Category: English Top

Four Indonesian seamen return home after Somali pirate ordeal

Four Indonesian seamen who were kidnapped and held hostage by Somali pirates aboard an oil tanker for more than five months arrived back home on Tuesday, an AFP reporter saw. The men were among 17 crew rescued a week ago when maritime police from the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in northern Somalia stormed the Palau-flagged MT […]

Crisis-striken Haiti postpones elections

Haiti, which has been engulfed by years of gang violence and political chaos, has indefinitely postponed elections due to be held later this year, officials said Tuesday. Haiti has not held elections since 2016, and its last president, assassinated in 2021, has not been replaced. The first round of presidential and legislative elections was set […]

Germany arrests ex-spy chief on suspicion of giving secrets to foreign powers

A former German spy chief was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of passing sensitive information to foreign powers, an embarrassing case that comes as the country is seeking to bolster its intelligence agencies. August Hanning, who ran Germany’s BND foreign intelligence agency from 1998 to 2005, is accused of espionage, treason and working for foreign intelligence […]

World Bank forecasts modest growth for Latin America, highlights climate risks

The World Bank on Tuesday forecast modest economic growth in Latin America and the Caribbean, warning that risks from high energy prices and the climate phenomenon El Nino could impact the region. In its biannual Regional Economic Update, the multilateral development organization upgraded its growth outlook for the area by 0.1 percentage point to 2.2 […]

IMF warns cost-of-living shocks cause ‘lasting deterioration’ in affordability

The International Monetary Fund warned Tuesday that price increases for necessities like food and energy, fuelled by the wars in Iran and Ukraine, were more persistent than previously expected. Global prices for many commodities have remained elevated for several years, fuelled first by pandemic supply chain shortages and then by the wars in Ukraine and […]

Nobel physics prize honours work on ‘ghostly messengers’ from outer space

Belgian physicist Francis Halzen on Tuesday won the Nobel physics prize for groundbreaking work using South Pole ice to capture neutrinos originating in the distant cosmos, providing insight into the far reaches of space.”This year’s prize is about ghostly messengers from space,” Ellen Moons, secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, told a […]

Russia denies imposing anti-plague measures after death of worker

Russian authorities denied Tuesday that they were imposing special anti-plague measures after a laboratory technician reportedly died of the disease, as the UN’s health agency said the risk to the country was low. It was reported last week that a worker at an anti-plague institute in Siberia’s Irkutsk region died of pneumonic plague. But the […]

Myanmar leader to visit Malaysia after migrant returns begin

Myanmar’s coup leader turned president Min Aung Hlaing will head to Malaysia on Wednesday for a two-day visit, officials said, following Kuala Lumpur’s plan to return thousands of Myanmar immigrants. The visit comes after a group of nearly 1,500 returnees reached Myanmar on Sunday, with rights groups warning Rohingya refugees could be among those sent […]