At least one killed as Taliban targets civil servants in Kabul
A suicide attack in Kabul targeting employees of Afghanistan's Attorney General 's office killed at least one person, and injured more than a dozen others. Deborah Lutterbeck reports.
A suicide attack in Kabul targeting employees of Afghanistan's Attorney General 's office killed at least one person, and injured more than a dozen others. Deborah Lutterbeck reports.
Nintendo said Tuesday it will make an announcement about a highly anticipated new console by the end of March 2025 as sales decline of the hugely popular Switch, which is now in its eighth year."We will make an announcement about the successor to Nintendo Switch within this fiscal year," said a post on social media platform X that was attributed to company president Shuntaro Furukawa.
Amazon launched its online shopping service in South Africa on Tuesday, challenging a number of online retailers dominated by Naspers' Takealot.com. Africa's most advanced economy is usually seen as a good entry point for companies to expand into the continent and Amazon could be doing the same, analysts have said in the past. The launch of its service comes at a time when South Africa has seen a sharp rise in online shopping after the pandemic created an opportunity for e-commerce to finally take hold, with retailers doubling down on investments in response.
Rescuers scrambled Tuesday to search for some 50 people trapped under rubble after the collapse of a multi-storey building under construction in the South African city of George killing five people. "Three teams of rescue personnel are currently working on three different areas within the site of the collapsed building," they said on Tuesday.
Oil giant Saudi Aramco said Tuesday its first-quarter net profit dipped 14.5 percent on year to $27.27 billion as the Gulf kingdom kept production cuts in place.Net income was 102.27 billion riyals ($27.27 billion), down from 119.54 billion riyals ($31.88 billion) for the same period in 2023, Aramco said in a filing with the Saudi stock market.
The CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Binance on Tuesday accused Nigeria of setting a dangerous precedent after its executives were invited to the African country and then detained as part of a crackdown on crypto. Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange and two of its executives face separate trials on tax evasion and money laundering, which the company is challenging. CEO Richard Teng said in a statement it was time to speak out against the detention of Tigran Gambaryan, a U.S. citizen and Binance head of financial crime compliance.
British officials say the names and bank details of thousands of serving British soldiers, sailors and air force members have been exposed in a data breach at a payroll system. The Ministry of Defense said Defense Secretary Grant Shapps would make a statement in the House of Commons on Tuesday afternoon “setting out the multi-point plan to support and protect personnel.” The ministry would not comment on a Sky News report that Chinese hackers are suspected of carrying out the cyberattack.
At least two people were killed and another 21 injured in a knife attack in a hospital in China’s southwestern province of Yunnan on Tuesday, state media reported, citing official sources.
Malaysia will not interfere in business relations between arms manufacturers and other countries, its defense minister said Tuesday, after protesters demanded that the government expel companies that supply weapons to Israel from an international exhibition. More than 1,300 companies from 60 nations are participating in Defense Services Asia and the concurrent National Security Asia exhibitions that started Monday. The events are hosted and co-organized by Malaysia's Defense Ministry and Home Affairs Ministry.
The Israeli army said it took "operational control" of the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt on Tuesday and that troops were scanning the area."Right now at the moment what's happening, we have operational control over the Gazan side of Rafah crossing, and we have special forces scanning the area to find additional terror infrastructure or terrorists," the military said.
Microsoft was hit with a Spanish startup group's complaint about its cloud practices to the Spanish antitrust regulator on Tuesday, the latest grievance over its fast-growing cloud computing services and which followed a trade group's EU complaint. The U.S. tech giant ranks second in the cloud computing sector, behind market leader Amazon but is expected to close the gap rapidly as a clutch of generative AI features powered by OpenAI's technology attract business users. The Spanish Startup Association, which represents more than 700 startups in Spain, cited a number of allegedly anti-competitive practices by Microsoft in recent years.
An Israeli tank brigade has seized control of the Gaza Strip side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, authorities say, moving forward with an offensive in the southern city even as cease-fire negotiations with Hamas remain on a knife’s edge. Israel, meanwhile, insisted the deal did not meet its core demands. The high-stakes diplomatic moves and military brinkmanship left a glimmer of hope alive — but only barely — for an accord that could bring at least a pause in the 7-month-old war that has devastated the Gaza Strip.
Most markets built on the latest global rally Tuesday as optimism that the US Federal Reserve will cut interest rates this year continued to breeze through trading floors.Investors will be keeping an eye on comments from Fed officials this week in light of the recent jobs data, which came after three months of forecast-beating inflation figures that had seen markets lower their rate cut expectations to less than two -- from six at the start of the year.
Norway and Moldova on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding to tighten cooperation in the energy sector aimed at securing supply in the eastern European country that is trying to end its long-standing reliance on Russia. The agreement aims to "promote and enhance cooperation in the field of energy; including but not limited to, energy transition and energy security, as well as to encourage new investments in the energy sector".
Palestinian civilians told to evacuate eastern Rafah by the Israeli military have described their fear and despair at being uprooted from their homes and shelters, as Israel airstrikes hit Gaza’s southernmost city.
The United States sees Iran's capacity to move its oil as reliant on service providers based in Malaysia, with oil being transferred near Singapore and throughout the region, the U.S. Treasury Department's top sanctions official said on Tuesday. Brian Nelson, Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, was speaking during a four-day visit to Singapore and Malaysia, which the department said aimed to advance its work in countering financing and revenue generation by Iran and its proxies.
GEORGE, South Africa (Reuters) -Rescuers searched through the debris of a multi-storey building collapse in the South African city of George early on Tuesday that has left at least five people dead and dozens still trapped. President Cyril Ramaphosa offered his condolences to the families of the deceased and called for an investigation. "Investigations into the cause of the incident must aim to bring closure to the community and prevent a repeat of this disaster," Ramaphosa's office said in a statement.
TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan's Nintendo said on Tuesday it plans to make an announcement about the successor to its long-lasting Switch console during the financial year ending March 2025. Nintendo has extended the lifecycle of the Switch device with hit titles such as "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom", with the market focused on the prospects for a smooth transition to next-generation hardware. The Kyoto-based gaming company said it expects to sell 13.5 million Switch units in the current financial year as it tries to squeeze further sales from the aging device.
TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan has described as "regrettable" U.S. President Joe Biden's comment that "xenophobia" is stifling the Asian nation's economic growth, the top government spokesperson said on Tuesday. Last week Biden said "xenophobia" in economies from China to Japan and India was hobbling their growth, while arguing at a Washington fund-raising event that migration has been good for the U.S. economy. "We lodged representations to the United States that the comment was not based on the correct understanding of Japan's policy and regrettable," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told a regular news conference, without elaborating.
Asian markets forged higher Tuesday after another day of gains on Wall Street led by technology stocks. U.S. futures were nearly flat and oil prices edged higher. The advance was led by semiconductor companies like Tokyo Electron, which closed 4.8% higher, and Advantest, which picked up 2.2%.
Swiss banking giant UBS on Tuesday said first quarter net profit rose 71 percent to nearly $1.8 billion, far exceeding expectations, after two quarters in the red due to the mammoth takeover of Credit Suisse.In the first quarter of last year, UBS had posted a net profit of just over $1 billion.