WORLD

While illegal immigration from Bangladesh continues to remain a political issue in India, the Bangladesh border force chief told his Indian counterpart that the country's economy is growing steadily and that there is no need for its citizens to go to India to earn a living. He also asked India to ensure that Bangladeshi citizens are not harmed at the border and to curb the smuggling of arms and ammunition from India to Bangladesh.

The issues were discussed during the three-day Director General (DG)-level talks between the Border Security Force (BSF) and Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) that concluded on Thursday in Dhaka.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was left waiting and fidgeting for nearly 50 seconds by his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan ahead of an official meeting in Tehran on Tuesday. The video of the same is now going viral, prompting social media users to wonder whether it was an act of revenge by Erdogan as the Russian President has a history of making other leaders, including Erdogan, wait before talks.

The video, released by the Turkish presidency, showed Putin walking inside the meeting room, only to find it empty. He then stood in front of his chair and the two flags of the nation, with his hands clasped, mouth twitching. He can then be seen changing his stance as Erdogane enters the room.

Russia has defaulted on the supply of at least 5 cargoes or shiploads of LNG to India after its retaliatory sanctions hit one of the companies that supply gas to India, sources said. India’s largest gas firm GAIL has a long-term deal to import 2.85 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) per annum from a Singapore-based unit of Russian gas producer Gazprom.

The company has since June defaulted on the supply of 5 cargoes of LNG under that contract citing difficulty in sourcing gas due to sanctions, two sources briefed on the matter said. While the contract provides for making up of the volumes not supplied later, the Russian firm has so far nor indicated how and when it will make up for the lost volumes.

Ousted premier Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf on Sunday made a 'clean sweep' in the crucial Punjab assembly by-polls, in a major setback to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif whose Chief Minister son Hamza Shehbaz is all set to lose his post. The election for the chief minister will be held on July 22 on the Supreme Court's order and PTI-PMLQ joint candidate Chaudhary Parvez Elahi is likely to be the new chief minister of politically crucial province Punjab.

According to unofficial results so far, the PTI has secured victory on 16 seats while Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) just three. An independent candidate has also won.

Vote for "anyone but Rishi Sunak" is Boris Johnson's message to his allies as the race to choose Britain's next prime minister heats up, local media reported. Boris Johnson, who found himself in a puddle of scandals in the middle of his tenure as the UK PM, was forced to resign his post and as the leader of the Conservative Party.

The UK's caretaker PM has been urging Tory candidates, who are losing to Sunak in the initial rounds, not to back his former Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Even as Johnson said that he would stay away from the contest and not endorse or publicly intervene in the election process, he reportedly spoke with failed contenders to get them to not back Sunak.