JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said Friday its troops in Gaza found the bodies of three Israeli hostages killed by Hamas during its Oct. 7 attack, including German-Israeli Shani Louk. A photo of 22-year-old Louks twisted body in the back of a pickup truck ricocheted around the world and brought to light the scale of the militants attack on communities in southern Israel. The military identified the other two bodies as those of a 28-year-old woman, Amit Buskila, and a 56-year-old man, Itzhak Gel

KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an interview with AFP on Friday rejected a French call for an Olympic truce this summer, saying it could just help Russia move its troops and equipment. Zelensky said he had spoken to French President Emmanuel Macron who made the appeal and told him: Let's be honest... Emmanuel, I don't believe it. Who can guarantee that Russia will not use this time to bring its forces to our territory? Zelensky said, adding: First of all, we don't trust Putin. We

ISLAMABAD: Flash floods from heavy seasonal rains in western Afghanistan have killed at least 50 people and dozens remain missing, a Taliban official said on Saturday, adding the death toll was based on preliminary reports and might rise. Afghanistan has been witnessing unusually heavy seasonal rains. The hard-hit province of Ghor has suffered significant financial losses, said Abdul Wahid Hamas, spokesman for the provincial governor, after thousands of homes and properties were damaged and hund

DENVER: A Colorado man pleaded guilty to murder charges on Friday for starting a 2020 house fire that killed five members of a Senegalese family out of misplaced revenge for a stolen iPhone that he mistakenly tracked to the house. Kevin Bui, now 20, was a teenager at the time of the fire but prosecuted as an adult. He has been portrayed by prosecutors as the ringleader of three friends who started the Aug. 5, 2020, fire in the middle of the night in a Denver neighborhood. Bui wrongly believed pe

WASHINGTON: Six individuals, including four Indian nationals, were on Friday indicted by a federal court for staging armed robberies in Chicago and the suburbs so that the victims could apply for immigration visas reserved for certain crime victims in the United States. According to an indictment unsealed in federal court in Chicago, the four individuals Bhikhabhai Patel, Nilesh Patel, Ravinaben Patel and Rajni Kumar Patel, arranged with Parth Nayi and Kewong Young to be victims of the staged ro

MADRID: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he will on Wednesday announce the date on which Madrid will recognise a Palestinian state along with several EU partners. We are in the process of coordinating with other countries so that we can make a joint declaration, Sanchez said Friday in an interview with private Spanish television station La Sexta when asked if this step would be taken Tuesday as announced by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. I think on the 22nd of May...I shall be a

JERUSALEM: The Israeli army told AFP on Friday that renewed fighting in Gaza's northern town of Jabalia was perhaps the fiercest in over seven months of war. The army had said in early January that it had completed the dismantling of Hamas's military framework in the northern Gaza Strip and vowed to focus its war efforts on central and southern areas of the Palestinian territory. But intense fighting resumed less than a week ago in Jabalia, the second-most populous town in northern Gaza. Hamas w

Ocean temperatures that have gone crazy haywire hot, especially in the Atlantic, are close to making the current global coral bleaching event the worst in history. Its so bad that scientists are hoping for a few hurricanes to cool things off. More than three-fifths 62.9% of the worlds coral reefs are badly hurting from a bleaching event that began last year and is continuing. Thats nearing the record of 65.7% in 2017, when from 2009 to 2017 about one-seventh of the worlds coral died, said Dere

HOUSTON: Fast-moving thunderstorms pummeled southeastern Texas on Thursday for the second time this month, killing at least four people, blowing out windows in high-rise buildings, downing trees and knocking out power to more than 900,000 homes and businesses in the Houston area. Officials urged residents to keep off roads, as many were impassable and traffic lights were expected to be out for much of the night. Stay at home tonight. Do not go to work tomorrow, unless you're an essential worker.

THE HAGUE: Israel lashed out Friday at South Africa's case before the UN's top court, describing it as otally divorced from reality, as Pretoria urges judges to order a ceasefire in Gaza. South Africa presents the court for the fourth time with a picture that is completely divorced from the facts and circumstances, top lawyer Gilad Noam told the International Court of Justice. Pretoria has urged the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to order a stop to the Israeli assault on the Gaza city of

KYIV: A massive Ukrainian drone attack on Crimea early Friday caused power cutoffs in the city of Sevastopol and set a refinery ablaze in southern Russia, Russian authorities said. The drone raids marked Kyiv's attempt to strike back during Moscow's offensive in northeastern Ukraine, which has added to the pressure on outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces who are waiting for delayed deliveries of crucial weapons and ammunition from Western partners. The Russian Defense Ministry said air def

SEOUL: North Korea fired a ballistic missile off its east coast on Friday, South Korea's military said, a day after South Korea and the U.S. flew powerful fighter jets for a joint drill that the North views as a major security threat. A statement from South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff gave no further details about the North Korean launch, such as how far the weapon flew. North Korea in recent months has maintained an accelerated pace in weapons testing as it continues to expand its military ca

BEIJING: Russian President Vladimir Putin focused on trade and cultural exchanges Friday during his state visit to China that started with bonhomie in Beijing and a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping that deepened their no limits partnership as both countries face rising tensions with the West. Putin praised China at a China-Russia Expo in the northeastern city of Harbin, hailing the growth in bilateral trade. He will also meet with students at Harbin Institute of Technology later Friday.

BRATISLAVA: Slovakia's government said Thursday the suspect in the shooting of Prime Minister Robert Fico the day before was a lone wolf upset after a Fico ally won last month's presidential election. This is a lone wolf whose actions were accelerated after the presidential election since he was dissatisfied with its outcome, Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok told reporters. Charged with attempt to murder Slovak Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok said the accused was charged with attempted mu

The countries of the Hindu Kush Himalaya are braced for what might be a difficult monsoon season ahead, with experts warning of above average temperatures, and higher rainfall than Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Pakistan, according to the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development or ICIMOD. The HKH region extends 3,500 km over all or part of eight countries from Afghanistan in the west to Myanmar in the east. Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Pakistan are all expected to

RAFAH: Israel said Thursday that five of its troops were killed by friendly fire in a Gaza battle, as a rift emerged inside the war cabinet on how the Palestinian territory should be ruled in future. More than seven months into the conflict sparked by Hamas's October 7 attack, Israeli forces were fighting Palestinian militants in Gaza's far-southern Rafah and in new flashpoints in northern and central areas of the besieged territory. The army said that the five soldiers were killed when two Isra

BEIJING: Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday he was grateful to Beijing for trying to find a solution to the war in Ukraine and hailed growing economic ties with China. Putin was speaking at a press conference in Beijing alongside Chinese leader Xi Jinping, a day after he said his troops were advancing on all fronts in Ukraine. I will inform the President of the People's Republic of China about the situation surrounding the Ukraine crisis. We are grateful to our Chinese friends and co

LONDON: Schools in England will be banned from teaching sex education and gender identity to children below nine under new government proposals due to be published Thursday. It follows concerns over the content of lessons for primary age school children, an education ministry statement said. Parents rightly trust that when they send their children to school, they are kept safe and will not be exposed to disturbing content that is inappropriate for their age, it quoted Conservative Prime Minister

RIETI: Ella Anthony knew it was time to leave her native Nigeria when she escaped an abusive, forced marriage only to face angry relatives who threatened to turn her in to police because she was gay. Since Nigeria criminalizes same-sex relationships, Anthony fled a possible prison term and headed with her partner to Libya in 2014 and then Italy, where they both won asylum. Their claim? That they had a well-founded fear of anti-LGBTQ+ persecution back home. While many of the hundreds of thousands

PARIS: A motorway attack that claimed the lives of two prison officers in France this week marks a new level of violence by the latest generation of drug traffickers, police officers and experts told AFP . On Tuesday, gunmen attacked a prison van at a motorway toll in northern France, killing two prison officers and freeing a convict linked to gangland drug killings. The officers guarding Mohamed Amra, 30, were armed with pistols while the assailants attacked with military-grade assault weapons.

WASHINGTON: The U.S. military finished installing a floating pier for the Gaza Strip on Thursday for delivering badly needed humanitarian aid into the enclave besieged over seven months of intense fighting in the Israel-Hamas war. The final, overnight construction sets up a complicated delivery process more than two months after U.S. President Joe Biden ordered it to help Palestinians facing starvation asfood and other supplies fail to make itin as Israel recently seized the key Rafah border cro

SABANA DE MENDOZA: At an intersection packed in four directions, rallygoers scream and light up cellphones in the evening as Venezuelan opposition figure Mara Corina Machado climbs onto a flatbed truck like a presidential candidate. She has been barred from the July 28 election. Still, she crisscrosses the country, shaking hands, taking selfies, blowing kisses and promising the defeat of President Nicols Maduro all as a surrogate for a quiet former diplomat who has not yet begun to campaign. Ma

The Dali container ship experienced a near-perfect storm of calamities before it struck Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge in March, killing six people. But Tuesday's preliminary report by federal safety investigators leaves many questions unanswered. For example, the National Transportation Safety Board described four power failures that beset the 984-foot (300-meter) ship. Reasons for three of them are yet to be explained, including two that occurred right before the crash. Here's what we kn

THE HAGUE: The United Nations' top court opens two days of hearings on Thursday into a request from South Africa to make sure Israel halts its military operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than half of Gaza's population has sought shelter. It is the fourth time South Africa has asked the International Court of Justice for emergency measures since the nation launched proceedings alleging that Israel's military action in its war with Hamas in Gaza amounts to genocide. According

BEIJING: Russian President Vladimir Putin and China's leader Xi Jinping have signed a joint statement on deepening the comprehensive strategic partnership between Russia and China. The Russian leader arrived Thursday on his state visit to China. Putin's visit comes as Russia has become more economically dependent on China following Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago. Putin is expected to have meetings with his counterpart Xi Jinping and other top officials that will

BANSKA BYSTRICA: Slovakia's populist Prime Minister Robert Fico was shot multiple times and gravely wounded Wednesday, but his deputy prime minister said he believed Fico would survive. The prime minister had been greeting supporters at an event when the attempted assassination took place, shocking the small country and reverberating across Europe weeks before an election. I guess in the end he will survive, Tomas Taraba told the BBC, adding: He's not in a life-threatening situation at this mome

GALVESTON: A barge hit a bridge in Galveston, Texas, on Wednesday, spilling oil into surrounding waters and closing the only road to a small island, officials said. The bridge that leads to Pelican Island, located just north of Galveston, was hit by a barge around 9:30 a.m., said Ronnie Varela, with the Galvestons Office of Emergency Management. Varela did not have any immediate information on damage to the bridge or if there were any injuries. Aerial video showed portions of a rail line that ru

BUDAPEST: Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico is in life-threatening condition after being wounded in a shooting after a political event Wednesday afternoon, an episode of violence that punctuated his decades-long career in politics. Fico, 59, was born in 1964 in what was then Czechoslovakia. A member of the Communist Party before the dissolution of communism, he took a law degree in 1986 and was first elected to Slovakia's parliament in 1992 as a member of the Party of the Democratic Left. He

BRATISLAVA: Media reports say Slovakias populist Prime Minister Robert Fico was injured in a shooting and taken to hospital. The incident took place in the town of Handlova, some 150 kilometers northeast of the capital, according to the news television station TA3. A suspect has been detained, it said. Deputy speaker of parliament Lubos Blaha confirmed the incident during a session of Parliament and adjourned it until further notice, the Slovak TASR news agency said. The incident took place in f

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka on Wednesday said it is holding talks with India to set up a small arms manufacturing unit under the wider ambit of defence cooperation between the two countries. We are in discussions with India to set up a small arms manufacturing unit. We are in touch with our Indian counterparts, there is so much we can take and learn from India, State Minister of Defence Premitha Bandara Tennakoon said responding to a query from the media. Discussions are ongoing (for) a joint venture in

GENEVA: The World Health Organization on Wednesday authorized a second dengue vaccine, a move that could provide protection for millions worldwide against the mosquito-borne disease that has already sparked numerous outbreaks across the Americas this year. In a statement on Wednesday, the UN health agency said it approved the dengue vaccine made by the Japanese pharmaceutical Takeda, recommending its use in children between six to 16 years old living in regions with high rates of dengue. The two

COLOMBO: At least 16 retired Sri Lankan military personnel have been killed in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, the island nation's defence ministry said on Wednesday. The Sri Lankan mercenaries had joined the Russian and Ukrainian forces after unscrupulous foreign employment agencies misled them in the name of foreign employment, according to police. State Minister for Defence Premitha Bandara Tennakoon said that 16 Sri Lankan retired military personnel were killed in the Russia-Ukraine war. Tha

JERUSALEM: Palestinians across the Middle East on Wednesday are marking the anniversary of their mass expulsion from what is now Israel with protests and other events across the region at a time of mounting concern over the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. The Nakba, Arabic for catastrophe, refers to the 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were driven out of what today is Israel before and during the war surrounding its creation in 1948. More than twice that number have been displaced within Gaza

WILMINGTON, Del.: Hunter Bidens federal gun case will go to trial next month, a judge said Tuesday, denying a bid by lawyers for the presidents son to delay the prosecution. US District Judge Maryellen Noreika rejected Hunter Bidens request to push the trial in Delaware until September, which the defense said was necessary to line up witnesses and go through evidence handed over by prosecutors. The judge said she believes everyone can get done what needs to get done by the trials start date of J

KYIV: Ukraine has pulled back troops near several villages in the northeastern Kharkiv region, where Russian forces have been advancing and pounding settlements in a new offensive along the border, Kyiv said. The military gave details of the pullback as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was on an unannounced visit to Kyiv where President Volodymyr Zelensky urged him to speed up US supplies of weapons. Moscow launched a surprise major ground assault on the Kharkiv region last week as it seeks

NOUMEA: One person was killed, hundreds more were injured, shops were looted and public buildings torched during a second night of rioting in New Caledonia, authorities said Wednesday, as anger over constitutional reforms from Paris boiled over. What began as pro-independence demonstrations have spiralled into three days of the worst violence seen on the French Pacific archipelago since the 1980s. Despite heavily armed security forces fanning out across the capital Noumea and the ordering of a n

LIMA, PERU: At least 16 people were killed Tuesday in Peru when a bus rolled off a ledge in the mountainous Ayacucho region, authorities said. The bus was carrying more than 40 passengers high in the Andes, where such tragedies are not uncommon. Ayacucho official Wiber Vega told reporters that 13 bodies had already been recovered and three more had yet to be retrieved from under the bus. Yes, we have 16 dead, he said. Bad weather including falling hail was delaying the recovery of the remaining

HONG KONG: YouTube has blocked access to videos of a protest song in Hong Kong, days after court approved an injunction banning the song in the city. Glory to Hong Kong was an anthem of anti-government protests in 2019. YouTube said that it would comply with a removal order and block access to over 32 YouTube videos of the song that were deemed to be prohibited publications under the injunction. Attempts to access the YouTube videos from Hong Kong on Wednesday showed that they were unavailable.

WASHINGTON: The Biden administration has told key lawmakers it would send more than $1 billion in additional arms and ammunition to Israel, three congressional aides said Tuesday. But it was not immediately known how soon the weapons would be delivered. It's the first arms shipment to Israel to be revealed since the administration put another arms transfer, consisting of3,500 bombsof up to 2,000 pounds each, on hold this month. The Biden administration, citing concern for civilian casualties in

NEW YORK: Some social media users are calling out celebrities for what they say is inaction in the face ofa humanitarian crisisin Gaza and they've taken to a blockout to pressure the stars to take a stand. For the blockout, users put a block on seeing any content from the accounts of certain celebrities on social media platforms including X, TikTok and Instagram. Some have posted about the celebrities they've blocked, using a hashtags such as #blockout, #blockout2024, or #celebrityblockout, whi

Nobel laureate Alice Munro, the Canadian literary giant who became one of the worlds most esteemed contemporary authors and one of history's most honored short story writers, has died at age 92. A spokesperson for publisher Penguin Random House Canada said Munro, winner of the Nobel literary prize in 2013, died Monday at home in Port Hope, Ontario. Munro had been in frail health for years and often spoke of retirement, a decision that proved final after the author's 2012 collection, Dear Life. O

PARIS: A French Jewish organisation on Tuesday condemned a hateful rallying cry against Jews and Paris authorities filed a criminal complaint after red hand graffiti was painted onto France's Holocaust Memorial. The Wall of the Righteous at the Shoah (Holocaust) Memorial was vandalised overnight, Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo said in a statement, calling it an unspeakable act. Around 20 of the hand symbols were found beneath the wall at the memorial in central Paris honouring individuals who saved Je

DERA ISMAIL KHAN: A missile fired by a drone struck a house in a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban in northwestern Pakistan along the Afghan border before dawn Tuesday, killing at least four villagers, including children, police said. The strike happened in South Waziristan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, local police chief Hidayat Ullah said. He said it was not immediately clear who fired the missile and officers were investigating. The Pakistan army evicted Pakistani Taliban insurgent

DOHA, Qatar: They stroll Dohas waterfront promenade and sing softly about children who are now birds in heaven, flying free of the pain of the war in Gaza. For the Palestinian group Sol Band, it seems surreal that weeks ago they were hiding from Israeli shelling. I just want the war to end, said Rahaf Shamaly, the bands main vocalist and only woman. I want to return to Gaza, walk and clean up its streets, hug my family, and sing with the band in the place where we started from. Five of the bands

Every year the Met Gala (a fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute) marks the intersection between Hollywood and fashion. And 2024 is not the first time this event has drawn parallels with The Hunger Games, and it probably won't be the last. Although stars like Zendaya, Jennifer Lopez and Kim Kardashian took their new looks to great heights on the red carpet, a lot of folks were not exactly pleased as dozens of pro-Palestine protesters were arrested outside the event ho

BRUSSELS: European Union nations endorsed sweeping reforms to the blocs failed asylum system on Tuesday as campaigning for Europe-wide elections next month gathers pace, with migration expected to be an important issue. EU government ministers approved 10 legislative parts of The New Pact on Migration and Asylum. It lays out rules for the 27 member countries to handle people trying to enter without authorization, from how to screen them to establish whether they qualify for protection to deporti

KATHMANDU: A French climber died on Mount Makalu, the world's fifth-highest peak, expedition organisers said Tuesday, while search and rescue operations were underway for two Mongolian men who went missing while attempting to summit Mount Everest. Johnny Saliba, 60, died at an altitude of 8,120 metres (26,640 feet) during his summit push on Sunday, becoming the second fatality of this year's spring climbing season in Nepal. He was heading to the summit but his guide brought him down after he suf

More than half a million Palestinians have been displaced in recent days by escalating Israeli military operations in southern and northern Gaza, the United Nations says. Around 450,000 Palestinians were driven out ofRafahin Gaza's south over the past week, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees said Tuesday. There were roughly 1.3 million people sheltering in Rafah before Israel began pushing into the city, which Israel claims is the last Hamas stronghold. Israeli forces are also bo

GENEVA: The United Nations said Tuesday that a U.N. convoy that was attacked in Gaza a day earlier, killing an Indian staff member and injuring another staffer, was clearly marked and its planned movements had been announced in advance to Israeli authorities. The Israeli military claimed previously that it was investigating the incident, which occurred near Rafah in southern Gaza, and that an initial inquiry showed the vehicle was struck in an active combat zone and that Israeli Defense Forces h

In hundreds of deaths where police used force meant to stop someone without killing them, officers violated well-known guidelines for safely restraining and subduing people not simply once or twice, but multiple times. Most violations involved pinning people facedown in ways that could restrict their breathing or stunning them repeatedly with Tasers, an Associated Press investigation found. Some officers had little choice but to break policing best practices safety guidelines that are recommen