At least 50 people have been killed and more than 50 injured in a suicide attack in Pakistan, police say. The blast happened near a mosque in the southwestern province of Balochistan on Friday as people gathered to celebrate the birth of the Prophet Muhammad. Officials in Balochistan have declared a state of emergency. No […]

House Republicans have branded the first day of their impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden a success, saying they justified their case. But expert witnesses called by Republicans cautioned there was not yet enough proof for impeachment. Thursday’s hearing was dominated by the business dealings of the president’s son, Hunter, who Republicans allege was selling access […]

Zambia’s former President Edgar Lungu has been warned against jogging in public, as police describe his weekly workouts as “political activism”. His Saturday runs with ordinary members of the public and supporters of his Patriotic Front (PF) party have been attracting a lot of attention. Lungu has been told to seek police approval for future […]

The lower house of the Indian parliament has passed a bill guaranteeing a third of seats for women in the parliament and state assemblies. First proposed in 1996, the bill had been pending for decades amid opposition from some political parties. On Wednesday, the Lok Sabha passed it with near unanimity after hours of fierce […]

Rescue teams in Libya are struggling to retrieve the bodies of victims that have been swept out to sea in tsunami-like flood waters. At least 2,300 have been killed, according to the ambulance authority in Derna, the worst affected city. Two dams and four bridges collapsed in Derna, submerging much of the city when Storm […]

The death toll from floods in Libya in one city alone stands at more than 1,000, a senior official who visited the eastern port of Derna has said. “Bodies are lying everywhere,” the minister from the eastern-based government told Reuters news agency. Much of Derna, which has about 100,000 residents, is under water after two […]

The G20 joint declaration in Delhi is being described as a significant diplomatic win for India. The agreement of a joint statement looked almost impossible a few days ago, given how sharply divided the group was over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the end, we had a declaration that garnered unanimous support from all G20 […]

‘Ram and Nagulan responsible for over 600 killings roaming free’ By Shamindra Ferdinando Sri Lanka Republican Front leader Patali Champika Ranawaka, MP, has questioned the circumstances under which the Rajapaksas granted amnesty to 12,600 LTTE cadres following the successful conclusion of the war in May 2009. However, some of them were released during the Yahapalana administration (2015-2019) [...

Mangosuthu Buthelezi, a towering figure in South African politics and outspoken Zulu chief, has died at the age of 95. During the racist apartheid regime, he founded the Zulu Inkatha party after becoming disillusioned with the African National Congress (ANC). Thousands were killed in clashes between supporters of the two parties in the early 1990s. […]

Singaporeans have chosen Tharman Shanmugaratnam as their next president – but many would have let out a small sigh of disappointment as they did so. On Friday, the former top minister won a record 70.4% of the votes, comfortably beating two other candidates in the country’s first contested presidential election in more than a decade. […]

Singaporeans have headed to the polls to vote in their first contested presidential election in over a decade. The president has a mainly ceremonial role in the city-state with few powers and little say in public affairs. But the result on Friday could be a marker of public sentiment on the long-term ruling People’s Action […]

Property giant Evergrande has filed for bankruptcy protection in the US as the real estate crisis in China deepens. It will allow the heavily-indebted company to protect its assets in the US as it works on a multi-billion dollar deal with creditors. Evergrande defaulted on its huge debts in 2021, which sent shock-waves through global […]

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his government was making every effort to restore peace in the state of Manipur as he addressed the country on its 77th independence day. “I want to tell the people of Manipur that the country is with you,”  Modi said. On Tuesday, he unfurled the national flag at the historic […]

A federal judge has warned former US President Donald Trump against making “inflammatory” statements which could taint the jury pool ahead of his trial for conspiring to overturn the result of the 2020 election. But,  Judge Tanya Chuktan ruled that Trump can publicly share some of the non-sensitive evidence which prosecutors disclose to his legal […]

At least 35 people have been killed in an explosion in Pakistan during a rally organised by an Islamist party. At least 200 people were also injured in the explosion in north-west Bajaur district, where Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) was holding a meeting. Authorities have cordoned off the area and have warned the death toll is […]

By Jayantha Somasundaram (This articlecontinued from yesterday (25) is based on reporting by the international media on the events in Sri Lanka forty years ago.) “For day after day Tamils were beaten, hacked or burned to death in the streets, on buses, on trains – sometimes in the sight of horrified foreign tourists. Their homes […]

(Excerpted from volume ii of the Sarath Amunugama autobiography) During one of my visits to Colombo I got a call to see the President at ‘Breamar’. Gamini Dissanayake had told him of my friendship with Parathasarathy and he wanted me to help him repair the damage done to their friendship due to the abuse heaped […]