World

London, Oct 18: American author George Saunders won the prestigious Man Booker Prize for fiction on Tuesday for Lincoln in the Bardo, a polyphonic symphony of a novel about restless souls adrift in the afterlife. It is the second year in a row an American has won the £50,000 ($66,000) prize, which was opened to U.S. authors in 2014. “I feel kind of numb,” said Saunders, who said disbelief and

Paris, Oct 17: Bangladesh has announced plans to build a refugee camp that could accommodate around 800,000 Rohingya Muslims pouring over the border from Myanmar. The camp would be the largest in the world and has raised concerns about the risks of concentrating vulnerable people, such as the spread of disease. Around 550,000 Rohingya have fled communal bloodshed in Myanmar since the latest

Valletta, Oct 17: Daphne Caruana Galizia, a Maltese investigative journalist who exposed her island nation’s links to offshore tax havens through the leaked Panama Papers was killed on Monday when a bomb exploded in her car, Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said. Ms. Galizia, 53, had just driven away from her home in Mosta, a town outside Malta’s capital of Valletta, when the bomb went off

Mogadishu, Oct 16: The Mogadishu bombing is one of the deadliest attacks in sub-Saharan Africa, larger than the Garissa University attack in Kenya in 2015. The most powerful bomb blast ever witnessed in Somalia’s capital killed 276 people with around 300 others injured, the country’s information minister said early today, making it the deadliest single attack in this Horn of Africa nation. The

Washington, Oct 15: Days after the International Monetary Fund lowered its growth forecast for the current and the next year, IMF chief Christine Lagarde on Saturday said the Indian economy is on a "very solid track" in the mid-term. "We have slightly downgraded India, but believe that the country is for the medium and long-term on a growth track that is much more solid as a result of the

Washington, Oct 15: Despite the global upswing in economic activity, the IMF's steering committee has warned policymakers to guard against complacency, citing medium-term economic risks and rising geopolitical tensions. The International Monetary and Finance Committee (IMFC), in a communique issued, said there has been a notable pickup in investment, trade, and industrial production. "But, the

Canberra, Oct 14: An Etihad Airways flight bound for Sydney from Abu Dhabi made an emergency landing in the Australian city of Adelaide on Saturday, after pilots noticed a smoke alarm on board. The Boeing 777 aircraft was carrying 349 people when pilots made the decision to divert to Adelaide at about 5 aam, Xinhua news agency reported. In a statement detailing the diversion, a spokesperson from

Washington, Oct 13: The United States of America on Thursday announced its withdrawal from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), accusing it of “continuing anti-Israel bias.” UNESCO is the first UN agency to have admitted Palestine as a full member in 2011. As required by its controversial law, the U.S. has stopped funding UNESCO since then. The U.S

Washington, Oct 13: President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an order to make it easier for Americans to buy bare-bones health insurance plans, using his presidential powers to undermine Obamacare after fellow Republicans in Congress failed to repeal the 2010 law. Trump issued the executive order aimed at letting small businesses band together across state lines to buy cheaper, less regulated

Washington, Oct 12: North Korea has fired 22 missiles, including two across Japan, during 15 tests since February this year, drawing a sharp reaction from the US and its allies. US President Donald Trump has said that he has a different approach on North Korea’s recent missile and nuclear tests, asserting that the problem has reached a point where “something has to be done”. North Korea has fired