International

President Donald Trump pressured Georgia’s top election official, a fellow Republican, in an extraordinary phone conversation to “find” enough votes to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the Southern state, US media reported Sunday. In the conversation with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Saturday, a recording of which was first obtained by The Washington Post, Trump warns Raffensperger that he ...

President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans in the US Senate on Friday overrode his veto for the first time in his nearly four years in office, pushing through a bill on defence spending against his strong objections 20 days before he leaves office. Meeting in a rare New Year’s Day session, the Senate voted 81-13 to achieve the two-thirds majority needed ...

US President Donald Trump on Thursday extended a pair of immigration bans that block many “green card” applicants and temporary foreign workers from entering the country, measures he says are needed to protect US workers amid the pandemic-battered economy. The bans, which were issued in April and June, were set to expire on Dec 31, but will be extended until ...

Billions of people will be looking forward to saying farewell to 2020, but unlike usual year-end celebrations, it will be a subdued affair in most countries. The chaotic year saw the world roiled by a deadly pandemic, so it’s only fitting that New Year’s celebrations worldwide will be muted or canceled altogether as authorities try to stop crowds from gathering ...

Islamic State group jihadists killed 37 soldiers when they ambushed a bus Wednesday in one of the deadliest attacks since the fall of their “caliphate” last year, a monitor said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the attack in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor targeted the regime soldiers as they travelled home for holidays. The official news agency ...

At least 26 people were killed when explosions rocked Yemen’s Aden airport moments after a new unity government flew in, in what some officials charged was a “cowardly” attack by Iran-backed Huthi rebels. Although all government ministers were reported to be unharmed in Wednesday’s attack, more than 50 people were wounded, medical and government sources told AFP in the southern ...

Pakistan’s anti-corruption body has arrested a senior opposition leader and former foreign minister, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, in an ongoing probe into allegations of possessing assets higher than his known sources of income, reports Deutsche Welle. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) arrested Asif — a leading face of the The Pakistani Muslim League (Nawaz) (PML-N) — in Islamabad shortly after he ...

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris received the first dose of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine live on television on Tuesday in Washington DC of USA and urged Americans to get vaccinated for the virus. “That was easy,” Harris said after receiving the shot in her left arm. “Thank you. I barely felt it.” “I want to encourage everyone to get the vaccine. ...

A representative-elect from Louisiana died of Covid-19 Tuesday, the first member of the US Congress to succumb to the disease. Republican Luke Letlow, 41, had been elected to Louisiana’s 5th district and was due to be sworn in on Sunday. Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards announced the news on Twitter with a “heavy heart.” “I am heartbroken that he will ...

US President Donald Trump on Sunday signed into law a $2.3 trillion pandemic aid and spending package, restoring unemployment benefits to millions of Americans and averting a federal government shutdown in a crisis of his own making. Trump, who leaves office on January 20 after losing November’s election to President-elect Joe Biden, backed down from his earlier threat to block ...