World

The lender will dispatch a team to discuss the terms of a potential new lending program following reports of embezzlement The International Monetary Fund (IMF) plans to engage with Kiev on corruption, the global lender said on Thursday, as a $100 million graft scandal has rocked Vladimir Zelensky’s government. On Monday, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) charged seven people including …

A man was shot by police at a major train station in Paris while attempting to cut the throats of his wife and child, reports from local media suggest. Journalist Jean-Baptise Marty said Montparnasse station was placed under lockdown while police carried out their operation. He wrote on X: “Completely locked-down sector at station #montparnasse: a man who threatened to …

Hong Kong police have recorded more than 40 cases of online romance scams in the past two weeks, including one of a 52-year-old woman who lost over HK$2.6 million (US$334,500) to a swindler posing as a “Singaporean businessman”. The force on Friday said the cases involved losses totalling over HK$17 million. It added that more than 40 per cent of …

Donald Trump is not, by instinct, a president who seeks war. But he is a president who believes deeply in projecting strength. And in the US, strength is almost always performed on the world stage. Assessing American policy from the outside is notoriously difficult. The country’s political system was built under unusual conditions – a state invented by immigrants, animated …

Vladimir Putin ‘regularly’ cheated on his long-term partner with an underage beauty pageant contestant who posed for a racy calendar marking his birthday. The school-leaver was secretly smuggled into his official residence or a bolthole when gymnast Alina Kabaeva – now 42 – was away. Startling new revelations from Russian investigative journalists cover the despot’s relationship with Alisa Kharcheva, aged …

Hong Kong’s anti-corruption watchdog has arrested three people for allegedly reposting online content inciting others to abstain from voting or to cast invalid ballots in the coming Legislative Council election. The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) said on Friday that the suspects – two men and one woman, aged 55 to 66 – were arrested on the same day. The …

The move comes amid a diplomatic thaw in ties between New Delhi and Beijing following a pact in 2024 to ease border tensions India has launched an airbase in Ladakh near its border with China, according to media reports. The Mudh-Nyoma air force station is 14 miles (23 km) from the border with China, Hindustan Times reported. The airbase, situated …

Malaysia predicts growth this year is likely to approach 4.8 per cent after a resurgent exports sector defied the impact of US tariffs in the third quarter. The nation’s growth rate in 2025 is set to be “closer to” the upper range of the official forecast of 4 per cent to 4.8 per cent, and may even exceed it, Bank …

A British man is believed to have died in Turkey following a hair transplant and dental work. The 36-year-old tourist reportedly arrived in Istanbul last week before undergoing a hair procedure in the Fulya district. The man then allegedly underwent dental work the following day in the Ayazaga neighbourhood. Following both treatments, he returned to his hotel in the Sisli …

Kiev’s agents planned to assassinate their target during a visit to a cemetery in Moscow, the agency has said Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has said that it has foiled a Ukrainian plan to launch a terrorist attack against a senior government official in Moscow. Kiev’s agents planned to assassinate the unnamed official during his visit to the graves of …