International

MOGADISHU: Three people were killed in an hours-long siege claimed by Al Shabaab fighters at a popular hotel near the presidential palace in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Thursday. Armed fighters stormed the SYL hotel in a hail of bullets before security forces announced they had brought the situation under control after more than 13 hours. It broke a relative …

RENNES: A cyber atta­ck of “unprecedented intensity” against the Fre­nch government claimed by pro-Russian hackers this week failed to stop state operations running, a minister said on Friday. The attack came just months before Paris hosts the Olympics Games. The 48-hour effort, which started on Sunday, “hit 800 administrative centres at once”, but “at no moment were communications down… every …

GAZA STRIP: Hamas has proposed a new six-week truce in Gaza and prisoner swap on Friday, a day after Pales­tin­ian president Mahmud Abbas appointed Moham­med Mustafa, a long-trusted adviser on economic affairs, as prime minister. “The agreement is for a six-week ceasefire and a prisoner exchange,” a Hamas official said after weeks of so far fruitless mediation efforts, adding that …

Pakistan on Thursday registered a strong protest against the implementation of India’s controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), according to a report from state-run Radio Pakistan. On March 11, India had announced rules to implement a 2019 citizenship law that critics call anti-Muslim. The Modi government had not crafted implementation rules for the law after protests and sectarian violence broke out within weeks of the law’s enactment in December 2019. …

LONDON: As prominent figures in the Conservative party, including PM Rishi Sunak, create a narrative about London’s largely peaceful pro-Palestine protests as “a threat to democracy” or “extremist”, the British government on Thursday unveiled a new definition of extremism and banned ministers and civil servants from talking to or funding organisations deemed to fall within the new meaning. Whereas the …

NEW DELHI: Thousands of farmers rode buses and trains from across India to gather on Thursday at a rally in the capital, pressing a demand for higher guaranteed prices for their crops, as they faced down police barricades and tough security. The rally, days before general elections are expected to be called in an exercise that will see Prime Minister Narendra Modi …

LONDON: Australian computer scientist Craig Wright is not “Satoshi Nakamoto”, the pseudonym used by the creator of the cryptocurrency bitcoin when it launched in 2008, a UK court ruled on Thursday. The decision follows a nearly two-month trial in London’s High Court after Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a non-profit organisation set up to keep cryptocurrency technology free from patents, …

SEOUL: North Korea leader Kim Jong Un drove a “new-type main battle tank” while overseeing military training exercises, state media said on Thursday, as Seoul and Washington wrap joint drills to improve deterrence. Wearing a black leather jacket, Kim saluted ranks of camouflage-uniformed troops, and watched live-fire “training march” exercises from a field command post, flanked by top generals, images …

GAZA STRIP: Efforts grew on Thursday to get more aid into the war-devastated Gaza Strip, where the UN warns of famine and desperate residents have stormed relief shipments. After mediators failed to reach a truce between Israel and Hamas for the holy fasting month of Ramazan, which started on Monday, fighting continued with at least 69 deaths over the previous …

MARSEILLE: At least 60 people died on a migrant boat that lost power as it tried to reach Europe from Libya, an aid group said on Thursday, citing accounts from those rescued. “Survivors report that at least 60 people died en route, including women and at least one child,” said Marseille-based SOS Mediterranee. The group’s Ocean Viking rescue ship is …