India has introduced a new excise duty on cigarettes, ranging from 2,050 to 8,500 rupees ($22.8–$94.5) per thousand sticks depending on product length, the finance ministry announced late Wednesday. The levy, effective
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Oil prices were little changed on Wednesday, but both Brent and U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) are set to finish 2025 with steep annual losses, Reuters reports. Brent crude futures rose 11
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“Zootopia 2” has become Walt Disney Animation Studios’ highest-grossing film ever, surpassing 2019’s “Frozen 2,” the company announced Wednesday. The animated sequel has earned approximately $1.46 billion globally, marking it as the
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Elon Musk’s company Neuralink will begin “high-volume production” of its brain-computer interface (BCI) devices and transition to fully automated surgical implantation in 2026, Musk announced Wednesday on the social media platform X.
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Tehran witnessed a series of tense developments as Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence conducted a nighttime raid at the dormitory of Shahid Beheshti University, arresting several students suspected of collaborating with foreign agencies
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In the decades following World War II, US food aid programs were promoted as humanitarian lifelines for newly independent and crisis-stricken nations. But historical accounts and critics argue that these initiatives often
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Consumer technology is entering a new phase in which devices once used solely for entertainment are beginning to monitor the most intimate human signals: brain activity itself. A growing number of earbuds
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“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.” — Buddha Those who wield falsehood and deceit often imagine that a single lie can obscure an entire reality,
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Climate change has compounded natural disasters, making them increasingly complex and challenging to manage as security issues, particularly for climate-vulnerable states with inadequate infrastructure. Pakistan, one of the countries most exposed to
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The passing away of veteran singer Mrs Latha Walpola, “The Queen of Songs of Lanka”, has created an unfillable void in the Lankan music world. The boundless body of creations she gifted
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Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has issued a stark warning, claiming that intelligence gathered by his government indicates Somaliland has agreed to a set of far-reaching demands from Israel that could dramatically
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Israel has announced it will suspend the operations of more than two dozen humanitarian organizations in Gaza starting January 1, 2026, a move that will affect an estimated 25 to 38 groups,
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Editorial The New Year arrives with its familiar trick: a new number that politely suggests improvement without requiring it. Calendars change obediently; behaviour less so. Optimism is briefly reheated, promises are generously
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China has encircled Taiwan with one of its most expansive and coordinated military exercises to date, conducting large-scale live-fire drills over the past 48 hours that simulated the seizure of key ports,
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China is quietly imposing a sweeping new requirement on its semiconductor industry, forcing chipmakers to use at least 50% domestically produced equipment when adding new manufacturing capacity, according to three people familiar
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