Author: News Desk

British inflation shot up faster than expected last month to hit a new 30-year high, worsening a historic squeeze on household finances that finance minister Rishi Sunak is under pressure to ease in a budget update later on Wednesday. The Office for National Statistics said consumer prices rose by 6.2% in February after a 5.5% rise in January, its highest rate since March 1992. The median forecast in a Reuters poll of economists had pointed to a reading of 5.9% and only three of the 39 respondents had expected such a strong reading. The ONS highlighted household energy bills -…

Russian energy giant Gazprom said on Wednesday it was continuing to supply natural gas to Europe via Ukraine in line with requests from European consumers. The company said requests stood at 106.5 million cubic metres for March 23, down from 108 million cubic metres for March 22.

Heavy rain in southern China on Wednesday halted the search for victims and flight information black boxes that could tell why a China Eastern Airlines passenger plane plunged into a mountainside two days earlier with 132 people on board. Rain water was filling the depression in the soft soil caused by the impact of the crash, state television reported, and the local weather bureau said there were risks of landslides, torrents and high winds as conditions deteriorated in the mountains of Guangxi region. The wet weather was forecast to last for the rest of the week. Flight MU5735 was en…

South Korea’s total coronavirus infections topped 10 million, or nearly 20% of its population, authorities said on Wednesday, as surging severe cases and deaths increasingly put a strain on crematories and funeral homes nationwide. The country has been battling a record COVID-19 wave driven by the highly infectious Omicron variant even as it largely scrapped its once aggressive tracing and quarantine efforts and eased social distancing curbs. The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) reported 490,881 cases for Tuesday, the second highest daily tally after it peaked at 621,205 on March 16. The total caseload rose to 10,427,247, with…

Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to attend a G20 summit being hosted by Indonesia later this year, Russia’s ambassador in Jakarta said on Wednesday, following calls by some members for the country to be barred from the group. “Not only G20, many organisations are trying to expel Russia….the reaction of the West is absolutely disproportional,” ambassador Lyudmila Vorobieva told a news conference on Wednesday. The United States and its Western allies are assessing whether Russia should remain within the Group of Twenty (G20) grouping of major economies following its invasion of Ukraine, sources involved in the discussions told Reuters.

Taiwan is considering extending compulsory military service beyond the current four months, Defence Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said on Wednesday, as the war in Ukraine renewed a discussion about how best to respond to China’s military threats. Taiwan has been gradually shifting from a conscript military to a volunteer-dominated professional force, but China’s growing pressure against the island it claims as its own, as well as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have prompted debate about how to boost civil defence. Answering lawmakers’ questions in parliament, Chiu said that proposals to extend military service were still under consideration, and that there would “definitely”…

World number one Ashleigh Barty has shocked the sporting world by announcing she will retire from professional tennis at just 25. The Australian made the announcement on social media on Wednesday, saying she was leaving to “chase other dreams”. “I’m so happy and I’m so ready. And I just know at the moment in my heart, for me as a person, this is right,” she said in a video. Barty won her first Grand Slam at the 2019 French Open. She has remained the top-ranked player since then, backed up by success at Wimbledon last year. In January, she became…

Japan reacted angrily on Tuesday after Russia withdrew from peace treaty talks with Japan and froze joint economic projects related to the disputed Kuril islands because of Japanese sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia and Japan have not formally ended World War Two hostilities because of their standoff over islands, seized by the Soviet Union at the end of World War Two, just off Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido. The islands are known in Russia as the Kurils and in Japan as the Northern Territories. Japan has imposed sanctions on 76 individuals, seven banks and 12 other bodies in…

Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2022 recorded an unprecedented increase of 50% in international tourists compared to 2019, due to the collaboration between BTEA, Gulf Air, and Bahrain International Circuit (BIC). BIC CEO Shaikh Salman bin Isa Al Khalifa said that this unprecedented achievement underscores the success of the combined efforts to put on a phenomenal season for this annual event, which Bahrain has hosted since 2004, and in line with the “New Era” of Formula 1, as a radically new set of regulations come into force – all designed to produce even more spectacular racing. Shaikh Salman…

He survived the Nazi Buchenwald concentration camp during World War II. He survived the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp in the same war. And the Bergen-Belsen camp. Last week, Boris Romanchenko, a 96-year-old Holocaust survivor, was killed when shelling hit his ordinary flat in the war-ravaged Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. “It is with horror that we report the violent death of Boris Romanchenko in the war in Ukraine,” the memorial for the Buchenwald survivors said on Monday in a statement. The multi-storey apartment building where Romanchenko lived was shelled and caught on fire,” said the statement. Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, has…