International

GUAYAQUIL: Ecuador transferred a powerful gang leader, accused of threatening a presidential candidate before he was slain, to a maximum security prison via a massive military and police operation on Saturday. At dawn, around 4,000 heavily armed agents entered a prison in Guayaquil, south-western Ecuador, where Jose Adolfo Macias, the head of a powerful gang, has been held since 2011. …

HAIFA: Members of Israel’s Arab minority fear they will bear the brunt of the hard-right government’s judicial overhaul, but have remained largely on the margins of a raging debate over the sweeping changes. Israelis have rallied weekly since the controversial reform package was announced in January by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, dubbed “the worst ever” by Samira Kanaan …

KYIV: Seven people, including a newborn baby, her 12-year-old brother and their parents, were killed on Sunday by Russian shelling in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, officials said. Also among the victims was a Christian pastor, officials said, adding that another 13 people received injuries. The three adults and two children were killed in the village of Shyroka Balka, …

WASHINGTON: One Indian national has been sentenced to more than 15 years in prison for committing large scale financial frauds in the United States and elsewhere while five others await sentencing, the US Justice Department said. Their victims included elderly US citizens of Pakistani and Indian origin. The leader and some members of this gang lived illegally in the United …

LAHAINA: The death toll in Hawaii from the deadliest US wildfire in more than a century was expected to cross the 100-mark on Sunday, fuelling criticism that an inadequate official response contributed to the heavy loss of life. Officials updated the toll to 93 late on Saturday, but warned the figure was likely to rise as recovery crews with cadaver …

Billionaires and social media business rivals Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk threw new online jabs at each other on Sunday, with the Meta founder declaring the owner of X — formerly known as Twitter — was not treating a proposed charity cage match seriously. “I think we can all agree Elon isn’t serious and it’s time to move on,” Zuckerberg …

Iranian authorities have arrested four more suspects after detaining a lone gunman in the killing of at least one person at a Shia shrine, state media reported on Monday. The attack came less than a year after a similar one on the same holy site, the Shah Cheragh mausoleum in Shiraz, the capital of Fars province in Iran’s south. The official IRNA news agency …

Torrential rain in India’s Himalayas triggered landslides over the weekend that have killed at least 18 people, with dozens trapped or missing, officials said on Monday. Unusually heavy rain and melting glaciers have brought deadly flash floods to the mountains of India and neighbouring Pakistan and Nepal over the past year or two with government officials increasingly blaming climate change. Television footage from India’s …

MUMBAI: India’s rice export ban has the world market bracing for similar actions by rival suppliers to avoid potential domestic shortages as sellers try to fill the 10 million tonne gap left by New Delhi, stoking concerns over already high global food inflation. India’s latest restrictions are almost identical to those it imposed in 2007 and 2008, analysts say, which …

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s ruling coalition retained control of three states in regional polls on Saturday, though official results showed a conservative opposition gaining in popularity in a challenge for Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. The election in six Malaysian states — Selangor, Penang, Negeri Sembilan, Kelantan, Terengganu and Kedah — will not directly impact Anwar’s two-thirds majority in parliament, but was …