Author: Disha Mishra

(Reuters) – Chinese President Xi Jinping said Beijing is ready to work with Hanoi to build a community with a shared future of strategic significance, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday. The remark came in a congratulatory message by Xi to Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party chief To Lam and President Luong Cuong to mark the 75th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries. China’s concept of building a “community with a shared future” is extended to countries with which it desires to build a long term relationship based on strong alignment of goals, interests and even ideology.…

(Reuters) – South Korea’s impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol attended a court hearing on Saturday to fight a request by investigators to extend his detention on accusations of insurrection, his lawyer said. Yoon on Wednesday became the country’s first sitting president to be arrested, in a criminal probe related to his short-lived declaration of martial law on Dec. 3. Investigators requested a detention warrant on Friday to extend their custody of Yoon for up to 20 days. He has been refusing to talk to investigators and has been held in Seoul Detention Centre since his arrest. Police were seen breaking…

(Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian deepened military ties between their countries on Friday by signing a 20-year strategic partnership that is likely to worry the West. Under the agreement, Russia and Iran will boost cooperation in a range of areas including their security services, military drills, warship port visits and joint officer training. Neither will allow their territory to be used for any action that threatens the other and will provide no help to an aggressor attacking either nation, according to the text, which also said they would work together to counter military…

(Reuters) – Israel’s cabinet approved a deal with Palestinian militant group Hamas for a ceasefire and release of hostages in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Saturday, a day ahead of the agreement’s scheduled start. In the early hours of Saturday after meeting for more than six hours, the government ratified the agreement that could pave the way for an end to the 15-month-old war in the Palestinian enclave, which Hamas controls. “The Government has approved the framework for the return of the hostages. The framework for the hostages’ release will come into effect on Sunday,”…

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld on Friday a law banning TikTok in the United States on national security grounds if its Chinese parent company ByteDance does not sell the short-video app by Sunday, as the justices in a 9-0 decision declined to rescue a platform used by about half of all Americans. The justices ruled that the law, passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress last year and signed by Democratic President Joe Biden, did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protection against government abridgment of free speech. The justices affirmed a lower court’s decision that had upheld…

French President Emmanuel Macron called on Israel on Friday to accelerate its troop withdrawal from southern Lebanon, as a deadline nears for the pullout under the terms of a ceasefire that ended the war with Hezbollah last year. Speaking during a visit to Beirut, Macron also said Lebanon’s military must have a total monopoly on weapons, and he voiced France’s support for strengthening the Lebanese army’s deployment in the south. “We need a total withdrawal of the Israeli army,” Macron said, speaking alongside Lebanon’s new president, Joseph Aoun, who commanded the Lebanese military until parliament elected him as head of…

The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced on Friday it had fined credit reporting bureau Equifax $15 million for failing to sufficiently investigate consumer disputes of its credit reports. The bureau said Equifax ignored consumer documents and evidence submitted alongside disputes, allowed previously flagged inaccuracies to return to credit reports, and relied on flawed software code, leading to inaccurate credit scores. A spokesperson for Equifax did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Under the settlement, Equifax agreed to pay $15 million into the CFPB’s victim relief fund and fix its dispute resolution processes. (Reuters)

President Joe Biden, who leaves office next week, announced on Friday that he was commuting the sentences of nearly 2,500 people convicted of non-violent drug offenses, saying he has now issued more individual pardons and commutations than any predecessor. Those benefiting from Friday’s action “are serving disproportionately long sentences compared to the sentences they would receive today under current law, policy, and practice,” Biden said in a statement. The move provides clemency relief to individuals who were sentenced based on discredited distinctions between crack and powder cocaine and outdated sentencing enhancements for drug crimes, according to the statement issued by…

Botswana’s economy is expected to grow 3% to 4% in 2025 after a contraction last year, a senior government official said at a budget workshop on Friday, as the global diamond market is anticipated to recover. The Southern African country’s economy shrunk 3.3% in the first three quarters of 2024, raising government expectation of a bigger contraction than the 1.7% forecast in December. An updated contraction estimate was not given. “The domestic economy is anticipated to rebound in 2025 to a growth of 3-4%, reflecting a combination of base effects, the global recovery in the major diamond export markets and…

India’s economic growth is poised to rebound as domestic demand regains strength, but “stickiness” in food inflation warrants careful monitoring, the central bank said in its monthly bulletin released on Friday. In India, there is a “conducive quickening” of high-frequency economic activity indicators in the second half of 2024-25, signalling implicit pick up in real gross domestic product growth for this period, the Reserve Bank of India said in an article titled ‘State of the Economy’ in the bulletin. Rural demand continues to gain momentum, reflecting resilience in consumption, supported by brighter agricultural prospects, the RBI said. A revival in…