02-07-2024 TORONTO: Canada’s WestJet has cancelled more than 800 flights after mechanics walked off the job, upending the travel plans of thousands of people over the Canada Day long weekend. Some 680 workers have been on strike since Friday after the Calgary-based airline and the Airplane Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA) …

02-07-2024 By SJA Jafri ISLAMABAD/ KARACHI: Pakistan is set to start the second phase of a controversial plan to send undocumented Afghan refugees back to their country. Beginning Sunday, authorities are likely to expel more than 800,000 Afghans from the country, after about 541,000 were forced to leave in the …

02-07-2024 GENEVA: July 2024 will be the hottest year across the world while deaths are also expected due to extreme heatwave and sudden climate change, experts claimed, while summer has only just begun in the Northern Hemisphere, heatwaves have already gripped many parts of the world including across the United …

02-07-2024 CAIRO/ GAZA CITY: Palestinian detainees are tortured “day and night” in Israel’s prisons, the director of al-Shifa Hospital Dr Muhammad Abu Salmiya tells media after his release from eight months’ detention. Israeli tanks advance on the Gaza City district of Shujayea, trapping civilians during intense fighting. Exclusive footage obtained …

02-07-2024 PRETORIA: South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has unveiled a new coalition government, after his ruling African National Congress (ANC) party lost its parliamentary majority in May’s elections. He said “the government of national unity… is unprecedented in the history of our democracy”. The ANC will have 20 out of …

02-07-2024 PARIS: France’s far right is in pole position after the first round of parliamentary elections that confirmed their dominance in French politics and brought them to the gates of power. Supporters of Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration National Rally (RN) cheered as she said the president’s “Macronist bloc has been …

02-0702024 BEIJING: A commercial Chinese rocket accidentally launched during a ground test on Sunday, climbing into the air before crashing into a nearby mountain and exploding in flames, the private company that owns the rocket said. Because of a “structural failure,” the Tianlong-3 rocket separated from its testing platform while …

01-07-2024 Bureau Report + Agencies NEW DELHI: New Delhi on Friday rejected the US State Department’s 2023 religious freedom report on India, calling it “deeply biased” and one that does not understand the South Asian nation’s social fabric. The report, released on Wednesday, noted violent attacks on minority groups, especially …

01-07-2024 SYDNEY: Australia’s Treasurer Jim Chalmers said on Sunday he was confident cuts to income taxes from Monday would not exacerbate price rises, as the nation suffers a cost-of-living squeeze amid stubbornly high rates of inflation. The consumer inflation rate reached a six-month high of 4.0% in May, adding to …

01-07-2024 CAIRO/ GAZA CITY: Fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters continued in Gaza City’s Shujayea neighborhood as the United Nations Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warned of increasingly “desperate” conditions for displaced civilians amid soaring temperatures and the pile up of rubbish and sewage. A senior Hamas official said …