World

Male, November 16 Maldives President-elect Mohamed Muizzu will take oath of office on Friday at a ceremony in the capital Male, where India would be represented by Union Minister Kiren Rijiju. Muizzu, a close associate of former Maldives President Abdulla Yameen who forged close ties with China during his Presidency from 2013 to 2018, defeated India-friendly incumbent Ibrahim Mohamed Solih …

Gaza/Jerusalem, November 16 Palestinian medics said on Thursday they were increasingly afraid for the lives of hundreds of patients and medical staff at Gaza’s biggest hospital, cut off from all links to the outside world for more than a day after Israeli forces entered. Gaza’s health ministry said Israeli soldiers had removed bodies from the grounds of the Al Shifa …

Woodside/Beijing, November 16 US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping have agreed to resume high-level military-to-military communication and counter-narcotics cooperation as they met for four hours in a bid to establish a working relationship amidst Beijing’s aggressive actions in the Indo-Pacific region. The two leaders also affirmed the need to address the risks of advanced artificial intelligence …

London, November 16 TikTok and Facebook owner Meta are filing legal challenges against new European Union rules designed to counter the dominance of digital giants and make online competition fairer by giving consumers more choice. TikTok said in a blog post Thursday that it’s appealing being classified as an online “gatekeeper” by the Digital Markets Act, arguing that it’s playing …

Deir Al-Balah (Gaza Strip), November 17 The wreckage goes on for block after devastated block. The smell is sickening. Every day, hundreds of people claw through tons of rubble with shovels and iron bars and their bare hands. They are looking for the bodies of their children. Their parents. Their neighbours. All of them killed in Israeli missile strikes. The …

Yangon, November 16 Myanmar’s military rulers have ordered all government staff and those with military experience to prepare to serve in case of emergency, an official said on Thursday, after the junta reported “heavy assaults” from insurgents in several places. Myanmar’s military has battled ethnic minority and other insurgencies for decades but a 2021 coup has brought unprecedented coordination between …

erusalem, November 16 Palestinians in parts of southern Gaza said they received evacuation notices on Thursday. The signal that fighting is about to expand in the south comes a day after Israeli forces began searching a north Gaza hospital where they claimed Hamas militants operate — a claim that Hamas and hospital staff deny. On Thursday, Saudi Arabia condemned the …

Islamabad, November 16 A Pakistan high court on Thursday extended until November 20 the stay against the jail trial of former Prime Minister Imran Khan in the cipher case. The Islamabad High Court (IHC) bench comprising Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb and Justice Saman Rafat Imtiaz extended the stay during the hearing of 71-year-old Khan’s intra-court appeal against the jail trial. …

London, November 16 Britain’s medicines regulator has authorised the world’s first gene therapy treatment for sickle cell disease, in a move that could offer relief to thousands of people with the crippling disease in the UK. In a statement on Thursday, the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said it approved Casgevy, the first medicine licensed using the gene editing …

Bhubaneswar, November 17 The deep depression over the Bay of Bengal on Friday intensified into a cyclonic storm and will graze past the Sunderbans before making landfall on Bangladesh coast with a maximum wind speed of 80 kmph, India Meteorological Department (IMD) said in a bulletin. The cyclonic storm named ‘Midhili’ will cross the Bangladesh coast during November 17 night …