International

Xi Jinping will secure a third term as China’s president at a rubber-stamp parliament that starts this weekend, enjoying unchallengeable status despite criticism over his handling of Covid and the economy. Xi is certain to be reappointed as president after he locked in another five years as head of the Communist Party (CCP) and the military — the two more significant leadership …

DUBAI: A British warship intercepted a boat smuggling Iranian weapons, including anti-tank missiles, off the coast of Oman in a joint operation with US forces last week, officials said Thursday. The small craft, travelling at “high speed” after dark in international waters, was initially spotted by US aerial surveillance, the British embassy in the United Arab Emirates said. The boat, …

The OpenAI has announced that it will now allow third-party developers to integrate ChatGPT into their apps by using API. OpenAI, the startup behind ChatGPT claimed that the API can be used for many other uses along with creating an AI-powered chat interface. The AI giant is offering 1,000 tokens for $0.002, which is “10x cheaper than our existing GPT-3.5 …

LONDON: Prince Harry and his wife Meghan are being evicted from their home on the British royal family’s Windsor estate, leaving them without a UK base, reports said on Wednesday. The use of Frogmore Cottage was a wedding present from the late Queen Elizabeth II in 2018, and they refurbished it at a reported cost of $2.9 million. It has …

TEHRAN: More than 100 students were hospitalised in Iran after a new spate of suspected gas attacks on girls’ schools on Wednesday, media outlets in the Islamic republic reported. Hundreds of cases of respiratory distress have been reported in the past three months among schoolgirls across Iran, in what one government official has said could be an attempt to force …

LIBREVILLE: A two-day conference to highlight the key environmental role and value of the world’s rainforests got underway in Gabon on Wednesday, backed by several leaders of tropical countries. “Forests potentially represent 20-30 per cent of the solution to climate change,” Gabon’s minister of waters and forests, British-born Lee White, said in opening remarks. Long recognised as a haven of …

NEW DELHI: British Foreign Minister James Cleverly raised the issue of tax searches at the BBC’s offices in India during a meeting with his counterpart in New Delhi on Wednesday, the minister told. In response, Cleverly was “firmly told that all entities operating in India must comply fully with relevant laws and regulations”, an Indian government source said. Last month, …

The FBI has arrested a man who allegedly attempted to bring an explosive device onto an airplane in Pennsylvania, US authorities said Wednesday. The bomb was discovered by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) personnel on Monday, after the man’s checked bag set off an alarm at Lehigh Valley International Airport in the city of Allentown, the federal agency said in a …

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken Antony Blinken said on Wednesday he had no plans to meet his Russian or Chinese counterparts at a G20 foreign ministers’ meeting, as Ukraine and China tensions overshadow attempts by host India to forge unity among the world’s biggest economies. The gathering in New Delhi on Thursday will be the first time Blinken and …

PORT VILA, Vanuatu: More than 100 countries have backed a plan by Vanuatu to enlist the UN’s top court in tackling climate change, after what the nation’s officials on Thursday described as a “herculean” diplomatic effort. With rising sea levels threatening its future, Vanuatu has spearheaded a drive for the court to define what legal responsibility countries have for the …