FIVE hundred dishes, more than a thousand gue­sts and a multi-million dollar budget — this is how the son of Asia’s richest man has reportedly celebrated his upcoming nuptials. Anant Ambani and his wife-to-be Radhika Merchant’s three-day extravaganza saw Bollywood royalty rubbing shoulders with tech billionaires, sports superstars and even Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka. According to BBC News, the event has captivated audiences …

UNITED NATIONS: The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) defended his organisation’s work at the General Assembly on Monday, after crippling backlash over accusations that some employees were involved in Hamas’s surprise October 7 raid on Israel. Philippe Lazzarini warned in a letter to the General Assembly’s president that his agency is at a “breaking point” as …

KARACHI: Two Pakis­tani businesswomen have been recognised by Forbes in its ‘100 Most Powerful Businesswomen 2024’ list. The two women on the list are former Unilever Pakistan CEO Shazia Syed and PureHealth co-founder Shaista Asif. The criteria cited by Forbes in the compilation of the list included the leaders’ tangible impact on the region and the market that she serves, alongside their respective achievements and performance …

WASHINGTON: When the richest haul in the US presidential primary race arrives on “Super Tuesday,” millions of Americans will cast their votes — and many of them will count for nothing. In the primary system it is the number of allocated delegates that matters more than the popular vote count. The Republican and Democratic nominating contests that play out across …

SHAMBHU: They have been beaten with canes, doused in tear gas and blocked by concrete barricades and metal spikes but the thousands of farmers trying to march to India’s capital to demand higher crop prices also face an invisible barrier — digital blackouts. As their caravan of tractors and trucks moved from the northern state of Punjab towards New Delhi, the farmers …

KENNEDY Space CENTER: Three American astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut blasted off on Sunday night from Florida for a six-month mission on the International Space Station. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 10:53pm from the Kennedy Space Center, lighting up the night sky with a long, bright plume of orange flame. Just minutes after the launch, as the …

GENEVA: More than 40 countries on Monday demanded an independent international investigation into the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny — and said President Vladimir Putin bore ultimate responsibility. European Union members, the United States, Britain, Ukraine, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway were among countries to voice outrage over Navalny’s death at the UN Human Rights Council. Navalny, …

GENEVA: The Gaza crisis is a “powder keg” with the potential to spark broader conflict in the Middle East, UN human rights chief Volker Turk said on Monday. Turk said it was imperative to do everything possible to avoid a wider conflagration. “The war in Gaza has already generated dangerous spillover in neighbouring countries,” he said in his global update …

China announced on Tuesday that it would boost its defence spending in 2024, as hostility over Taiwan and in the South China Sea grows. The 7.2 per cent increase, identical to last year’s figure, was announced at the start of the annual meeting of the country’s rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC). China will spend 1.665 trillion yuan ($231.4 billion) on defence in …

KARACHI: A young man was found shot dead in his apartment in DHA on Monday evening, police said. They said that his wife was “missing” and it appeared that she fled after allegedly murdering her husband. DIG-South Syed Asad Raza said that the body of Jehanzeb Malik, 34, was found at the 20th-storey flat in a DHA high-rise apartment complex. …