Tag: US

  • Normalisation of ties with Israel puts Mohammad Bin Salman’s life at risk

    Normalisation of ties with Israel puts Mohammad Bin Salman’s life at risk

    Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS) is at risk of assassination amid his normalisation of ties with Israel, reports Politico, a U.S.-based publication.

    MBS reportedly told a U.S. Congress member that he is risking his life for a significant deal with the U.S. and Israel.

    Posing a question to the U.S., he said, “What did they do to protect Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated after making a peace deal with Israel?”

    The crown prince, however, is reportedly determined to pursue the mega-deal with the U.S. and Israel despite the threats, deeming it pivotal to his country’s future.

  • Regime change ‘America’ ki sazish hai, Shiekh Hasina

    Regime change ‘America’ ki sazish hai, Shiekh Hasina

    Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister (PM) Shiekh Hasina has accused the US of being involved in the regime change in Bangladesh.
    According to NDTV, before leaving the country, Hasina wanted to address the nation but couldn’t because protestors stormed her official residence.

    Hasina shared details of her undelivered speech with close associates in India.
    A letter accessed by NDTV reveals, “I resigned so that I did not have to see the procession of dead bodies. They wanted to come to power over the dead bodies of students, but I did not allow it’’.
    Hasina wrote that she could have remained in power if she had “surrendered the sovereignty of Saint Martin Island and allowed America to hold sway over the Bay of Bengal.”

    “I beseech the people of my land, please do not be manipulated by radicals.”

    It also further added: “Maybe if I had stayed in the country, more lives would have been lost. I have removed myself. You were my strength and did not want me, so I left. I have lost, but the people of Bangladesh have won, the people for whom my father and my family died’’.

  • July remittances post significant hike

    July remittances post significant hike

    The Pakistani diaspora has sent $3 billion back home in July, 48 percent higher than the previous year, The News has reported.
    State Bank Pakistan (SBP) data shows that remittances from Saudi Arabia increased by 56 percent to $761 million in July, while those from the United Arab Emirates increased by $611 million.
    The percentage reflected a 94 percent surge from the UAE compared to July 2023.

    Remittances from the United Kingdom totaled $443 million, a 45 percent increase from the previous year. Workers also sent $300 million from the United States, a 24 percent hike from last July.
    The research director at AKD Securities Limited, Awais Ashraf said, ‘’This increase is mainly due to the movement of worker remittance into the formal channel, spurred by the reduced rate difference between exchange companies and the interbank market’’.

    Throughout FY24, Pakistan posted a current account deficit of $681 million, equivalent to 0.2 percent of the gross domestic product.

  • Western ambassadors to skip Nagasaki memorial after Japan exclude Israel

    Western ambassadors to skip Nagasaki memorial after Japan exclude Israel

    Ambassadors from Western countries including the United States will skip a ceremony marking the 79th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki after Israel was snubbed, officials said Wednesday.

    Nagasaki’s mayor last week said that Israel’s ambassador Gilad Cohen was not invited to Friday’s event in the southern Japanese city because of the risk of possible protests over the Gaza conflict.

    The US and British embassies said on Tuesday that their ambassadors would not take part as a result, and that their countries would be represented by lower-ranking diplomats.

    Media reports said that Australia, Italy, Canada and the European Union, who together with the US, Britain and Germany signed a strongly worded joint letter to Nagasaki’s mayor last month, would follow suit.

    US ambassador Rahm Emanuel will not attend “after the mayor of Nagasaki politicised the event by not inviting the Israeli ambassador”, an embassy spokesperson told AFP.

    Instead Emanuel, 64, who was ex-president Barack Obama’s chief of staff, will go to a separate event at a temple in Tokyo, the spokesperson said.

    The British embassy said that ambassador Julia Longbottom would also not be in Nagasaki, saying that not inviting Israel “creates an unfortunate and misleading equivalency with Russia and Belarus — the only other countries not invited to this year’s ceremony.”

    A spokesperson for the French embassy said that its number two would attend, telling AFP that the “decision not to invite the representative of Israel is regrettable and questionable”.

    Nagasaki mayor Shiro Suzuki had said last week that the decision not to invite Cohen was “not politically motivated” but based on a desire to “hold the ceremony in a peaceful and sombre atmosphere”.

    In June Suzuki said Nagasaki had sent a letter to the Israeli embassy calling for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza.

    Cohen, who was invited to and attended a memorial ceremony on Tuesday in Hiroshima, last week had said the Nagasaki decision “sends a wrong message to the world”.

    “As a close friend and like-minded nation of Japan, Israel has attended this ceremony for many years to honor the victims and their families,” he wrote on social media platform X.

    On Monday Cohen told US broadcaster CNN that the security concerns were “invented” and that he was “really surprised by (Suzuki) hijacking this ceremony for his political motivations.”

    In their letter to Suzuki seen by AFP, the six Western envoys had warned that if Israel was excluded “it would become difficult for us to have high-level participation at this event.”

    Government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi on Wednesday declined to comment, saying invitations were “a decision for the organiser, Nagasaki City.”

    A Nagasaki official in charge of the ceremony said it was “obviously better to have high-level individuals, like ambassadors themselves, taking part”.

    “What is important is that representatives of the countries will attend the ceremony,” he told AFP.

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    © Agence France-Presse

  • Bollywood Star Shah Rukh Khan to get urgent eye care in the US

    Bollywood Star Shah Rukh Khan to get urgent eye care in the US

    Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan is heading to the U.S. for urgent eye treatment after a recent procedure in Mumbai did not go as expected.

    According to Indian media, Shah Rukh Khan is scheduled to fly to the U.S. on Tuesday, July 30, to address complications from the earlier treatment.

    A source close to the actor revealed that Khan had undergone an eye procedure at a Mumbai hospital on July 29, but it did not go as planned. The actor is now being rushed to the U.S. for further treatment.

    Details about his condition and the specifics of the treatment are currently unavailable.

  • China warns US, Japan to ‘stop creating imaginary enemies’

    China warns US, Japan to ‘stop creating imaginary enemies’

    Beijing on Monday warned the United States and Japan to “stop creating imaginary enemies” after the countries lashed out against China’s actions in the South China Sea in Tokyo talks.

    “We strongly urge the US and Japan to immediately stop interfering in China’s internal affairs and stop creating imaginary enemies,” foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said.

    Following talks in the Japanese capital on Sunday, the US and the hosts slammed Beijing’s “destabilizing actions” in the South China Sea while also condemning Russia’s growing military cooperation with China and North Korea.

    US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and their Japanese counterparts “reiterated their strong objections to the PRC’s unlawful maritime claims, militarization of reclaimed features, and threatening and provocative activities in the South China Sea”, a joint statement said, using an acronym for China.

    China’s “destabilizing actions in this region include unsafe encounters at sea and in the air, efforts to disrupt other countries’ offshore resources exploitation, as well as the dangerous use of Coast Guard and maritime militia vessels”, the communique added.

    They accused China of “intensifying attempts to unilaterally change the status quo by force or coercion in the East China Sea” and that Chinese “foreign policy seeks to reshape the international order for its own benefit at the expense of others”.

    China’s Lin on Monday said the joint statement “disregards facts, mixes up right and wrong maliciously attacks China’s foreign policy”.

    He added the communique “crudely meddles in China’s internal affairs, maliciously attacks and smears China on maritime issues, makes thoughtless remarks on China’s normal military development and defence policy, exaggerates and kicks up a fuss about the China threat, and maliciously hypes up regional tensions”.

    “China deplores and firmly opposes this,” Lin said.

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    © Agence France-Presse

  • ‘kamala IS brat’: Pop world backs Harris

    ‘kamala IS brat’: Pop world backs Harris

    The pop world has coalesced rapidly around Kamala Harris’s last-minute candidacy, as the US vice president gets a boost from an online explosion of videos mixing her speeches with hit songs.

    Janelle Monae, John Legend and Charli XCX are among the star musicians who have publicly backed Harris, along with myriad Hollywood endorsements including from George Clooney, Viola Davis, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Robert De Niro.

    Even Beyonce — who is known to strictly guard clearance of her music — reportedly has approved the Harris campaign to use her song “Freedom” on the trail.

    The megastar’s mother, Tina Knowles, quickly backed the now-presumptive Democratic nominee Harris after President Joe Biden’s late-stage election exit.

    Fans have been posting remixes of Harris speeches and interviews — her idiosyncratic phrasings frequently catch meme fire and the past week have been aflame — with music by pop artists of the moment, including star of the summer Charli XCX, Beyonce, Taylor Swift and Chappell Roan.

    It helps that Harris is eminently memeable; plenty of videos show her dancing with physical comedy bordering on slapstick.

    The internet used to mash up those kooky moments to diss the 59-year-old VP — but since Biden’s campaign plummeted following his disastrous debate, the videos appear to be bolstering her presence, notably among chronically online young voters.

    Celebrities have also gotten on board, capturing the marketing moment in the inextricably linked worlds of music and social media while also leaning into Harris’s candidacy.

    British artist Charli XCX in particular has seen her smash album “brat” become core to the early online Harris campaign.

    The “brat summer” meme was already alive and well before Harris became associated with it.

    The trend emphasizes an aesthetic and lifestyle inspired by Charli’s club album that offers a heavy dose of party-girl energy with undertones of youthful anxiety.

    When fans began applying the inescapable lime-green “brat” filter to Kamala Harris images, Charli XCX voiced approval.

    “kamala IS brat,” the 31-year-old pop star posted, a sign-off the Harris campaign quickly embraced.

    In its transition from Biden to Harris, the campaign’s official X account also rebranded as brat-coded, with its cover photo mimicking the album’s neon-green — “Shrek-colored,” as the internet likes to call it — and lo-resolution JPEG vibe.

    Katy Perry, whose anthemic “Roar” was frequently played on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, also pushed her latest single “Woman’s World” while backing Harris.

    She posted a montage clip of Harris with a remix of her song and the now famous “coconut tree” quote that’s also made the presidential hopeful an internet star.

    “It’s a woman’s world, and you’re lucky to be living in it,” sings Perry.

    Cardi B reminded fans she had already said Harris should replace Biden, whom she supported in 2020 after initially backing the socialist-leaning Senator Bernie Sanders.

    Shortly after Biden announced his withdrawal, the Bronx rapper reposted a video she’d made prior in which she says Harris should be the Democratic flag-bearer.

    “STOP PLAYING WIT ME!!!!” she wrote in her caption accompanying the clip, emphasizing her self-proclaimed prescience.

    “Told y’all Kamala should’ve been the 2024 candidate. Y’all be trying to play the Bronx education, baby this what I do!!! Been my passion.. don’t let my accent fool y’all.”

    Cardi B had previously indicated that she wasn’t planning to vote when Biden was the nominee — she did not make clear whether her stance had changed now that Harris was the presumed candidate.

  • Biden tests positive for Covid, fueling health worries

    Biden tests positive for Covid, fueling health worries

    US President Joe Biden tested positive for Covid with mild symptoms Wednesday, shortly after conceding he would consider dropping his reelection bid if doctors diagnosed him with a serious medical condition.

    The 81-year-old Democrat gave reporters the thumbs up and said “I feel good” as he cut short a trip to Las Vegas and flew to his beach home in Delaware to go into isolation, which will take him off the campaign trail for days.

    Biden thanked well-wishers on X, adding that “I will be isolating as I recover, and during this time I will continue to work to get the job done for the American people.”

    The infection comes at a critical moment for Biden’s campaign, with the president seeking to show he is up to the job after a disastrous debate performance against rival Donald Trump sparked concerns about his health and calls from some Democrats for him to step aside.

    It is also the latest development in a tumultuous few days in an already frenetic White House race that saw Trump survive an assassination attempt at a campaign rally.

    Biden was forced to cancel a speech to a union representing Latino workers who will be crucial for his election bid, having attended a campaign event earlier in the day and given a radio interview.

    His spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden was vaccinated and boosted, was now taking the Covid medication Paxlovid and “continues to carry out the full duties of the office while in isolation.”

    White House doctor Kevin O’Connor said Biden had complained of suffering from a runny nose, a cough and “general malaise,” but that “his symptoms remain mild.”

    Biden was seen walking from his limousine to his plane at Las Vegas without a mask. “Good,” he said when asked how he felt, “I feel good.”

    Janet Murguia, the president of the Unidos union for Latino workers, told the crowd about the diagnosis shortly before the White House announcement.

    ‘Pass the torch’

    People waiting for the speech said Biden’s health did not worry them despite the Covid diagnosis.

    “I think he’s strong and he’s going to recover soon,” Anne Vilagut told AFP.

    But Biden’s illness comes as concerns over the fitness of the oldest US president in US history reach fever pitch.

    Asked what could make him rethink his presidential bid, Biden told the Black media outlet BET in an interview taped Tuesday in Las Vegas: “If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if the doctors came and said ‘you’ve got this problem, that problem.’”

    Biden has so far refused to drop out, and blamed his debate debacle, when he appeared tired and confused, on a bad cold and jet lag.

    But US broadcaster ABC News reported Wednesday that Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had told Biden over the weekend that it would be “better for the country if he were to bow out,” in what would be a fatal blow.

    A spokesperson for Schumer played down the report, saying: “Unless ABC’s source is Senator Chuck Schumer or President Joe Biden the reporting is idle speculation.”

    “Leader Schumer conveyed the views of his caucus directly to President Biden.”

    The Washington Post and New York Times meanwhile reported that both Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries had warned Biden that his candidacy puts the party’s electoral prospects at risk.

    White House spokesman Andrew Bates pushed back in a statement, saying: “The President told both leaders he is the nominee of the party, he plans to win, and looks forward to working with both of them to pass his 100 days agenda to help working families.”

    Adding further pressure, CNN reported that former House speaker Nancy Pelosi privately told Biden he cannot win and could harm Democrats’ chances of recapturing the lower chamber of Congress.

    Earlier on Wednesday, Representative Adam Schiff of California became the highest-profile Democrat to publicly urge Biden to “pass the torch.”

    “A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy, and I have serious concerns about whether the President can defeat Donald Trump in November,” Schiff said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times.

    Biden insists that Democratic voters support him, but a poll by the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research said Wednesday that nearly two-thirds want him to step aside.

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    © Agence France-Presse

  • Kardashians in India for billionaire wedding gala

    Kardashians in India for billionaire wedding gala

    Socialite sisters Kim and Khloe Kardashian were among the global celebrities spotted in India on Friday to attend a lavish three-day wedding ceremony staged by Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani.

    Ambani’s youngest son Anant and fiancee Radhika Merchant, both 29, will tie the knot over the weekend in the financial capital Mumbai following months of pre-marriage parties that have set a new benchmark in matrimonial extravagance.

    Earlier celebrations included a European cruise for 1,200 guests, a purpose-built Hindu temple at the Ambani family’s ancestral home and private performances by R&B star Rihanna and Canada’s Justin Bieber.

    The Kardashians are the latest in a long line of famous foreign VIPs to make an appearance.

    Elder sister Kim shared an Instagram story showing her car mobbed by Indian photographers shortly after her arrival and both siblings receiving flower garlands from staff at their luxury hotel.

    Fellow celebrity guests including actor John Cena posed for cameras on the red carpet upon their arrival at the venue, a huge convention centre owned by the Ambani family’s conglomerate.

    Former British prime ministers Boris Johnson and Tony Blair were also spotted by reporters arriving at Mumbai airport ahead of the party beginning later on Friday.

    In June, the couple embarked on a four-day Mediterranean cruise, where singer Katy Perry performed at a masquerade ball at a French chateau in Cannes.

    The Backstreet Boys, US rapper Pitbull and Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli also provided entertainment.

    Guests at earlier galas have included Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and former US president Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, along with a who’s who of India’s sporting and entertainment worlds.

    This week’s opulent celebrations are set to raise the bar further, with even more celebrities, politicians and global business elites jetting into monsoon-hit Mumbai.

    Several major roads around the venue have been closed off to the public by authorities for most of the weekend.

    Friday will see the main formal ceremony at the 16,000-person capacity venue, with a separate “blessing ceremony” on Saturday and a grand reception on Sunday.

    – $123 billion fortune –

    Anant’s father Mukesh is chairman of Reliance Industries, a family-founded conglomerate that has grown into India’s biggest company by market cap.

    The patriarch is the world’s 11th richest person with a fortune of more than $123 billion, according to Forbes, and is no stranger to making a statement when it comes to family marriages.

    He held the most expensive wedding in India to date for his daughter in 2018, which reportedly cost $100 million and saw US singer Beyonce perform.

    Ambani is also a key ally of India’s right-wing Hindu nationalist leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

    He inherited a thriving industrial enterprise spanning oil, gas and petrochemicals and grew it into a commercial behemoth.

    Its lucrative interests include retail partnerships with Armani and other luxury brands, more than 40 percent of India’s mobile phone market and an Indian Premier League cricket team.

    His 27-floor family home Antilia is one of Mumbai’s most prominent landmarks, reportedly costing more than $1 billion to build and with a permanent staff of 600 servants.

    Merchant is the daughter of well-known pharmaceutical moguls.

  • Some like it not: LA bars demolition of Marilyn Monroe home

    Some like it not: LA bars demolition of Marilyn Monroe home

    The Los Angeles home where Marilyn Monroe died was declared a historic landmark on Wednesday, thwarting plans by its current owners to demolish the property.

    The house was home to the “Some Like It Hot” screen siren for the final six months of her life up to her death from a drug overdose in 1962.

    More than half a century on, Monroe remains one of the most beloved figures in US pop culture, and fans as well as conservationists have closely followed a row over the future of the home.

    Property heiress Brinah Milstein and her reality TV producer husband Roy Bank bought the Spanish Colonial-style home in the swanky Brentwood neighbourhood last summer for $8.35 million.

    The couple owned the house next door and intended to combine the two properties. That construction would have involved razing the Monroe home.

    But when a demolition permit was issued last September, a furore quickly followed, and local politicians moved quickly to designate the building protected status.

    Last month, the owners sued the city of Los Angeles for “illegal and unconstitutional conduct.”

    Their petition noted Monroe had “occasionally” lived in the home for “a mere six months”, and the couple claim that more than a dozen previous owners since 1962 have already changed the building beyond recognition.

    Those objections were overruled Wednesday, as city councillors approved the designation of the house as a historic cultural monument.

    Monroe bought the 3,000-square-foot single-story hacienda in 1962 just after her divorce from playwright Arthur Miller.

    “There is no other person or place in the city of Los Angeles as iconic as Marilyn Monroe and her Brentwood home,” said councillor Traci Park, whose district includes the house in question.

    “Some of the most world-famous images ever taken of her were in that home, on those grounds and near her pool.

    “There is likely no woman in history or culture who captures the imagination of the public the way Marilyn Monroe did. Even all these years later, her story still resonates and inspires many of us today.”

    Monroe’s smouldering looks and breathy delivery made her one of the most bankable movie stars of her era.

    The “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” star was linked during her lifetime with some of the most eligible men of her era, including president John F. Kennedy, famously singing “Happy Birthday, Mr President” at Madison Square Garden.