China

The urban jungle needs more trees: A call for greenery

23 May 2023 03:37 AM IST

As cities grow and heat up, it’s time to get rid of your air-conditioner and have more plants in your homes. Ever wonder what’s the most cost-effective solution to cool the temperature? Simple. Planting more trees or incorporating more vegetation/plants in city design. It puts a new slant on the

Diplomatic appeals by Zelensky outshine Nuclear Disarmament at G7 Summit

23 May 2023 03:32 AM IST

Hiroshima, the site of this year’s G7 summit, is one of just a handful of places in the world that provides a stark reminder of the horrors of war.It is no surprise that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida chose Hiroshima as the setting for the 2023 G7 meeting. Ukraine takes

Dignity denied as more than 3,000 schools in South Africa still use pit toilets

23 May 2023 03:28 AM IST

At a high school in rural northern South Africa, more than 300 students and their teachers share three toilets, and that woefully lopsided figure isn’t the worst problem. The three toilets are pit latrines, effectively 10-feet-deep holes in the ground that students line up during a lunch break to use.

Committed to secure release of Assange’

23 May 2023 03:19 AM IST

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he was working in the “most effective way possible” to secure the release of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, but declined an invitation on Monday to meet the Australian citizen’s wife. Independent lawmaker Andrew Wilkie asked Albanese if he would meet Assange’s wife Stella Assange,

President Biden honours Indian-origin NYPD officer

23 May 2023 02:33 AM IST

A 27-year-old Indian-origin New York Police Department (NYPD) officer and nine others were honoured by US President Joe Biden with the Medal of Value of our, the country’s highest award for public safety officers. Sumit Sulan was honoured at a White House ceremony on Wednesday for shooting a convicted felon

Fuel-starved Sri Lanka enters deal with Chinese company : Official in Colombo

23 May 2023 01:28 AM IST

Cash-strapped Sri Lanka has signed a long-term agreement with Chinese oil and gas giant Sinopec on important storage, distribution and sale of petroleum products in the island nation, President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s office said on Monday. The deal with Sinopec– a state-owned Chinese company –was reached months after the two sides

Meta fined $1.3 bn, ordered to cease European User Data Transfer to US

23 May 2023 01:23 AM IST

The European Union slapped Meta with a record USD 1.3 billion privacy fine on Monday and ordered it to stop transferring user data across the Atlantic by October, the latest salvo in a decade-long case sparked by US cybersnooping fears. The penalty of 1.2 billion euros is the biggest since

Russia Claims Control of Bakhmut, Ukrainian Military Leaders reject

23 May 2023 01:15 AM IST

Although Russia claims it has won control of Ukraine’s eastern city of Bakhmut, after a grinding nine-month conflict in which tens of thousands of fighters have died, top Ukrainian military leaders say the battle is not over. Ukrainian officials acknowledge they now control only a small part of Bakhmut. But,

US, Papua New Guinea sign new bilateral defence cooperation agreement

22 May 2023 15:53 PM IST

The United States and Papua New Guinea have signed a new bilateral defence cooperation agreement amid increasing China’s assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region, CNN reported. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Papua New Guinea (PNG) Prime Minister James Marape signed the pact and a maritime security agreement on Monday

Greek PM wins election, but fails to reach majority

22 May 2023 15:41 PM IST

Greece Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis won the national election but failed to reach the majority, Al Jazeera reported. With most of the votes, Mitsotakis’s New Democracy party was 40.83 per cent of the votes, ahead of the left-wing Syriza party of Alexis Tsipras, which had 20.1 per cent. The projections

3 killed, 2 injured in Missouri bar shooting

22 May 2023 14:09 PM IST

In another instance of gun violence in the United States, three people were killed and two others wounded- with one in critical condition- in a shooting at a Kansas City bar in Missouri early on Sunday. According to Kansas City Police, officers responded at 1:25 am (local time) to the

‘Silly Balloon’ Incident alters course of US-China Relations, says Biden

22 May 2023 13:11 PM IST

US President Joe Biden expressed optimism about the potential improvement of relations between the United States and China, stating that a thaw in their ties could occur “very shortly.” This comes after an incident earlier this year where the United States shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon, which led