Category: Latest News

SYDNEY: In the latest move targeting the lucrative education sector, which has been a key source of immigration, Australia’s ruling Labour Party announced on Monday that, if reelected, it would increase visa fees for overseas students to A$2,000 ($1,279).

Australia’s Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher stated on Labor’s policy costings for Saturday’s federal poll that the increase in visa fees, from the current A$1,600, will generate A$760 million over the next four years.

“We think that’s a sensible measure that really prizes, I think, the value of studying here in Australia,” Gallagher told a news conference.

The government more than doubled the fee for international student visas in July last year to A$1,600 from A$710.

Australia’s conservative opposition has already pledged to raise the visa fee to a minimum of A$2,500, and A$5,000 for applicants to the country’s top universities, known as the Group of Eight.

International students are a major source of revenue for Australian universities, but are also in part responsible for a rise in net migration that has driven up housing costs.

Almost 200,000 international students arrived in Australia in February 2025, government statistics show, an increase of 12.1% over the previous year and 7.3% higher than pre-Covid levels in February 2019.

Labor has promised to cap international student commencements at 270,000 in 2025, while the opposition favours a lower figure of 240,000.

There were more than a million international students enrolled in Australia in 2024, while 572,000 students commenced their studies.

Visa fees for students in Australia are already significantly higher than similar countries such as the US and Canada, where they cost about $185 and C$150 ($108) respectively.

The government last year also tightened English language requirements for student and graduate visas, as well as introducing powers to suspend education providers from recruiting international students if they repeatedly break rules.

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday declared a three-day ceasefire in the war with Ukraine next month to mark the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet Union and its allies in World War Two.

The Kremlin said the 72-hour ceasefire would run from the start of May 8 to the end of May 10.

“All military actions are suspended for this period. Russia believes that the Ukrainian side should follow this example,” it said in a statement.

“In the event of violations by the Ukrainian side, Russia’s armed forces will give an adequate and effective response.”

There was no immediate response from Kyiv to the unilateral truce announcement – the second by Putin in quick succession, following a 30-hour Easter ceasefire that each side accused the other of violating countless times.

Against a background of increasing impatience from the United States, both moves appeared aimed by the Kremlin leader at signalling to US President Donald Trump that Russia is still interested in peace. Ukraine and its European allies say they do not believe this.

The latest announcement came after Trump criticised Putin for a deadly Russian attack on Kyiv last week and voiced concern at the weekend that Putin was “just tapping me along”.

Washington has repeatedly threatened to abandon its peace efforts unless there is real progress.

India has signed a contract to purchase 26 Rafale fighter jets from France, New Delhi’s defence ministry said Monday, with the multi-billion-dollar deal to include both single and twin-seat planes.

When delivered, the jets would join 36 French-made Rafale fighters already acquired by New Delhi as part of its efforts to rapidly modernise its military hardware.

“The governments of India and France have signed an inter-governmental agreement for the procurement of 26 Rafale Aircraft,” the defence ministry said in a statement.

The jets made by French aerospace company Dassault Aviation are expected to operate from Indian-made aircraft carriers, replacing the Russian MiG-29K jets.

“It includes training, simulator, associated equipment, weapons and performance-based logistics” as well as 22 single-seater and four twin-seater jets, said India’s defence ministry.

“It also includes additional equipment for the existing Rafale fleet of the Indian Air Force (IAF).”

The Indian government announced its intention to procure 26 Rafales in 2023, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited France for the Bastille Day celebrations.

Despite historical ties with Russia as its key supplier for military equipment, India has diversified in recent years with key purchases including from France as well as from the United States and Israel.

Dassault said that the jets will provide India with “state-of-the-art capabilities” and an “active role in guaranteeing national sovereignty and consolidating India’s role as a major international player”.

India’s navy is the first user outside France of the Rafale Marine jet, the company said.

Tensions with Pakistan

Monday’s deal comes as India’s relations with arch-rival Pakistan plummet to fresh lows.

New Delhi has accused Pakistan of backing the deadliest attack on civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir since 2000 — claims Islamabad denies.

The two countries have exchanged gunfire, diplomatic barbs, expelled each other’s citizens and shut border since the April 22 attack, in which 26 men were killed.

Analysts say there is also a serious risk of the crisis turning into a military escalation.

The earlier contract for 36 Rafale aircraft, agreed in 2016, was worth about $9.4 billion.

Many global arms suppliers see the world’s most populous nation — and fifth-largest economy — a key market.

India has become the world’s largest arms importer with purchases steadily rising to account for nearly 10 percent of all imports globally in 2019-23, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said last year.

India has also eyed with worry its northern neighbour China, especially since a deadly 2020 clash between their troops.

That sparked a wave of defence reforms in the country, with both a push for fresh contracts from foreign suppliers and simplified laws to push domestic manufacturing and co-production of critical military hardware.

This decade India has opened an expansive new helicopter factory, launched its first homemade aircraft carrier, and conducted a successful long-range hypersonic missile test.

That in turn has fostered a growing arms export market which saw sales last year worth $2.63 billion — still a tiny amount compared to established players, but a 30-fold increase in a decade.

India has deepened defence cooperation with Western countries in recent years, including the Quad alliance with the United States, Japan and Australia.

A man suspected of stabbing a young Malian to death in a mosque in southern France and filming his victim writhing in agony has surrendered to police in Italy, a prosecutor told AFP on Monday.

The suspect, “Olivier A.”, a French national born in Lyon in 2004, “surrendered himself to a police station in Pistoia” near Florence, on Sunday, Abdelkrim Grini, the prosecutor of the southern city of Ales, who is in charge of the case, told AFP.

“This is very satisfying for me as a prosecutor. Faced with the effectiveness of the measures put in place, the suspect had no option but to hand himself in, and that is the best thing he could have done,” said Grini.

A European arrest warrant will be issued for his transfer across the border to France, the prosecutor said.

More than 70 French police officers had been mobilised since Friday to “locate and arrest” the perpetrator, considered “potentially extremely dangerous”, the prosecutor said.

“After boasting about his act, after practically claiming responsibility for it, he made comments that would suggest he intended to commit similar acts again,” Grini had said on Sunday.

The suspect is from a Bosnian family, unemployed, and with ties to the southern Gard region. He lived in the small town of La Grande Combe which lies north of Ales.

“He was someone who had remained under the radar of the justice system and the police, and who had never been in the news until these tragic events,” Grini had said on Sunday.

In La Grand-Combe, more than 1,000 people gathered on Sunday for a silent march in memory of the victim, Aboubakar Cisse, who was in his twenties.

They marched from the Khadidja Mosque, where the stabbing occurred, to the town hall.

Several hundred people also gathered in Paris later Sunday, including three-time presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, who accused Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau of cultivating an “Islamophobic climate”.

“Racism and hatred based on religion will never have a place in France,” President Emmanuel Macron said on X on Sunday, expressing “the nation’s support” to the victim’s family and “to our Muslim compatriots”.

OTTAWA: Canadian leaders made their final push for votes Sunday, one day before an election dominated by US President Donald Trump’s policies, but rattled in the campaign’s final hours by a deadly car-ramming attack in Vancouver.

Prime Minister Mark Carney, the Liberal Party leader, is favoured to beat Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre in Monday’s vote, but polls show the race has tightened in recent days.

The prime minister briefly paused his campaign schedule on Sunday to address the nation after a driver plowed into a crowd at a Filipino street festival in the west coast city, killing 11 people.

Carney, a 60-year-old father of four, teared up as he voiced support for those affected.

“Last night families lost a sister, a brother, a mother, a father, a son, or a daughter,” Carney said. “Those families are living every family’s nightmare.”

After cancelling an earlier event near Vancouver, the Liberal campaign said Carney would visit the city later on Sunday.

A 30-year-old man who police said had a history of mental health issues and previous interactions with law enforcement was in custody following the attack that injured dozens.

Poilievre, appearing alongside his wife at a church in the election battleground city of Mississauga west of Toronto, condemned the attack as a “senseless act of violence.”

“Our hearts are with you today. All Canadians are united in solidarity with the Filipino community,” Poilievre said.

The Vancouver attack briefly shifted the nation’s focus away from Trump, whose trade war and threats to annex Washington’s northern neighbour have outraged Canadians.

Polling consistently shows Canadians believe Carney — a former investment banker who also led the central banks of Canada and Britain — is the strongest candidate to take on Washington.

“This is an existential issue that we’re facing,” Ottawa resident Brian Carr told AFP on Sunday, referring to US government hostility.

Carr, 79, said he was supporting Carney because the Liberal leader “has demonstrated throughout his career that he is capable of leading and dealing with financial issues.”

Julie Dunbar, a 72-year-old Ottawa resident, told AFP she was impressed by Carney’s “experience on the international stage.”

Since replacing Justin Trudeau as prime minister on March 14, Carney has sought to convince voters that his resume has prepared him to lead Canada through a trade war and respond to tariffs that are pinching key sectors like auto and steel.

‘One more day’

Poilievre, a 45-year-old who has been in parliament for two decades, has worked to keep the focus on living costs that soared during Trudeau’s decade in power, arguing Carney would bring a continuation of what he calls failed Liberal governance.

Addressing an enthusiastic crowd in the southern Ontario city of Oakville on Sunday, Poilievre told supporters “time is running out.”

“Only one more day to bring home change so that Canadians can afford food and homes and live on safe streets,” he said.

At the rally, Tory supporter Janice Wyner told AFP that the country was “just in a mess.”

“I’m 70 years old. It’s not even a country that I recognise and I’m worried for my grandkids,” she said.

Her estimation of the Liberals was not flattering, saying Trudeau’s “policies stunk and it’s the same party.”

Poll swings

At the start of the year, Poilievre appeared on track to be Canada’s next prime minister.

His party led the Liberals by more than 20 points in most polls on January 6, the day Trudeau announced his plans to resign.

But the Trudeau-for-Carney swap, combined with nationwide unease about Trump, has transformed the race.

Public broadcaster CBC’s poll aggregator on Sunday put the Liberals’ national support at 42.8%, with the Conservatives at 38.8%.

As with US elections, national polling numbers may not predict a result.

When voting closes on Monday, Conservatives will be closely watching the performance of the left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP) and the separatist Bloc Quebecois.

In past Canadian elections, strong NDP performances in Ontario and British Columbia, and a good showing by the Bloc in Quebec, have curbed Liberal seat tallies, but polls suggest both smaller parties could be facing a setback.

US Vice President JD Vance met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi after a red carpet welcome in New Delhi on Monday, as India bids for an early trade deal to stave off punishing tariffs.

Modi’s office said that there had been “significant progress in the negotiations” with the two countries negotiating the first tranche of a trade deal.

New Delhi hopes to secure relief within the 90-day pause on tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump this month.

Vance’s office similarly reported “significant progress” in the talks and said the two men had established a roadmap for how economic discussions will proceed.

His four-day visit comes two months after Modi held talks at the White House with Trump, who unveiled 26% tariffs on India.

An honour guard and troupes of folk dancers greeted Vance after he stepped out into the sweltering sunshine of New Delhi on Monday morning, the start of a four-day tour that will include trips to the historic fort city of Jaipur and the Taj Mahal.

“Ad-Vance-ing” US-India ties, broadcaster NDTV headlined its stories.

Modi, who welcomed Vance to his residence on Monday evening with a bear hug, photographs released by the Indian government showed, later hosted Vance and his family for dinner.

The men discussed boosting “cooperation in energy, defence strategic technologies and other areas”, Modi’s office said, without giving further details.

Vance’s visit comes during an escalating trade war between the United States and China. India’s neighbour and rival faces US levies of up to 145% on many products.

Beijing has responded with duties of 125% on US goods. New Delhi has reacted cautiously so far.

India’s Department of Commerce said after the tariffs were announced it was “carefully examining the implications”, adding it was “also studying the opportunities that may arise”.

The two leaders were also expected to discuss China, seen as a challenger in different domains by both governments. The two democracies are also a part of the “Quad” group with Australia and Japan.

The US vice president is accompanied by his wife Usha, the daughter of Indian immigrants.

Together with their three children, dressed in traditional flowing Indian attire, they visited the Hindu Akshardham Temple in New Delhi.

Modi said during his visit to Washington that the world’s largest and fifth-largest economies would work on a “mutually beneficial trade agreement”.

The United States is a crucial market for India’s information technology and services sectors but Washington in turn has made billions of dollars in new military hardware sales to New Delhi in recent years.

Modi said he “looks forward” to a visit by Trump to India later this year, New Delhi said in a statement, with a potential Quad summit slated.

Vance, 40, a devout Catholic convert, arrived in New Delhi a day after meeting Pope Francis in the Vatican.

The vice president said his “heart goes out to the millions of Christians all over the world who loved him”, after the Vatican announced the death of the pope on Monday.

Pope Francis died Monday morning from complications stemming from a stroke that caused coma and irreversible heart failure, the Vatican confirmed in an official statement, AFP reported.

The 88-year-old leader of the Catholic Church passed away at 7:35 am in his Santa Marta residence apartment. 

The Vatican’s death certificate, signed by health director Professor Andrea Arcangeli, cited “cerebral stroke, coma, irreversible cardiocirculatory collapse” as the cause.

Francis had faced serious health challenges in recent months, including a five-week hospital stay for double pneumonia. 

He had nearly died during that time, and the Vatican now confirms he suffered from additional conditions: arterial hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, and chronic bronchiectasis — none of which had been disclosed publicly before.

These health issues, especially his respiratory ailments, were compounded by the stroke that ultimately led to his death. 

The Vatican had previously downplayed concerns about his condition, but Monday’s certificate painted a more dire picture of his declining health.

ROME: Pope Francis’ last resting place is the Santa Maria Maggiore basilica, a fifth-century church in the heart of Rome that already houses the tombs of seven popes.

Francis, who passed away on Monday at the age of 88, is the first pope in over a century to not be interred in the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Basilica.

Francis was very devoted to the worship of the Virgin Mary and made a point of praying in Santa Maria Maggiore before leaving on trips abroad and upon his return to Rome.

Most recently, Francis prayed to the icon of the Virgin Mary inside the basilica on April 12, to mark the beginning of the Holy Week that culminated in Easter.

Francis declared his desire to be entombed in the basilica — known in English as the Basilica of Saint Mary Major — in 2023.

The last pope to be buried there was Clement IX in 1669.

The last pontiff to be buried outside the Vatican was Leo XIII in 1903, whose final resting place is the Church of Saint John Lateran, the Cathedral of the bishop of Rome.

One of four papal basilicas in Rome, Santa Maria Maggiore holds the remains of several other renowned personalities, such as the architect and sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who designed St Peter’s Square and its surrounding columns.

The interior of Santa Maria Maggiore remains close to its origins. The central nave is lined by 40 Ionic columns and contains exquisite mosaics.

One legend ties the basilica to the Virgin Mary from its origins. It says that a childless wealthy Roman couple wanted to donate their possessions to the Virgin Mary.

She appeared to them in a vision and told them to build a church in her honour, where a miracle would take place. Snow fell that summer night in August 352 on the hill where the basilica now stands.

Another legend has Pope Liberius being told in a dream of the summer snowfall.

According to the Vatican, however, nothing remains of that original church. Construction of the current basilica began around 432 under Pope Sixtus III.

The basilica holds some of the Church’s most important relics, including an icon of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus, attributed to Saint Luke.

It also holds pieces of wood believed to have been from Jesus’s crib. The basilica’s website says recent studies have dated the wood from the period of Jesus’s birth.

With Pope Francis now laid to rest, attention shifts to the conclave, the secretive gathering of cardinals set to convene in the coming days to elect the next head of the Catholic Church.

On Saturday, an estimated 400,000 mourners, including world leaders and monarchs, attended the Argentine pontiff’s funeral at the Vatican, followed by his burial in Rome.

The immense turnout reflected Francis’s enduring popularity as a dynamic reformer and steadfast advocate for the poor and marginalised.

Many of those mourning the late pope, who died on Monday aged 88, expressed anxiety about who would succeed him.

“He ended up transforming the Church into something more normal, more human,” said Romina Cacciatore, 48, an Argentinian translator living in Italy.

“I’m worried about what’s coming.”

On Monday morning, at 9:00am (0700 GMT), cardinals will hold their fifth general meeting since the pope’s death, at which they are expected to announce a date for the conclave.

Held behind locked doors in the frescoed Sistine Chapel, the election of a pope has been a subject of public fascination for centuries.

Cardinal-electors will cast four votes a day until one candidate secures a two-thirds majority, a result broadcast to the waiting world by burning papers that emit white smoke.

Luxembourg Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich said last week he expected the conclave to take place on May 5 or 6 — shortly after the nine days of papal mourning, which ends on May 4.

German Cardinal Reinhard Marx told reporters Saturday the conclave would last just “a few days”.

Left his mark

Francis’s funeral was held in St Peter’s Square in bright spring sunshine, a mix of solemn ceremony and an outpouring of emotion for the Church’s first Latin American pope.

More crowds are expected today (Sunday) when the public can begin visiting his simple marble tomb at the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, his favourite church in Rome.

Francis was buried in an alcove of the church, becoming the first pope in more than a century to be interred outside the Vatican.

In his homily at the funeral, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re highlighted the Jesuit’s defence of migrants, relentless calls for peace and belief that the Church was a “home for all”.

Many of the mourners expressed hope that the next pope would follow his example, at a time of widespread global conflict and growing right-wing populism.

“We are concerned; hopefully the pope will carry on the foundations left by Pope Francis,” said Evelyn Villalta, a 74-year-old from Guatemala.

“He was a pope who left his mark on our generation,” added Marine De Parcevaux, a 21-year-old French student who attended the mass.

Marx said the debate over the next pope was open, adding: “It’s not a question of being conservative or progressive… the new pope must have a universal vision.”

Pray for ourselves

More than 220 of the Church’s 252 cardinals were at Saturday’s funeral, and will gather again today afternoon at Santa Maria Maggiore to pay their respects at Francis’s tomb.

There will also be a mass at St Peter’s Basilica at 10:30am (0830 GMT), led by Pietro Parolin, who was secretary of state under Francis and is a front-runner to become the next pope.

Only cardinals under the age of 80 are eligible to vote in the conclave, with 135 currently eligible — most of whom Francis appointed himself.

But experts caution against assuming they will choose someone like him.

Francis, a former archbishop of Buenos Aires who loved being among his flock, was a very different character to his predecessor Benedict XVI, a German theologian better suited to books than kissing babies.

Benedict in turn was a marked change from his Polish predecessor, the charismatic, athletic and hugely popular John Paul II.

Francis’s changes triggered anger among many conservative Catholics, and many of them are hoping the next pope will turn the focus back on doctrine.

Some cardinals have admitted the weight of the responsibility that faces them in choosing a new head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.

“We feel very small,” Hollerich said last week. “We have to make decisions for the whole Church, so we really need to pray for ourselves.”

Vancouver police on Saturday said a motorist plowed into a crowd at a Filipino street festival in the western port city of Canada, killing many people and injuring numerous more.

Police posted on social media site X that the driver had been taken into custody. Police did not provide any other information and they are likely to provide an update at midnight (0700 GMT).

The incident happened shortly after 8pm (0300 GMT) near East 41st Avenue and Fraser Street, where the Lapu Lapu Day Block Party was taking place.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said on X: “I am devastated to hear about the horrific events at the Lapu Lapu festival in Vancouver earlier this evening.”

Vancouver’s Mayor Ken Sim and British Columbia Premier David Eby posted similar comments on X.

One witness told CTV News he saw a black vehicle driving erratically in the area of the festival just before the crowd was struck.

Jagmeet Singh, leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party, was among the attendees at the event, but left minutes before the vehicle arrived, CTV news said.

“This is so horrific, I don’t even know what to say,” CTV quoted Singh as saying. “I was just there, and I just imagine the faces of the kids that I saw smiling and dancing.”

Canada’s federal election takes place on Monday.

The Vancouver Sun said thousands of people had been in the area.

“I didn’t get to see the driver, all I heard was an engine rev,” Yoseb Vardeh, co-owner of food truck Bao Buns, said in an interview with Postmedia.

“I got outside my food truck, I looked down the road and there’s just bodies everywhere,” said Vardeh, as his voice broke. “He went through the whole block, he went straight down the middle.”