International

Myanmar heads to the polls on Sunday as it battles a civil war that has ravaged parts of the country as well as one of Asia’s worst humanitarian crises. Already one of Southeast Asia’s poorest countries, Myanmar has been hammered by a conflict triggered by a 2021 coup in which the military ousted an elected civilian government led by Nobel ...

President Donald Trump has said the US launched a “powerful and deadly strike” against the Islamic State (IS) group in north-western Nigeria. The US leader described IS as ” terrorist scum”, accusing the group of “targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians”. Trump said the US military “executed numerous perfect strikes”, while the US Africa Command (Africom) later reported that ...

A bus accident in eastern Mexico has left at least 10 people dead and another 32 injured, authorities in the state of Veracruz said Thursday. The crash occurred on Christmas Eve in the town of Zontecomatlan, while the vehicle traveled from Mexico City to the village of Chicontepec. “At this stage we have confirmed nine adults and one child dead,” ...

Pope Leo XIV held the first Christmas mass of his pontificate on Wednesday, greeting thousands of faithful gathered in St Peter’s Square before the service. During the mass, Leo said Christmas was a feast of “faith, charity and hope” and criticised a “distorted economy” that “leads us to treat human beings as mere merchandise”. Before, he spoke in front of ...

The head of Libya’s armed forces and four other high ranking military officials died late Tuesday when their business jet crashed shortly after taking off from Ankara, officials in Turkey’s capital and Tripoli said. The wreckage of their Falcon 50 aircraft was located by Turkish security personnel in the Haymana district near Ankara, Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said. Three ...

A coach bus slammed into a barrier on an Indonesian highway early Monday, flipping over in an accident that killed at least 16 people, a rescue worker said. The bus, which was headed from the capital Jakarta to Yogyakarta, was travelling at a “fairly high” speed when it reached a turn at a highway interchange, local search and rescue agency ...

North Korea said on Sunday that Japan’s nuclear ambitions “must be prevented at any cost”, after a Tokyo official reportedly suggested the country should possess atomic weapons. Pyongyang’s reaction came after the unnamed official in the prime minister’s office was quoted by Kyodo News on Thursday as saying: “I think we should possess nuclear weapons.” The official was reported to ...

President Donald Trump signed a sweeping defense policy bill into law Thursday that signaled strong bipartisan support for Europe and defied the US leader’s increasingly hostile posture toward NATO and America’s closest allies. The annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), one the few remaining rituals of cross-party cooperation in Congress even as divisions sharpen elsewhere in Washington, sets out the ...

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Wednesday said an EU plan to use frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine’s defense was essential to increase pressure on President Vladimir Putin, reports AFP. “It is about aid for Ukraine, but it is also about sending a clear signal to Russia that we will use the assets that are available here to help end ...

By Dr Abdul Hai and Fatama Rahman Ruma:   “Time has flown by in the blink of an eye — I can hardly believe it’s been 25 years in Germany. There was no other option but to learn the German language, no matter how challenging it was. It’s like learning a language you’ve never even heard before — It is ...