Author: News Desk

New Delhi, India: The troubled Indian conglomerate Adani Group has cancelled a highly anticipated share offer amid an intensifying crisis brought on by fraud allegations that have destroyed more than $90 billion in value from the power-to-ports enterprise and increased the likelihood of forced asset sales. As banks analyse their exposure, the continuous selling has also raised concerns about ‘how Adani’, which manages Australia’s contentious Carmichael coalmine and rail project in Queensland, would fulfil its loan obligations. The Indian business sought to allay concerns by concluding a $2.5 billion share sale intended, in part, to pay off debt, one week…

Ukraine: The Ukrainian Defence Minister Mr. Oleksii Reznikov has warned that Russia is planning a major offensive to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the war with the country on February 24. The Defence Minister claimed that numbers at the border suggest the true size could be closer to 500,000, referring to Russia’s general mobilisation of 300,000 conscripted soldiers in September 2022. “We do not underestimate our enemy. Officially, they announced 300,000 troops, but when we see the troops at the borders, according to our assessments, it is much more,” Mr. Reznikov commented. The country’s President Mr. Volodymyr Zelenskiy shared…

Indonesia: Residents of the Indonesian island of Pulau Pari have filed a complaint against the Swiss cement tycoon Holcim, seeking compensation for climate harm according to the NGO supporting them. As per the Swiss Church Aid (HEKS), a non-governmental organization that promotes climate justice, the island, which is in danger of submerging, flooded five times last year. The complaint asks Holcim to fund flood protection measures on the scenic island north of Jakarta as well as compensate for damage already done to the island. Additionally, they urge that the Swiss organisation drastically cut its carbon dioxide emissions. “For the first time,…

Australia: A hazardous radioactive capsule that was lost along a 1,400 KM (870 MI) stretch of road in Australia’s Outback has reportedly been found. Emergency Services revealed at a news conference that the military was verifying the capsule, which was discovered on the side of the road just outside of Newman, and would take it to a secure facility in Perth, after over a week of searching. “When you consider the scope of the research area, locating this object was a monumental challenge, the search groups have quite literally found the needle in the haystack,” emergency services minister Mr. Stephen…

Europe: A new study found that planting more trees could mean fewer people die from the increasingly high summer temperatures in cities. According to the study conducted on 93 European cities, increasing the level of tree cover from the European average of 14.9 percent to 30 percent can help lower the temperature in cities by 0.4 °C, which could eventually reduce heat-related deaths by 39.5 percent. The lead author of the study published in the medical journal, Lancet, Ms. Tamara Lungman, from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, remarked that “this is becoming increasingly urgent as Europe experiences more extreme…

Australia: The Prime Minister of New Zealand Mr. Chris Hipkins has welcomed Australia’s statement that it will change how it handles deporting NZ citizens who have served more than a year in an Australian prison. The deportations of the New Zealanders have damaged the trans-Tasman relationship for years, despite their often shaky ties to New Zealand. The Australian Immigration Minister, Mr. Andrew Giles, has issued a ministerial directive to his department to pay more attention to a person’s strength, duration, and kind of connection to the Australian community rather than amending section 501 of Australia’s Migration Act. The Australian government…

United States: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has reported that a green-hued comet is expected to be the most visible to stargazers on February 1 as it shoots past Earth and the sun for the first time in about 50,000 years. The comet, named “dirty snowball” after its discovery less than a year ago, last passed close to Earth during Neanderthal times. On February 1, the comet will pass within 42 million kilometres (26 million miles) of Earth before speeding away, unlikely to return for millions of years. The cosmic visitor is already visible in a clear northern…

United States: The United States has accused Russia of violating the New START treaty, claiming Moscow was refusing to allow inspection activities on its territory. The treaty is considered the last major pillar of post-Cold War nuclear arms control between the two countries. The treaty came into force in 2011 and was extended for five more years in 2021. It limits the number of strategic nuclear weapons that the countries can deploy and the deployment of land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them. The two countries still account for about 90 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads. “Russia’s…

Hong Kong, China: Samsung’s quarterly profits fell to their lowest level in eight years as customers purchased fewer cell phones and laptop computers. It was the company’s lowest quarterly profit since the third quarter of 2014 when its smartphone business fell behind competitors substantially. “Due to weak demand amid a global economic slowdown, the business environment deteriorated significantly in the fourth quarter,” Samsung remarked in a statement. The bleak outcomes were expected. Analysts cited falling memory chip prices and fewer orders of consumer devices as reasons for Samsung’s poor performance in a pre-earnings forecast earlier this month. The electronics maker…

France: A new study has stated that the difference between the carbon emissions of the rich and the poor within a country is now greater than the differences in emissions between countries. The report found evidence for a growing divide between the “polluting elite” of rich people around the world and the relatively low responsibility for emissions among the rest of the population. In a report entitled Climate Inequality Report 2023, economists from the World Inequality Lab dissect where carbon emissions are currently coming from. The report found that “carbon inequalities within countries now appear to be greater than carbon inequalities…