International

MARSEILLE: The news editor of a regional French daily was suspended after a front-page headline critical of President Emmanuel Macron, management said on Friday, causing outrage across the newsroom. Macron on Tuesday launched a major operation against drug trafficking in the southern port city of Marseille and elsewhere, saying that gangland battles that last year left dozens dead had made …

MUMBAI: Huge donations by firms under criminal investigation or suspected of being shell companies have been funnelled to India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and other parties, new data showed, highlighting the backscratching ties between corporate titans and the government. Last week, India’s election commission published a list detailing buyers of electoral bonds, a contentious funding scheme that has helped Prime Minister Narendra …

KYIV: Russia admitted two years into its invasion of Ukraine on Friday that it was “in a state of war,” as it launched a massive wave of missile and drone attacks on its neighbour’s territory. Russia fired almost 90 missiles and more than 60 Iranian-designed kamikaze drones, damaging dozens of energy facilities including power stations, in what Ukrainian officials said …

Camouflage-clad gunmen opened fire at concertgoers with automatic weapons on Friday, killing at least 93 people and injuring 145 more in an attack claimed by Islamic State militants. In the deadliest attack in Russia since the 2004 Beslan school siege, gunmen sprayed civilians with bullets just before Soviet-era rock group “Picnic” was to perform to a full house at the 6,200-seat …

WASHINGTON: The Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing that featured a testimony from Donald Lu elicited mixed reactions from US-based experts. While supporters of the PTI seemed unhappy with his categorical rejection of the charges, they saw a tacit confirmation of the existence of a regime change threat, in his words before the US House. However, others quickly seized on Mr Lu’s rejection of …

WASHINGTON: Global average sea levels rose by about 0.3 inches (one-third of an inch) from 2022 to 2023 — nearly four times the increase of the previous year — Nasa said on Thursday, attributing the “significant jump” to a strong El Nino and a warming climate. The Nasa-led analysis is based on more than 30 years of satellite observations, with …

TULKAREM: As the US top diplomat on Thursday called for an “immediate ceasefire” in war-torn Gaza, an Israeli air strike and gunfire have killed four Palestinians at the Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Red Crescent said on social media platform X that its “ambulance teams have just transported an 18-year-old man who was killed …

UNITED NATIONS: The UN General Assembly on Thursday called for the development of a set of international guidelines to address the risks and benefits of artificial intelligence. The resolution, co-sponsored by dozens of countries and adopted by consensus, emphasises the necessity of guidelines “to promote safe, secure and trustworthy artificial intelligence systems,” while excluding military AI from its purview. On …

Narendra Modi’s government has approached a major Indian think tank to develop a homegrown democracy ratings index that could help it counter recent downgrades in rankings issued by international groups that New Delhi fears could affect the country’s credit rating, Al Jazeera reported on Thursday. The Observer Research Foundation (ORF), which works closely with the Indian government on multiple initiatives, is preparing the ratings …

MEULABOH: Dozens of Rohingya refugees stranded on the rusty hull of a capsized ship were rescued on Thursday after the dehydrated and sunburnt group had drifted at sea for more than a day. The group included 69 men, women and children, some of whom had been at sea for weeks on a rickety wooden boat from squalid camps in Bangladesh …