Author: News Desk

Finland’s national railway operator will suspend services between Helsinki and Saint Petersburg in Russia on Monday, closing one of the last public transport routes to the European Union for Russians. Given sanctions on Russia, the operator VR had been directed by the state that it was no longer appropriate to run the service to Saint Petersburg, known as the Allegro, its head of passenger traffic Topi Simola said in a statement on Friday. “So we are suspending the traffic for the time being,” Simola said. Trains from Russia to Finland’s capital Helsinki have been full of Russians since the invasion…

Russian stocks fell on Friday in their second day of trading after a near month-long suspension, with losses led by flag carrier Aeroflot, which has lost more than a quarter of its value over two days to plunge to its lowest since 2009. Commodity stocks led a resurgent market on Thursday, many making double-digit gains, but securities slid lower across the board on Friday. The benchmark MOEX stock index closed 3.7% lower at 2,484.13 points. It had closed 4.4% higher on Thursday. The dollar-denominated RTS index fell 2.7% to 829.6 points. Prior to Thursday, stocks had not traded on Moscow’s bourse…

North Korea’s latest launch was a big, new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), state media reported on Friday, in a test leader Kim Jong Un said was designed to demonstrate the might of its nuclear force and deter any U.S. military moves. The Thursday launch was the first full ICBM test by nuclear-armed North Korea since 2017. Flight data indicated the missile flew higher and longer than any of North Korea’s previous tests before crashing into the sea west of Japan. Called the Hwasong-17, the ICBM would be the largest liquid-fuelled missile ever launched by any country from a road-mobile launcher,…

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said he wouldn’t resign, rejecting opposition calls to step down ahead of a no-confidence move against him in his toughest challenge since coming to power in 2018. Pakistan’s parliament will convene on Friday to start proceedings into the no-confidence motion, that could take seven days to actually go for voting to decide whether Khan will be removed. The no confidence move has risked constitutional, administrative and economic crises amid a pending International Monetary Fund review to issue next tranche of a $6 billion rescue package, which was scheduled this week but has yet to happen.…

Japan does not know how Russia will handle the required rouble payments for its energy sold to “unfriendly” countries, the finance minister said on Thursday. Japan accounted for 4.1% of Russia’s crude oil exports and 7.2% of its natural gas exports in 2021. “Currently, we’re looking into the situation with relevant ministries as we don’t quite understand what is (Russia’s) intention and how they would do this,” Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said in a parliament session. The government will also coordinate with Japanese companies to collect information about the move, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a Thursday news conference.…

North Korea fired what is thought to be an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) toward the sea off its east coast on Thursday, militaries in South Korea and Japan said. It would be the first full-capability launch of the nuclear-armed state’s largest missiles since 2017, and represent a major escalation in the North’s development of weapons potentially able to deliver nuclear warheads anywhere in the United States. The North’s return to major weapons tests also poses a new national security headache for U.S. President Joe Biden as he responds to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and presents a challenge to South Korea’s…

New daily COVID-19 cases in the Chinese commercial hub of Shanghai remained close to 1,000 on Thursday as authorities scrambled to identify and isolate asymptomatic infections, though a leading expert said the outbreak was being contained. Though the number of cases in Shanghai remains small by global standards, the densely populated city has become a testing ground for China’s “zero-COVID” strategy as it tries to bring the highly infectious Omicron variant under control. In a meeting on Wednesday, Shanghai’s Communist Party leaders emphasised the need to continue testing, implementing “closed loops” and cutting off transmission chains in order to bring…

Recovery crews searched in light rain for a second black box from a China Eastern Airlines passenger plane that plunged into a mountainside with 132 people on board, as more information emerged about the pilots of the flight. A first black box found on Wednesday was the cockpit voice recorder based on an early assessment, a Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) official told reporters. The recording material appeared to have survived the impact in relatively good shape, and was being sent to Beijing for analysis, the official said. The cockpit voice recorder would provide investigators with details of the communications…

A senior Taiwanese official said on Thursday he did not see China adopting a “reunification law” as it would put too much pressure on Beijing to set a timetable for bringing the island under its control, which could severely raise tensions. China, which views democratically run Taiwan as its own territory, has not officially proposed such legislation, which would be a follow-up to a 2005 law giving Beijing the legal basis for military action if it judges Taiwan to have seceded or to be about to. But it has been discussed in state media, and last week a spokesperson for…

Bahrain’s Deputy Prime Minister H.E. Shaikh Khalid bin Abdulla Al Khalifa today inaugurated the Lulu Group’s anchor store in the new waterfront retail space at the Danaat Al Lawzi project in Hamad Town. He was welcomed by LuLu Group Chairman and Managing Director, Mr. Yusuffali M.A., alongside H.E. Zayed Rashid Alzayani Minister of Industry, Commerce & Tourism, H.E. Engineer Basem bin Yaqoub Al Hamar, Minister of Housing, Indian Ambassador Mr. Piyush Srivastava, Mr. Ahmed Jaafar Mohammed Al Hayki Assistant Undersecretary for Labour Affairs at the Ministry of Labour and Social Development, RHF Secretary-General Dr. Mustafa Al Sayed other VIP dignitaries & Senior officials of LuLu Group. Also…