World News

Only grant projects accepted in Belt and Road Initiative: Nepali Congress

The party's statement came days after Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli visited China where the two countries signed the BRI Cooperation Framework.

TikTok hires ex-Trump admin lawyer ahead of Supreme Court appeal

Noel Francisco, who served as US solicitor general during Republican President-elect Donald Trump's first administration, will represent TikTok along with his partner Hashim Mooppan at law firm Jones

Omnicom to acquire Interpublic, forming ad giant with $26 bn annual revenue

Shares of Interpublic jumped more than 15 per cent before the market open on Monday, while Omnicom's stock fell more than 2 per cent

Hundreds of Syrians at Turkish border crossing, waiting to return home

Authorities set up a checkpoint some 5 kilometres from Cilvegozu, only allowing Syrians with proper documents to the border gate

US polygamist religious leader jailed for sexual crimes against minors

Samuel Bateman, whose small group was an offshoot of the sect once led by Warren Jeffs, has pleaded guilty to a years-long scheme to transport girls across state lines for his sex crimes

British Indian student elected president of historic Cambridge Union

Anoushka Kale won 126 votes to be elected uncontested for the next Easter 2025 term in an election held recently

Evacuations underway in Philippines as volcano at Mt Kanlaon erupts

The 2,435-metre (7,988-foot) volcano, one of the country's 24 most-active volcanoes, last erupted in June sending hundreds of villagers to emergency shelters

China targets Nvidia with antitrust probe, escalating US chip tensions

The investigation comes after the US last week launched its third crackdown in three years on China's semiconductor industry

Over 77% of Earth's land became drier in last 30 years, warns UN report

Meanwhile, the number of people living in drylands has doubled to 2.3 billion over the past three decades. Models suggest that as many as 5 billion could inhabit drylands by 2100 in a worst-case

Zelenskyy asks to deploy foreign troops to Ukraine before Nato membership

Ukraine, which has made a concerted push to obtain an invitation to join Nato, has insisted throughout the war that it needs security guarantees to prevent Russia launching another invasion

Mass Hindu migration from B'desh unlikely at present: Abhijit Banerjee

Historically, the academic explained, migration is mainly driven by social networks and economic opportunities, rather than persecution, even in context of the crisis faced by minorities in Bangladesh

ISRO set to launch historic space docking mission this December, says chief

The Space Docking Experiment (SpaDEX) is scheduled to launch by the year-end. It will be India's first mission showcasing autonomous docking technology in space

Turkey-backed rebels take northern Syria town from US-backed group

The SDF had been holding the town in recent days amid intense fighting with the Syrian National Army (SNA) and other Turkey-backed groups

Turkey to work for Syrian migrants to return home safely, says minister

NATO member Turkey hosts some 3 million Syrian migrants and refugees, making it the biggest host of Syrians who have fled the civil war. It also controls swathes of land in northern Syria after

Kremlin to discuss future of Russian bases with Syria's new rulers

The Tartous facility is Russia's only Mediterranean repair and replenishment hub, and Moscow has used Syria as a staging post to fly its military contractors in and out of Africa

Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 6, target chemical weapons sites in Syria

Israel's offensive has killed over 44,500 Palestinians in the Gaza since the start of the war, according to local health authorities. They say most of the dead are women and children but do not

Gold rises on Fed rate cut bets, China's central bank resumes purchases

Traders are pricing an 87per cent chance of a 25-basis-point interest rate cut at next week's Fed meeting, up from 61.6per cent last week, according to the CME Group's FedWatch Tool, which would mark

India, Australia assess progress in FTA talks, eye early agreement

The two countries had implemented an interim trade pact in December 2022 and now they are negotiating to widen the scope of the pact for a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA)

China to adopt proactive fiscal policy to spur economic growth in 2025

President Xi Jinping, at a symposium on Dec. 6, urged full preparation to achieve 2025 economic targets, and said the country's current development faces many challenges

Oil prices rise on China's policy shift, Assad's fall fuels uncertainty

Syrian rebels announced on state television on Sunday they had ousted Assad, ending a 50-year family dynasty in a lightning offensive that raised fears of a new wave of instability in a region already