Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev on Sunday said his country could help with rescue efforts to find the helicopter of President Ebrahim Raisi, whose aircraft was reportedly involved in an accident. Iranian state television announced that an accident happened to the helicopter carrying the president in Iran's western province of East Azerbaijan. Raisi visited the province on Sunday to inaugurate a dam on the border between the two countries, accompanied by Aliyev. Today, after bidding a friendl

NEW DELHI: The situation in Myanmar continues to be on the grim with increased fighting between the military-led Junta army and the ethnic rebel groups across many parts specially in Rakhine state. The tensions have taken a communal turn with reports of nearly 5,000 houses belonging to Buddhists and Hindus being gutted in Buthidaung, which is just 25 km away from Bangladesh border. These 5,000 houses were targeted as they belonged to Buddhists and Hindus. Most people had fled to safer zones so m

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a hard landing on Sunday, Iranian state media reported, without immediately elaborating. Raisi was traveling in Irans East Azerbaijan province. State TV said the incident happened near Jolfa, a city on the border with with the nation of Azerbaijan, some 600 kilometers (375 miles) northwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran. Traveling with Raisi were Irans Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, the governo

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: An Israeli airstrike killed 27 people in central Gaza, mostly women and children, and fighting with Hamas raged across the north on Sunday as Israels leaders aired divisions over who should govern Gaza after the war, now in its eighth month. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces criticism from the two other members of his War Cabinet, with his main political rival, Benny Gantz, threatening to leave the government if a plan is not created by June 8 that includes an in

DOHA: The stranglehold on aid reaching Gaza threatens an apocalyptic outcome, the UN's humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said on Sunday as he warned of famine in the besieged territory. If fuel runs out, aid doesn't get to the people where they need it, that famine, which we have talked about for so long, and which is looming, will not be looming anymore. It will be present, Griffiths said. And I think our worry, as citizens of the international community, is that the consequence is going to b

PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: Gaza's civil defence agency said Sunday that an Israeli air strike targeting a house at a refugee camp in the centre of the Palestinian territory killed at least 31 people, updating an earlier toll. The civil defence crew were able to recover 31 martyrs and 20 wounded from a house belonging to the Hassan family, which was targeted by the Israeli occupation forces in the Nuseirat camp, Gaza civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told journalists. He said rescue work

KABUL: When she first heard the gunshots, French tourist Anne-France Brill thought for a split second there was a celebration in the Afghan market where she and her fellow travellers stopped to buy fruit. But then she heard one of her companions screaming: I realised she had blood all over her stomach. The 55-year-old had been sitting in a van during a group tour in the mountainous city of Bamiyan on Friday evening when a gunman approached their vehicles and opened fire. Brill was unhurt, but th

LONDON: The final report of the UK's infected blood inquiry will be published Monday, nearly six years after it began looking into how tens of thousands of people contracted HIV or hepatitis from transfusions of tainted blood and blood products in the 1970s and 1980s. The scandal is widely seen as the deadliest to afflict Britains state-run National Health Service since its inception in 1948, with around 3,000 people believed to have died as a result of being infected with the HIV virus and hepa

KYIV: Russia reported some 60 drones and several missiles shot down over its territory overnight into Sunday, with Ukraine in turn saying it destroyed over 30 Russian drones. Russia's renewed offensive continues to play out in Ukraine's war-ravaged northeast. Russian air defenses shot down 57 Ukrainian drones over its southern Krasnodar region overnight Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry said Sunday morning. Local military officials said drone debris hit an oil refinery in the town of Slavya

LONDON: The host of a news conference about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's extradition fight wryly welcomed journalists last week to the millionth press briefing on his court case. Deborah Bonetti, director of the Foreign Press Association, was only half joking. Assanges legal saga has dragged on for well over a decade but it could come to an end in the U.K. as soon as Monday. Assange faces a hearing in London's High Court that could end with him being sent to the U.S. to face espionage char

SAN FRANCISCO: Artificial intelligence built on mountains of potentially biased information has created a real risk of automating discrimination, but is there any way to re-educate the machines? The question for some is extremely urgent. In this ChatGPT era, AI will generate more and more decisions for health care providers, bank lenders or lawyers, using whatever was scoured from the internet as source material. AI's underlying intelligence, therefore, is only as good as the world it came from,

Singapore is witnessing a surge in Covid-19 cases in the last two weeks, according to Health Minister Ong Ye Kung. We are at the beginning part of the wave where it is steadily rising, Ong has been quoted as saying by The Strait Times . So I would say the wave should peak in the next two to four weeks, which means between mid- and end of June, the minister said. Quoting the Ministry of Health, the report said the estimated number of Covid-19 cases in the week of May 5 to May 11 rose to 25,900 ca

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