he began this third term, Modi said his only goal is "nation first" and his only motivation "Viksit Bharat", adding that this was his expectation from them as well. "My every moment is for the country," Modi said, asserting that he has promised to work round the clock to achieve the goal of India becoming a developed country by 2047. The PMO should be for service and it should be a people's PMO and not Modi's, he said, adding that he was not born to rule and he does not think about accumulating power. The 140 crore people of India are always on his mind and he considers them a form of God, Modi said. In the last three months, Modi said in an apparent reference to the election campaign, he witnessed their strength
Pakistan's caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar has constituted a seven-member committee mandated with ensuring the smooth conduct of the February 8 general elections already impaired by allegations of "pre-poll rigging", according to a media report. According to a notification issued by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) on Thursday, interim Minister for Communications, Railways, and Maritime Affairs Shahid Ashraf Tarar has been named as the head of the committee, the Dawn newspaper reported. The other members include the interior secretary, four provincial chief secretaries as well as any other co-opted individual desired by the committee. As per the PMO notification, the committee will have the mandate to oversee the security arrangements for polls; review and resolve matters regarding administrative arrangements and coordination for the smooth conduct of elections; issue directions for urgent requirements of additional security where law and order situation requires, and .
TMC MP Mahua Moitra has raised questions over the credibility of Hiranandani Group CEO Darshan Hiranandani's affidavit, alleging that it was "drafted by the PMO" and he was forced to sign it after being "threatened" with "total shut down" of his family's businesses. The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) held a "proverbial gun" to Darshan and his father's heads and gave them 20 minutes to sign this "letter", Mahua claimed in a statement issued late on Thursday night. Her statement came shortly after Hiranandani, who allegedly paid Moitra to raise questions in Parliament about the Adani Group, claimed in the signed affidavit that the TMC leader targeted billionaire industrialist Gautam Adani to "malign and embarrass" Prime Minister Narendra Modi whose impeccable reputation gave the opposition no opportunity to attack him. He alleged that she provided him with her Parliament login and password to ask questions targeting Adani after the state-owned Indian Oil Corporation booked capacity at
Nepal's Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal "Prachanda" has requested the Supreme Court to scrap the writ petition filed against him for allegedly taking moral responsibility for the killing of about 5,000 persons during the decade-long Maoist insurgency. On March 10 the Supreme Court, responding to writ petitions seeking the court's order for an investigation against "Prachanda" for his controversial statement, asked the prime minister to furnish a written clarification explaining why an order should not be issued against him as demanded by the petitioners. Prachanda on Thursday in his 13-point written response sent to the apex court stated that the petition should be scrapped since it has no constitutional ground and reason, The Kathmandu Post newspaper reported. The PM said his statement was an exercise of fundamental rights of freedom of speech and expression guaranteed by Article 17 (2) of the Constitution of Nepal and that all citizens could exercise the right in an equal ...
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Thursday address a national conference of labour ministers of all states and union territories, his office said. The conference is being convened in the spirit of cooperative federalism to discuss various significant labour-related issues, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) said in a statement on Tuesday. Prime Minister Modi will address the national conference of labour ministers of all states and union territories on August 25 at 4:30 pm via video conferencing, it said. The two-day conference is being organised by the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment on August 25-26 at Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh. The conference will help create further synergy amongst the Centre and state governments in formulating better policies and ensuring effective implementation of schemes for the welfare of workers, the statement said. It will have four thematic sessions -- integrating e-Shram portal for on-boarding social security schemes to universalise social ..