Category: International

WASHINGTON: In a major development, US President Joe Biden was left reeling Wednesday when actor and leading Democratic supporter George Clooney urged him to drop his reelection bid, while party heavyweight Nancy Pelosi declined to back his candidacy. As the 81-year-old tried to show his leadership credentials at a NATO summit in Washington, domestic pressure mounted on Biden to quit following his disastrous debate performance against Republican challenger Donald Trump. Biden has been trying to stem a growing tide of Democrats saying that he cannot win in November, but Clooney’s…

PARIS: Last month was the hottest June on record across the globe, the EU’s climate monitor said on Monday, capping half a year of wild and destructive weather from floods to heatwaves. Every month since June 2023 has eclipsed its own temperature record in a 13-month streak of unprecedented global heat, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said. “This is more than a statistical oddity and it highlights a large and continuing shift in our climate,” said the service director, Carlo Buontempo.

seriously.,” says Houston mayor By AFP July 09, 2024 HOUSTON: Hurricane Beryl made landfall Monday in the southern US state of Texas, killing at least two people and causing millions to lose power amid dangerous winds and flooding, as some coastal areas remained under evacuation orders. The US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Beryl hit the town of Matagorda as a Category 1 hurricane, and has since been downgraded to a tropical storm in the hours following impact. Farther inland, rain and wind lashed Houston, home to 2.3 million people, as…

In an unusual incident, a man in India killed a snake which had bitten him by biting the reptile back twice.  According to Hindustan Times, a railway employee Santosh Lohar was bitten by a snake. The man proceeded to bite the snake back thinking it would reverse the venom’s effect. The snake died after being bitten by Santosh while he was taken to a hospital where he survived after proper medical treatment. He was discharged the next day. Santosh, 35, was a part of team laying railway tracks in a thickly-forested part…

TEHRAN: Iranians voted Friday in a presidential election runoff between a reformist advocating improved ties with the West and an ultraconservative former nuclear negotiator. The election, called early after the death of president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash, followed a first round marked by a historically low turnout last week. The runoff between reformist Masoud Pezeshkian and ultraconservative Saeed Jalili came amid heightened regional tensions over the Gaza war, Iran’s nuclear standoff with the West and widespread economic discontent exacerbated by Western sanctions. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who…

The British Muslim voters could play a crucial role in around 100 constituencies including a majority of swing seats around the country and a record number of around 300 Muslim prospective parliamentary candidates — most of them Pakistani origin — are standing in elections on 4 July across the country. Muslims in the UK number at around four million and their participation in general elections is considered as of crucial importance in many swing seats and also in the traditional Labour safe seats where dynamics have changed this time. According…

WASHINGTON: Joe Biden is “absolutely not” pulling out of the White House race, his spokeswoman said Wednesday, as pressure mounted on the president following his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump. Panic has gripped Democrats in the wake of last week’s debate, and internal rumblings about finding a replacement candidate before November’s election have been amplified by polls showing Trump extending his lead. The New York Times and CNN reported that Biden, 81, had acknowledged to a key ally that his reelection bid was on the line if he failed to quickly reassure the…

LONDON: Former prime minister Boris Johnson made a surprise appearance in the British election campaign on Tuesday, issuing a last-ditch bid to rally support for the Conservatives and their leader Rishi Sunak, the man who helped turf him out of office. Johnson won a big majority at the last election in 2019 before being forced to resign in 2022 by a Conservative mutiny which Sunak helped to start, and which exposed deep splits in the governing party, not least between Sunak and Johnson. Greeted by chants of “Boris! Boris!” from…

NEW DELHI: In a major development, India on Monday implemented an overhaul of colonial-era criminal laws, praised as a “watershed” movement by the top judge but which critics said could worsen an already glacially slow pace of justice. Interior Minister Amit Shah said the codes would help India “become the world’s most modern justice delivery system”. The three overhauled laws — the penal code, and codes relating to criminal procedure and evidence — were passed last year during India’s previous parliament, but only came into effect on Monday. Chief Justice…