Author: HeraldStar

Malawi’s former President Peter Mutharika has taken a comfortable lead in the country’s presidential race, with two-thirds of districts having reported provisional results. The 85-year old has received around 66% of the valid votes counted so far, with his closest rival, the incumbent Lazarus Chakwera, 70, trailing on around 24%. Results declared so far indicate that Mutharika has won in areas known to be Chakwera strongholds, including the capital, Lilongwe, and Nkhotakota. But Chakwera’s camp has not given up, saying that once results are declared from other areas, his vote will increase and he could force a run-off. A candidate…

A new artificial intelligence tool designed to crack down on fraud has helped the UK government recover almost £500m over the last year, the BBC can reveal. More than a third of the money clawed back related to fraudulent activity during the Covid-19 pandemic, with other cash being recouped from unlawful council tax claims and illegal subletting of social housing. The government will announce later that a new AI tool which has helped to identify the fraud will now be licensed to other countries, including the US and Australia. Civil liberties campaigners have previously criticised the Labour government for its…

Russia’s finance ministry proposed raising the rate of value-added tax on Wednesday to 22% from 20% in 2026 to fund military spending in what would be the fifth year of the war in Ukraine. The proposal comes as U.S. President Donald Trump called Russia a “paper tiger” for “fighting aimlessly for three and a half years” and said that President Vladimir Putin and Russia were in “big economic trouble”. Putin signalled last week that he was open to raising certain taxes to make financial ends meet during the war, noting that the United States had raised taxes on wealthy people during the Vietnam…

The United States expects to finalise trade deals with more Southeast Asian countries in the coming months, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said during a meeting with regional counterparts on Wednesday. Greer was speaking in Kuala Lumpur at the start of a meeting with economic ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, amid concerns within the export-reliant bloc over the impact of U.S. tariffs on their economies. Tariff rates have been set at 19% and 20% for most of the region. Laos and Myanmar have been hit with a 40% rate, while Singapore has a 10% tariff. Greer said…

A group representing nearly all major automakers asked the Trump administration Tuesday to roll back aggressive vehicle emissions limits that seek to force the industry to build a rising number of electric vehicles. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents General Motors (GM.N), opens new tab, Toyota Motor (7203.T), opens new tab, Volkswagen (VOWG.DE), opens new tab, Hyundai (005380.KS), opens new tab and other major automakers, said in a filing with the Environmental Protection Agency that legislation signed by President Donald Trump in June will increase the effective price of EVs and could lead to a near-term decline in EV market share. They argue rules finalized…

The Inter-American Development Bank is aiming to attract private capital to Latin America by helping turn a pool of up to $500 billion of regional local loans into investable global assets, the lender said on Tuesday. ReInvest+, a partnership between the IDB Group and Brazil’s presidency of the COP30, seeks to convert performing loans already on local bank balance sheets into investment-grade, hard-currency securities by adding political and foreign exchange risk insurance. The move is designed to attract institutional investors who typically shy away from early-stage, unrated, and local-currency projects. “Up until now, we’ve asked investors to change their risk…

International Monetary Fund staff will visit Kenya from September 25 to October 9 to begin talks with the government on a possible IMF-backed programme, the Fund said on Wednesday. The East African nation’s $3.6 billion programme with the IMF expired in April and officials, including the governor of the central bank Kamau Thugge, have expressed interest in getting a new one that will include a lending component. “An IMF staff team will begin initial discussions in the coming days on a possible Fund-supported programme,” Haimanot Teferra, the IMF’s mission chief for Kenya, said in a statement. Kenya’s dollar bonds perked up after…

Oil prices inched up on Wednesday as an industry report showed U.S. crude inventories declined last week, adding to a sense in the market of tightening supplies. Brent futures rose 26 cents to $67.89 a barrel by 0810 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures also gained 26 cents at $63.67. “The market is expecting supply excess and stock builds globally in the last quarter of the year, but the focus recently has shifted back to Eastern Europe and the possible introduction of fresh sanctions on Russia,” said PVM Oil Associates analyst Tamas Varga. The stalled resumption of Kurdish oil…

Norwegian police said on Tuesday they were investigating a blast on a street in central Oslo and later conducted a controlled detonation of a second explosive device found on the site, adding that a suspect had been apprehended for questioning. There were no reports of injuries at the location, in the immediate vicinity of a university campus and some 500 metres (546 yards) from the royal palace and the Israeli embassy. In a rare step, authorities sent an emergency message to Oslo residents’ mobile phones, warning them about the blast. The second device found at the site appeared to be…

Typhoon Ragasa, the world’s most powerful tropical cyclone this year, barreled towards tens of millions of people in southern China on Wednesday after killing 14 people in Taiwan, leaving scores missing and lashing Hong Kong with ferocious winds and heavy rains. Some 129 people are missing in Taiwan’s eastern Hualien county, after a barrier lake overflowed and sent a wall of water into a town, the Taiwan fire department said on Wednesday, with Ragasa’s outer rim having drenched the island since Monday. Many residents in the tourist town of Guangfu complained there was insufficient warning from Taiwan authorities, who are used to…