Category: WORLD NEWS

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has warned top ruling party officials of the “grave situation” facing the nuclear-armed state’s economy and called for urgent corrective measures. His comments, reported Monday by state media, came on the second day of a key party meeting held ahead of a year-end deadline for Washington to shift its stance on stalled nuclear talks with Pyongyang. Kim, who chaired the meeting, said the time had come to bring about a “decisive turn” in the North’s economic development. He presented the assembled officials with “tasks…

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Embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told supporters Friday he would win a March general election after scoring a landslide victory in the leadership primary of his right-wing Likud party.Israel’s longest-serving premier, who faces a corruption indictment as well as a third general election in 12 months, was expected to beat rival Gideon Saar in the leadership primary.But the convincing margin of victory — by 72.5 to 27.5 percent — strengthens his position in the party he has dominated for 20 years.Netanyahu, 70, called it a “huge win” and pledged…

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Embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared a “huge” victory Friday, after winning a leadership primary that ensures he will lead his right-wing Likud party into a March general election. Israel’s longest-serving premier, who faces a corruption indictment and a third general election in 12 months, was expected to beat rival Gideon Saar but the convincing margin of victory strengthened his position in the party he has dominated for 20 years. With all votes counted, the Likud announced that Netanyahu had secured 72.5 percent, with Saar winning 27.5 percent. “A…

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Iraqi anti-government protesters blocked roads and bridges in Baghdad and the country’s south Thursday after torching several buildings overnight.The demonstrators oppose the entire political class and have vented their anger against leaders who are negotiating to nominate an establishment insider as the next prime minister.”The government is hostage to corrupt parties and sectarian divisions”, said one activist, Sattar Jabbar, 25, in the southern city of Nasiriyah.Smoke and flames from burning tyres in Nasiriyah, Basra and Diwaniyah blocked major roads and bridges across the Euphrates all night, AFP correspondents said, before…

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The Pakistan government has denied permission to PML-N vice president Maryam Nawaz to travel abroad, saying those involved in any economic crime and institutional fraud could not be allowed to leave the country, according to a media report on Monday.Maryam, the 46-year-old daughter of Pakistan’s former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, was placed on the no-fly list in August 2018 in an alleged corruption case.”The rules concerning placement of the name of persons on Exit Control List (ECL) do not allow the government to entertain her application to remove her name…

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The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor has said she wanted to open a full investigation into alleged war crimes in the Palestinian territories, sparking a furious reaction from Israel and condemnation from the United States.The Palestinians welcomed the move by the ICC as a “long overdue step” following a nearly five-year preliminary probe by the prosecutor into the situation since the 2014 war in Gaza.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the decision made the Hague-based court, which Israel has refused to sign up to since its creation in 2002, a “political…

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US President Donald Trump pressed his Republican allies Thursday to exert rigid control of his Senate trial and ensure a swift exoneration, a day after he was impeached in a historic rebuke by the House of Representatives. A bitter fight looms over the coming trial, expected to begin as early as the second week of January, with Senate leaders already drawing battle lines over the evidence that will be allowed. But its fate was left in limbo late Thursday when the Senate’s powerful majority leader, Mitch McConnell signalled the standoff…

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President Donald Trump was impeached for abuse of power in a historic vote in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, setting up a Senate trial on removing him from office after three turbulent years. By a 230 to 197 vote in the Democratic-majority House, the 45th US president becomes just the third occupant of the White House in American history to be impeached. Democrats said they had “no choice” but to formally charge the Republican president, whose impeachment along stark party lines places an indelible stain on his record while…

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US President Donald Trump in a scathing letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought to halt impeachment proceedings against him by the lower chamber of the Congress, which is all set to start the process with a debate on Wednesday. “This impeachment represents an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power by Democrat lawmakers, unequaled in nearly two and a half centuries of the American legislative history,” Trump said in a letter to the Pelosi. Asserting that the Articles of Impeachment introduced by the House Judiciary Committee are not recognisable under…

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