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Pakistan’s ailing former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who was last week allowed to go to London for medical treatment for multiple diseases, will undergo an advanced cardiac test to be followed by a non-surgical heart procedure, media reports said on Tuesday. Sharif, 69, left for London on November 19 in an air ambulance for medical treatment after the Lahore High Court allowed him to travel abroad for four weeks. Doctors examining Sharif have recommended Sharif for cardiac catheterisation before a possible coronary angioplasty, a non-surgical procedure that improves blood flow…

Hong Kong’s pro-democracy camp was cruising towards a crushing victory in community-level elections on Monday, sending the Beijing-backed government a clear message of public support for the demands of a protest movement that has gripped the territory for months. Counting was still under way following record turnout in Sunday’s polls, but partial results indicated that candidates favouring greater democracy were on course to seize a shock majority of the normally establishment-dominated 18 district councils. The stunning result was a humiliating rebuke to Beijing and dashed any lingering hopes of Hong…

Pope Francis Sunday railed against atomic weapons, the nuclear deterrent and the growing arms trade, as he paid tribute to the victims of the “unspeakable horror” of the Nagasaki bomb.In a highly symbolic visit to the Japanese city devastated by the nuclear attack in August 1945, Francis said nuclear weapons were “not the answer” to a desire for security, peace and stability.”Indeed they seem always to thwart it,” he said.At least 74,000 people died from the atomic bomb unleashed on the city in western Japan — just three days after…