International News

A Taiwanese activist jailed in China returned to Taiwan on Friday after completing a five-year sentence. Li Ming-che, a community college lecturer and activist at a human rights non-governmental organisation in Taiwan, disappeared while visiting China in 2017. Later that year, a Chinese court found him guilty of subversion in a...

A Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, Mette Knudsen has condemned Taliban's ban on girl's attending school. Knudsen told the Diplomatic Corps during a briefing that the decision by the Taliban negatively impacted the attitude of the global community towards them. “Taliban’s decision to ban girls from attending secondary schools has negatively impacted...

Sri Lanka has urged Pakistan to expedite the pending financial assistance offered by the country amid a serious economic crisis. The proposed financial facilities include grant assistance of Pakistan Rs 5.2 crore for sports, a credit line of $10 million for procurement of defence equipment, a new defence credit facility worth $50 million and...

Imran Khan, the cricketer turned philanthropist and then politician, has been dislodged from power in Pakistan after several days of tumultuous political drama. Khan had managed to assume power in the 2018 general elections with backing from the country’s powerful military and due to the public appeal of his promised “tsunami of change,” which was meant to...

Pakistan's new government is facing the daunting task of managing a stuttering economy with huge deficits, an aide to new Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Tuesday. Sharif, 70, the younger brother of former premier Nawaz Sharif, was elected as prime minister on Monday followed a week-long constitutional crisis after parliament ousted Imran Khan...

When Chinese Premier Li Keqiang called for a “sense of urgency” about growing economic risks during a meeting with provincial officials earlier this week, it was his third such warning in days. “We need to be highly vigilant for unexpected changes in the international and domestic situations, and downward economic pressure has further mounted,”...

A Chinese national has been sentenced to 29 months in prison after pleading guilty in January to conspiring to steal trade secrets from agricultural company Monsanto to benefit the Chinese government, the U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday. Xiang Haitao, 44, who was employed by Monsanto and a subsidiary from 2008 to 2017, had...

 Dozens of Chinese firms have built software that uses artificial intelligence to sort data collected on residents, amid high demand from authorities seeking to upgrade their surveillance tools, a Reuters review of government documents shows. According to more than 50 publicly available documents examined by Reuters, dozens of entities in China have over the...

Activists in Afghanistan are up in arms following the closure of girls' schools for learners above grade 6. The deputy special envoy of the UN for Afghanistan, Mette Knudsen has termed the decision “discriminatory,” saying that its impact will deeply affect the future generation in “terms of literacy and numeracy and will contribute to...

Supreme Court hearing adjourned till Thursday Pakistan’s Supreme Court has again delayed its ruling on the legality of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s move to dissolve parliament and call for fresh elections. A five-judge bench of Pakistan’s top court is hearing multiple petitions challenging Khan’s dissolution of parliament after parliament’s deputy...