TOKYO – Japan’s prime minister Shigeru Ishiba yesterday said he will step down after less than a year in power, during which he lost his majority in both houses of parliament. The announcement means fresh uncertainty for the world’s fourth-largest economy as it battles rising food prices and deals with the fallout of US tariffs...
BEIJING – The adage goes, “Optics is everything in politics.” If this saying is anything to go by, precision, power and pomposity were on full display yesterday, as China flexed its military muscle, displaying its latest generation of stealth fighters, tanks and ballistic missiles amid a highly choreographed cast of thousands. All made in China. ...
ANTANANARIVO – Madagascar held a ceremony yesterday to mark the return of three skulls kept by France for 128 years, including one believed to be that of a Malagasy king decapitated by French troops in the 19th century. France handed over the skulls in Paris on 27 August in the first such restitution since it...
KIGALI – Rwanda has announced it recently received the first group of deportees from the United States of America, becoming the most recent country to accept migrants under agreements with the Donald Trump administration. Trump has made a priority of deporting migrants , including through controversial arrangements to send people to third countries, which have...
TIANJIN – President Vladimir Putin landed in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin yesterday to attend a summit hosted by counterpart Xi Jinping with around 20 other world leaders. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit is being held in the port city until Monday, days before a massive military parade in the capital Beijing to mark...
Georgetown South America’s only English-speaking country Guyana goes to the polls on Monday in elections that will decide who will manage the nation’s bountiful new oil riches. In 2015, petroleum giant ExxonMobil discovered huge deposits of crude off Guyana’s coast, transforming the fortunes of what was once among South America’s poorest countries. In 2024, Guyana’s...
KIGALI – A first group of seven migrants has arrived in Rwanda as part of a deal to accept deportees from the United States, the Rwandan government said yesterday. Washington is pushing a deportation drive, with President Donald Trump’s administration negotiating controversial arrangements to send people to third countries, including South Sudan and Eswatini. “The...
MIAMI – The Organisation of American States (OAS) has called for more money and international support to alleviate the grinding poverty, chronic instability and rampant gang violence plaguing Haiti. OAS Secretary General Albert Ramdin spoke to AFP in a video interview about a roadmap released this week by the organisation urging assistance the poorest country...
PORT SUDAN – Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces shelled a hospital in North Darfur’s besieged city of El-Fasher and abducted six women and two children from a displacement camp, rescuers and a medic said yesterday. El-Fasher, under RSF siege for over a year, is the last major city in western Darfur still held by the...
GENEVA – Israel’s expanded offensive in the Gaza Strip, aimed at conquering Gaza City and targeting the remaining Hamas strongholds in the besieged Palestinian territory, is “intolerable”, the Red Cross said yesterday. The Israeli military’s plan, which includes the call-up of roughly 60 000 reservists, has deepened fears that the campaign will worsen the already...