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A woman has won a seat on a municipal council for the first time in Saudi Arabia, after the kingdom lifted its bar on women taking part in elections. Salma bint Hizab al-Oteibi won a seat in Mecca province in Saturday’s vote. Women have also won in several other regions in the country, including Jeddah and Qatif, reports suggest. The ...

A woman has won a seat on a municipal council for the first time in Saudi Arabia, after the kingdom lifted its bar on women taking part in elections. Salma bint Hizab al-Oteibi won a seat in Mecca province in Saturday’s vote, the electoral commission said. Votes are still being counted in the municipal elections, which were the first where ...

Eighty-seven people were killed in violence that broke out after three military sites were attacked in Burundi on Friday, the army says. Eight of those who died were security officers and 49 people were captured, Col Gaspard Baratuza said. Residents in the capital earlier said the bodies of some 34 men were found on the streets – and accused police ...

Taking their robust bilateral ties to a new level, India and Japan on Saturday inked a number of pacts in key areas of defence and nuclear energy as well as building of first bullet train network between Mumbai-Ahmedabad at a cost of about Rs 98,000 crore. The strategic pacts were inked after the summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and ...

At least 23 people have been killed and about two dozen injured in a fire at a neurological hospital in Russia’s central Voronezh region. Authorities scour the rubble of the wooden structure which was destroyed by the blaze. Some 70 patients were inside the building, along with at least four medical personnel, when the fire started. At least 29 of ...

Organisers of climate talks in Paris have released details of a proposed landmark deal to curb climate change. Key negotiating blocs, including the G77, and nations such as China and India say they support the proposals. France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the final draft of the agreement aimed to limit warming to “well below 2C”. If endorsed, the global ...

Schools in Beijing are closed and outdoor construction halted as the Chinese capital’s first ever pollution “red alert” came into effect. The alert, the highest possible warning level, was issued late Monday and will last until midday on Thursday. Limits have been placed on car use and some factories have been ordered to stop operations. It comes as China, the ...

The United States has deployed a P-8 Poseidon spy plane to Singapore for the first time. It is the latest in a series of US military actions seen as a response to China’s increasingly assertive claims over territory in the South China Sea. The US says it will also base a military reconnaissance plane at Singapore’s Paya Lebar air base. ...

Shares in mining firm Anglo American have fallen by more than 10% as the company said it would sell huge chunks of its business and shrink its workforce by nearly two-thirds. The changes will see the workforce drop by 85,000, from 135,000 to 50,000. The group has been forced to restructure after the collapse of commodity prices slashed profits. Anglo ...

The Spanish government says it has rights to a sunken Spanish galleon discovered in Colombian waters. The foreign minister says he is asking for more information about the galleon, the San Jose, found after decades of searching. The galleon, which was sunk in 1708, belonged to Philip V of Spain. Its discovery was announced on Saturday. The ship was attacked ...