International

Marine wildlife experts were frantically trying to rescue some 140 pilot whales stranded on Thursday in the shallow waters of an estuary in the southwest of the state of Western Australia. The whales are stranded at Toby Inlet in Geographe Bay, the Western Australia Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions said. The area is near the town of Dunsborough in …

VENICE: Venice launched a new scheme on Thursday to charge day-trippers for entering the historic Italian city, a world first intended to ease the pressure of mass tourism — but many residents are opposed. Visitors entering the Unesco World Heritage site for the day have to buy a five-euro ($5.3) ticket, with inspectors carrying out spot checks at key entry …

NEW YORK: Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker testified at Donald Trump’s criminal trial on Thursday that he worked out a deal that would allow Trump to buy the silence of a former Playboy model who said she had an affair with him, but called it off. Pecker, 72, said he signed an agreement with Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, …

JIFTLIK: While feeding his sheep pricey fodder, Palestinian farmer Talib Edais wistfully glanced at the hills where his herd used to graze for free. This was up until an Israeli decision, last month. “Do you see these troughs? We had to sell some sheep to feed the others. Within a year, we will not have any sheep left,” the 65-year-old …

WASHINGTON / ISLAMABAD: The US State Department emphatically declared on Thursday that there’s ‘absolutely no’ undercurrent of discord between the United States and Pakistan, despite recent sanctions imposed on companies allegedly supplying missile components to Islamabad. Meanwhile, the Foreign Office on Thursday dismissed the assessment of Pakistan’s human rights situation in the recently launched US State Department’s Human Rights Report as “unfair and …

CAIRO: As Israel stepped up airstrikes on Rafah and planned to launch an all-out ground assault despite allies’ warnings this could cause mass casualties, Pales­tinian authorities on Thursday asked the United Nations to conduct a probe into mass graves at Gaza hospitals. Medics in the besieged Palestinian enclave reported five Israeli airstrikes on Rafah early on Thursday that hit at …

LOS ANGELES: Pro-Palestinian protests spread to more college campuses in the United States on Thursday as authorities appeared to be running out of patience and police carried out large-scale arrests. Students at some of the country’s most prestigious universities have staged occupations over the growing human toll of Israel’s aggression in Gaza. Sit-ins and boisterous demonstrations, including a new one …

India’s six-week election juggernaut resumed on Friday with millions of people lining up outside polling stations in parts of the country hit by a scorching heatwave. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is widely expected to win a third term in the election, which concludes in early June. But turnout in the first round of voting last week dropped nearly four …

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday told top US diplomat Antony Blinken that the world’s two biggest economies should be “partners, not rivals”, but that there were a “number of issues” to be resolved in their relations. Blinken, in China for the second time in less than a year, met leading Chinese politicians in Beijing. US officials said he would …

PARIS: The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has accused Apple of using “illegally exploited” minerals extracted from the country’s embattled east in its products, lawyers representing the African country said on Thursday. The DRC’s lawyers have sent Apple a formal cease and desist notice, effectively warning the tech giant it could face legal action if the alleged practice …