PORTO ALEGRE (Brazil): Teams raced against the clock on Thursday to deliver aid to flood-stricken communities in southern Brazil before the arrival of new storms forecast to batter the region once again. Some 400 municipalities have been affected by the worst natural calamity ever to hit the state of Rio
MALMO (Sweden): Thousands of demonstrators, including climate activist Greta Thunberg, marched through the streets of Malmo, Sweden on Thursday to protest against Israel’s participation in Eurovision, an AFP journalist observed. This year’s Eurovision song contest opened in the southern city of Malmo on Tuesday, with the grand finale Saturday, but
MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin on Thursday warned his nuclear forces were “always” on alert and added that Moscow would not tolerate any Western threats, in an address at the annual Victory Day parade. In a defiant speech on Red Square before thousands of soldiers dressed in ceremonial attire, Putin heaped
GAZA STRIP (Palestinian Territories): Israel launched fresh strikes in the Gaza Strip on Friday after negotiators pursuing a long-stalled truce agreement left talks in Cairo without having secured a deal. AFP journalists in the Gaza Strip on early Friday witnessed artillery strikes on Rafah on the territory’s southern border with Egypt,
YANGON (Myanmar): Myanmar’s junta has suspended the issuing of permits for men to work abroad, it said, weeks after introducing a military conscription law that led to thousands trying to leave the country. The junta, which is struggling to crush widespread armed opposition to its rule, in February said it
HONG KONG: A record-breaking heatwave is broiling parts of Asia, helping drive surging demand for cooling options, including air-conditioning. AC exhaust units are a common feature of urban landscapes in many parts of Asia, clinging like limpets to towering apartment blocks in Hong Kong or tucked in a cross formation
LIMA: At least 25 people died and more than a dozen were injured when a bus plunged into a ravine from a mountain road in northern Peru, local authorities said Monday. Local official Olga Bobadilla told RPP radio the incident late Sunday happened on a potholed dirt road in the
BANGKOK: In Bangkok’s central Siam Square, Suriyan Wongwan sweats while he waits to collect the food that he will deliver by motorbike as Thailand bakes through a heatwave. “I’m afraid of getting heatstroke,” the 51-year-old told AFP as the mercury hit 37 degrees Celsius, with humidity pushing the “real feel”
JAKARTA: Microsoft’s chief executive officer met the president of Indonesia yesterday, pledging a $1.7 billion investment in artificial intelligence and cloud computing to help develop the archipelago’s AI infrastructure. Indonesia is Southeast Asia’s biggest economy with a population of around 280 million across its sprawling archipelago and there is a
NEW YORK: Student demonstrators at Columbia University, the epicentre of pro-Palestinian protests that have erupted at US colleges, began to be suspended on Monday after defying an ultimatum to disperse. Authorities at the prestigious university in New York demanded that the protest encampment be cleared by 2.00 pm (1800 GMT)
