17-05-2024 Bureau Report + Agencies NEW DELHI: An AI video shows an ecstatic Narendra Modi sporting a trendy jacket and trousers, grooving on a stage to a Bollywood song as the crowd cheers. The Indian prime minister reshared the video on X, saying “such creativity in peak poll season is …
Read More »Israeli military says tank fire killed 5 of its own soldiers
17-05-2024 JERUSALEM/ GAZA CITY: Israel’s military says five soldiers have been killed by Israeli tank fire in northern Gaza, in one of the deadliest incidents of its kind since the war against Hamas began in October. An initial probe found that two tanks fired at a building in Jabalia refugee …
Read More »Facebook & Instagram suspected to be ‘too addictive’
17-05-2024 BRUSSELS/ NEW YORK: The European Union is investigating Facebook and Instagram over whether they are so addictive that they are having “negative effects” on the “physical and mental health” of children. It will also scrutinize if have done enough to check whether users are old enough to use them, …
Read More »Algerian man found alive in cellar after 26 years
17-05-2024 ALGIERS: A man who vanished almost 30 years ago at the age of 17 following an alleged kidnapping has been found alive in his neighbor’s house in a hole in the ground in a sheep pen underneath stacks of hay. Named as Omar Bin Omran (or Imran) and said …
Read More »Israeli PM presses bill on drafting ultra-Orthodox Jews into military
16-05-2024 JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided to present a highly contested bill that seeks to conscript ultra-Orthodox Jews into the military to a ministerial committee on Thursday. His office said on Wednesday that Netanyahu sought to bridge societal and political divisions and that he was calling on …
Read More »Jordan ‘foils arms plot’ as caught in Iran-Israel shadow war
16-05-2024 AMMAN: Jordan has foiled a suspected Iranian-led plot to smuggle weapons into the US-allied kingdom to help opponents of the ruling monarchy carry out acts of sabotage, according to two Jordanian sources with knowledge of the matter. The weapons were sent by Iranian-backed militias in Syria to a cell …
Read More »‘Global violence causing record numbers of IDPs’
16-05-2024 GENEVA: Conflict has forced more than 68 million people to leave their homes as of the end of 2023, the highest figure since data became available 15 years ago. Natural disasters made a further 7.7 million people homeless, pushing the total number of internally displaced people (IDPs) to a …
Read More »Slovakia’s PM Robert Fico wounded in shooting
16-05-2024 BRATISLAVA: Slovakia’s populist prime minister, Robert Fico, has been injured in a shooting and taken to hospital, the country’s deputy speaker confirmed during a session of parliament. The incident occurred after a Slovakian government meeting at a location outside Bratislava, the news agency TASR reported on Wednesday. Reports on …
Read More »‘US plans to send $1bn in new military aid to Israel’
16-05-2024 WASHINGTON/ JERUSALEM: The Biden administration has told Congress that it plans to send a $1bn package of military aid to Israel, according to media reports, despite the United States’s opposition to a full-scale invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza and concerns about rising civilian deaths. The US Department of …
Read More »India’s top court bails journalist held in Chinese funding case
16-05-2024 Bureau Report + Agencies NEW DELHI: India’s Supreme Court says the arrest of NewsClick website’s Founder and Editor Prabir Purkayastha last year under a stringent antiterrorism law was illegal and has ordered his release on bail. Purkayastha was arrested in October, nearly two months after a New York Times …
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