International

UNITED NATIONS: The US blocked a statement in the UN Security Council that would have blamed Israeli forces for the killings of civilians scrambling for food aid during a chaotic incident in Gaza City. In a late-night session at the UN Security Council, Arab nations faced significant resistance from the US when they pushed for the statement, accusing Israel of …

ROCHDALE: Left-wing firebrand George Gallo­way was elected to the UK parliament on Friday after tapping into anger over the Israel-Hamas war in a by-election. Galloway, 69, first became an MP in 1987 and will return to the House of Commons for the first time since 2015 after winning the seat of Roc­hdale, in the north of England, by nearly 6,000 …

An Iranian pop singer whose song became an anthem during mass protests more than a year ago has been sentenced to at least three years in prison, he said Friday. Shervin Hajipour, 26, wrote and published ‘Baraye’ during nationwide demonstrations triggered by the September 2022 death in custody of Mahsa Amini. Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, had been arrested for allegedly violating …

Top global celebrities will don “jungle fever” outfits in India for a trip to the zoo on Saturday as part of a party thrown by Asia’s richest man. Pop icon Rihanna, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka are among the rich and famous guests who jetted in for a three-day gala celebration hosted by billionaire tycoon Mukesh …

RAWALPINDI: Another steward of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has reportedly gone missing from Canada, making it the second such incident in a week. Jibran Baloch, 47, was part of the cabin crew on PK-783 from Karachi to Toronto. He was scheduled to report for the return flight PK-782 to Islamabad on Thursday, according to a PIA spokesman. When Mr Baloch didn’t report …

PARIS: Elon Musk has launched a legal case against OpenAI, the AI firm he helped to set up in 2015, accusing its leaders of a “betrayal” of its founding mission. The tycoon, who left OpenAI in 2018, argued in documents filed in a San Francisco court late on Thursday that firm was always intended as a non-profit entity. But he …

DUBAI: Iran holds a parliamentary election on Friday seen as a test of the clerical establishment’s popularity at a time of growing dissent over an array of political, social and economic crises. The vote will be the first formal gauge of public opinion after anti-government protests in 2022-23 spiralled into some of the worst political turmoil since the 1979 Islamic …

Thousands of Russians chanted Alexei Navalny’s name and said they would not forgive the authorities for his death as the opposition leader was laid to rest in Moscow on Friday. In a video streamed from the Borisovskyoe cemetery, Navalny’s mother Lyudmila and father Anatoly stooped over his open coffin to kiss him for the last time as a small group of musicians …

WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court agreed on Wednesday to hear Donald Trump’s claim that as a former president he is immune from prosecution, further delaying his trial on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. Trump had been scheduled to go on trial in Washington on March 4, but the nation’s highest court scheduled arguments in the high-stakes case …

WASHINGTON: The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives on Thursday approved a bill to avert a partial government shutdown, sending the measure to the Democratic-majority Senate less than two days before funding for some federal agencies runs out. Two-hundred and seven Democrats joined 113 Republicans in a 320-99 vote to approve the short-term stopgap measure, which would extend by one week …