International

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives in India on Thursday looking to tie up billions of dollars in arms deals with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, likely irking the US, China and Pakistan in one fell swoop. The Kremlin said before the two-day visit that the “key feature” would be the signing of a $5-billion deal for the advanced S-400 air defence ...

The death toll from an earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia has increased to 1,407. National disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in Jakarta on Wednesday afternoon that 519 of the bodies had been buried.   The magnitude 7.5 earthquake and the tsunami it generated devastated the city of Palu and nearby communities in Central Sulawesi province.   President Joko ...

Moderate Kurdish candidate Barham Saleh swept to the post of president of Iraq Tuesday evening in a parliamentary vote pitting Kurdish heavyweights against each other for the first time following an ill-fated independence referendum. Saleh routed his main rival Fuad Hussein with 219 votes to 22, dealing a blow to Hussein’s main backer, former Kurdish regional president Massud Barzani who ...

The wife of Malaysian former Prime Minister Najib Razak is being grilled by the anti-graft agency for a third time over a massive graft scandal involving the 1MDB state investment fund. Rosmah Mansor smiled at reporters Wednesday but didn’t speak as she was escorted into the agency’s building. Her presence for a second time in a week at the agency ...

A fire broke out at the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital in central Kolkata on Wednesday, reports NDTV. Nearly 250 patients have been evacuated. Ten fire engines are at the spot. There are no reports of any casualties.   The fire started the pharmacy of the hospital. The fire department was alerted after smoke was spotted from the building that ...

Canada’s Parliament formally stripped Aung San Suu Kyi of her honorary Canadian citizenship on Tuesday for complicity in the atrocities committed against Myanmar’s Rohingya people. The Senate voted unanimously to strip Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s civilian leader, of the symbolic honor bestowed on her in 2007.   The upper house’s move follows a similar unanimous vote in the House of Commons ...

A Spanish nonprofit group said 34 migrants were feared dead after their group waited for more than 36 hours to be rescued from a semi-sunken boat in waters off Morocco. The Moroccan Interior Ministry said Tuesday 11 bodies were recovered and the boat’s teenage skipper had been detained. The migrants continuously pleaded for help from Spanish and Moroccan authorities for ...

Three researchers on Tuesday shared the Nobel Physics Prize for inventions in the field of laser physics which have paved the way for advanced precision instruments used in industry and medicine, the jury said.   Arthur Ashkin of the United States won one half of the prize, while Gerard Mourou of France and Donna Strickland of Canada shared the other ...

An eight-year-old child was killed and at least nine other people injured on Tuesday when a homemade bomb went off in a suburb of the Indian city of Kolkata, police said.   India’s eastern West Bengal state, of which Kolkata is the capital, has a long history of political violence and targeted killings of rival party activists.  “The crude bomb ...

Thirteen people were killed and at least 30 more injured on Monday when a military transport truck flipped over on a major road in the Sierra Leone capital, a military spokesman said. The open-air truck was carrying more than 40 soldiers from their barracks to a funeral in Freetown when its brakes failed as it descended a steep hill. It ...