Xi Jinping, who is soon expected to be anointed for an unprecedented third term in office as China's ruling Communist Party (CCP) holds its 20th Congress, has become his country's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong.. Xi has amassed seemingly unchecked power and a level of officially-stoked adulation unseen since Communist China's founder Mao.
Cash-strapped Sri Lanka's president announced further tax hikes and sweeping reforms on Tuesday, saying that bailout talks with the International Monetary Fund were in the "final stage".. "Negotiations with the International Monetary Fund have successfully reached its final stage," Wickremesinghe told parliament.
Up to 200,000 people are stranded in remote Pakistan valleys after the unrelenting floods of the past week -- with helicopters the only way of reaching them.. So far 21 deaths have been reported in the area's valleys –- mostly as a result of collapsed houses -- but a handful of people were washed away by floods.
Intense fighting was raging on Tuesday across the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson occupied by Russia, Kyiv's presidency said, as its troops pressed counter-offensives "in various directions".. But the Ukrainian presidency claimed its forces had destroyed "almost all large bridges" and that "only pedestrian crossings remain" in Kherson region.
The damage inflicted by a United States drone that killed 10 members of Aimal Ahmadi's family in the Afghan capital can still be seen in the courtyard of his home a year after the strike.. The 10 family members, including seven children, were near a family car when they were mistakenly targeted by a US drone.
More than 50,000 fighters including former rebels from rival camps in South Sudan's civil war were set to be integrated into the country's army in a long-overdue graduation ceremony on Tuesday.. Many of the new graduates will carry sticks instead of guns at the ceremony, because of a years-long arms embargo imposed by the UN Security Council.
Catastrophic monsoon floods in Pakistan have sent food prices skyrocketing, putting many staples out of the reach of the poor as the cash-strapped nation battles shortages.. She told AFP she had to forego some items on her shopping list because inflation had put them out of reach.
For years, the sprawling military base at Bagram, just north of Kabul, was a potent symbol of the United States' two decades of war in Afghanistan.. But weeks before Washington officially ended its military presence in Afghanistan last August, US troops left the airbase in the dead of night.
Textiles designer Brigitte Singh lovingly lays out a piece of cloth embossed with a red poppy plant she says was probably designed for emperor Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal, four centuries ago.. It was her father-in-law, a major collector of Rajasthan miniatures, who gave her the Mughal-era poppy cloth connected to Shah Jahan.
Aid efforts ramped up across flooded Pakistan on Tuesday to help tens of millions of people affected by relentless monsoon rains that have submerged a third of the country and claimed more than 1,100 lives.. Authorities and charities are struggling to accelerate aid delivery to more than 33 million people affected, a challenging task in areas cut off because roads and bridges have been washed away.
