Category : Global

PARIS: Social networking platform Twitter on Thursday removed former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's tweet, for violating its rules banning the glorification of violence, shortly after a violent knife attack in Nice, which left three people dead.In a series of tweets, Mahathir Mohamad had said that "Muslims have a right to be angry and kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past". It sparked an angry outburst on social media with many users calling out the former Malaysian prime minister.Cedric O, France's Secretary for Digital Sector also condemned the post and Read More

KINMEN, TAIWAN: The tank traps on the beaches of Kinmen Island are a stark reminder that Taiwan lives under the constant threat of a Chinese invasion -- and fears of a conflict breaking out are now at their highest in decades.Democratic Taiwan has learned to live with the warnings of Beijing's authoritarian leaders that they are ready and willing to seize a place it views as part of its territory.But that background static has reached hard-to-ignore levels recently with China's jets now crossing into Taiwan's defence zone at an unprecedented rate and the People's Read More

NICE: French president Emmanuel Macron vowed his country would stand firm against religious extremists after a knife-wielding man killed three people at a church, in the country's second attack blamed on Islamist terrorism this month.France will not "give up on our values," Macron said in Nice, after a Tunisian migrant went on a near half-hour rampage with a 30-centimetre (12-inch) knife, targeting people praying in the southern city's Notre-Dame basilica.A 60-year-old woman died inside the church and the body of a man, a 55-year-old church employee, was found nearby, his throat also slit.Another Read More

WASHINGTON: Melania Trump has been at the receiving end of criticism about everything from her words to her clothes. At times, she has seemed less than enthralled with life in the White House.But come next week, the 50-year-old native Slovenian -- the first foreign-born first lady in two centuries -- might be extending her stay in the East Wing for another four years.Trump, the third wife of her president husband, is a former model with a dazzling gaze who has been a discreet source of support for the US leader, mostly out of the camera frame.In a Read More

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — An investigation into Australia’s catastrophic wildfire season on Friday recommended greater efforts to forecast the impacts of climate change on specific parts of the country, warning fire behavior was becoming more extreme. The Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements began in February while wildfires were ravaging vast swathes of the nation’s southeast in a fire season that is now known as Black Summer. The fires killed at least 33 people including 10 firefighters, destroyed more than 3,000 hones, razed 19 million hectares (47 million acres) and displaced thousands of residents. One firefighter was killed when an extraordinary weather event Read More

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Drew Angerer/Getty Images Facebook "improperly" blocked some political ads due to "technical issues" when implementing its ban on new ads in the week before Election Day, the company said in a blog post Thursday. Facebook said this was an automated process and that "no ad was paused or rejected by a person, or because of any partisan consideration." Biden's campaign had earlier on Thursday slammed Facebook after thousands of its ads were blocked, saying it had "no sense of the scale of the problem, who it is Read More

TAIPEI: At a time when the world is reeling under the Covid-19 pandemic, Taiwan in an astounding feat has gone 200 days without a locally transmitted case.According to the US media report, among the 23 million people, the country has had 550 confirmed cases and seven fatalities even as the virus continues to spread across the world.Cindy Wang and Samson Ellis of the Bloomberg reported that Taiwan had last recorded local case on April 12. "Taiwan is the only major country that has so far been able to keep community transmission of Covid eliminated," Peter Collignon, professor at the Australian Read More

DAKAR: A weekend migrant shipwreck off Senegal has left at least 140 people dead, making it the deadliest so far this year, the International Organization for Migration confirmed Thursday.About 200 passengers set off in the vessel from the Senegalese town of Mbour on Saturday, heading for Spain's Canary Islands, but the boat soon caught fire and sank off Senegal's northwestern coast near Saint Louis. Fifty-nine passengers were saved, IOM said.The deadliest shipwreck comes as the number of boats trying to reach the Canary Islands from Senegal's shores has “significantly increased in recent weeks," the UN migration Read More

Mexico's ex-defense minister Salvador Cienfuegos is accused by the US of drug trafficking and money laundering The United States's shock arrest earlier this month of a former Mexican defense minister on drug trafficking charges has triggered a diplomatic row that experts say could jeopardize the countries' cooperation in fighting powerful cartels. The indictment of General Salvador Cienfuegos, a key figure in ex-president Enrique Pena Nieto's 2012 to 2018 government, caught Mexico by surprise. "Trust and cooperation have been damaged. All protocols between the two countries have been broken," Javier Oliva, a specialist in military affairs at the Read More

NEW YORK (AP) — Debris fell from a supertall skyscraper nearing completion in New York City as the top of a crane spun in the wind Thursday evening, but no one was injured, officials said. Video posted to social media showed the top of the crane revolving in a full circle in rainy weather at the building, which has topped out at over 1,400 feet, on West 57th Street in Manhattan. Fire officials said they started operations at the building shortly before 7 p.m. The Buildings Department sent inspectors. Traffic was shut down in the area, and subway trains were rerouted. The Read More