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The abduction case of local Kashmiri poet and journalist Ahmed Farhad Shah has taken yet another unexpected turn as the Pakistan government's lawyer told the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Friday that Farhad is under the custody of police in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and cannot be presented because he is on "foreign land" that does not come under the country's jurisdiction. Farhad has been missing for the past two weeks and it was recently found that two cases were lodged against him by the police in PoK. During Friday's proceedings, the Additional Attorney General appeared before IHC judge Mohsin Akhter Kiani and informed the court that Farhad had at least two legal cases registered against him in Muzaffarabad and Dhirkot in PoK. The poet's lawyer, Imaan Mazaari, said later that the Additional Attorney General admitted in the court that Farhad was currently present on a "foreign land" and thus could not be produced in the court. As reported...

Russia and Ukraine announced on Friday they had exchanged dozens of prisoners of war, in one of the only areas of dialogue between the warring countries. Despite full-scale hostilities, the two sides have carried out more than 50 prisoner exchanges since Russia launched its offensive on Ukraine more than two years ago. Recent swaps have been hampered by claims of unfair demands from both sides and after Moscow and Kyiv accused each other of shooting down a plane in Russia in January delivering Ukrainian prisoners to an exchange point. "Today we have an important result -- 75 more of our people have returned to Ukraine," President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media. He posted images showing the returned servicemen draped in Ukrainian flags and being greeted by family members holding blue and yellow flowers. The Russian defence ministry said it had secured the release of 75 of its military personnel, whom it claimed were "in mortal danger" in detention in Uk...

Genevieve de Galard, a nurse dubbed the "Angel of Dien Bien Phu" for treating wounded during the war in the French colony of Indochina in the 1950s, has died aged 99, with President Emmanuel Macron on Friday hailing her "exemplary devotion". "The angel of Dien Bien Phu has left us," Macron said on X. "As a military nurse, Genevieve de Galard showed exemplary devotion to the courage and suffering of 15,000 French soldiers during the worst hours of the Indochina war." Galard, who passed away on Thursday, volunteered to go to French Indochina in 1953 and helped evacuate casualties. She was the only French woman on the ground during the 1954 battle of Dien Bien Phu, which led to French troops' defeat in Vietnam and marked the country's last stand in colonial Indochina. One of the evacuation planes she travelled in was destroyed by gunfire when she was about to leave Dien Bien Phu. She remained on the ground for two months, "the onl...

The humanitarian aid allowed into the Gaza Strip is not getting to civilians in need, the United Nations said Friday, urging Israel to fulfil its legal obligations. "The aid that is getting in is not getting to the people, and that's a major problem," Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, told a media briefing in Geneva. He highlighted the role of the Israeli authorities at their Kerem Shalom crossing, the main entry point for aid into the besieged Palestinian territory since the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza was closed by the Israeli military on May 7. "We continue to insist that Israeli authorities' obligation under the law to facilitate delivery of aid does not stop at the border," said Laerke. "It does not stop when you drop off just a few metres across the border and then drive away, and then leave it to humanitarians to drive through active combat zones -- which they cannot do -- to pick it up," he said. ...

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) faces a relentless cycle of violence and humanitarian crises. A social media campaign using the hashtag #AllEyesOnCongo is drawing renewed global attention to the plight of the nation. This mirrors past efforts to focus on other conflicts, like the situation in Rafah, Gaza. #AllEyesOnCongo is trending on social media, with users sharing disturbing images and videos showcasing the ongoing violence. While the hashtag has appeared periodically in the past, its current surge aims to bring light to the devastating and long-lasting conflict in the DRC. This conflict has claimed millions of lives and displaced countless people. A haunting image of Congolese children, shared over 8 million times on Instagram, ignited a social media firestorm. Advocacy groups like Friends of the Congo amplified the message, drawing more eyes to the decades-long conflict in the DRC. See the post here: All eyes on Congo ??, Palestine ??, Sudan ?? Your comments on ...

A volcano in southwestern Iceland erupted on Wednesday, live video from the area showed, making it the fifth outbreak since December. The new outburst happened as another eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula recently ended after spewing fountains of molten rock for almost eight weeks. Authorities had warned of the risk of renewed volcanic activity in the area just south of the capital Reykjavik as studies showed magma accumulated underground. The fiery spectacle underlines the challenges the island nation of almost 400,000 people face as scientists have warned eruptions could happen over and over in Reykjanes for decades or even centuries. The eruption was the eighth on the peninsula, home to some 30,000 people, since 2021 when geological systems that were dormant for some 800 years again became active. Previous incidents had disrupted district heating, closed key roads and even razed several houses in the Grindavik fishing town, where only a few residents have since returned. In ...

The Israeli military said on Tuesday its munitions alone "could not" have caused a deadly blaze that Gaza health authorities reported killed 45 people in the southern city of Rafah. "Our munition alone could not have ignited a fire of this size," Hagari said in a press briefing on the preliminary findings of an army probe into the deadly blaze that has drawn international condemnation. Israel's military said it targeted and killed two senior Hamas militants in northwest Rafah in Sunday's strike, which sparked a blaze that tore through an encampment full of displaced Palestinians. On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the incident "a tragic accident". Hagari said that "based on precise intelligence", aircraft dropped two 17-kilogramme munitions on the target, which he added was away from tent shelters housing displaced civilians. "We are looking into all possibilities, including the option that weapons stored in a c...

Britain's Royal Air Force has grounded a fleet of World War II Spitfire planes following the death of a pilot in a weekend crash, officials said Monday. The announcement raises questions about the legendary single-seat fighter aircraft's participation in events to mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings next month. Pilot Mark Long was killed when flying a Spitfire belonging to a Battle of Britain memorial fleet crashed near the RAF Coningsby base in Lincolnshire, eastern England, on Saturday.  "Following the tragic accident at RAF Coningsby, and while the formal investigation is ongoing, the RAF has instigated a temporary pause in flying for the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight," a RAF spokesperson said. The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (BBMF) is a collection of wartime fighter and bomber aircraft that take part in air shows and memorial displays. A few dozen airworthy Spitfires remain, including six based at RAF Coningsby. They were due to take pa...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that a deadly strike that hit a displacement camp in Gaza's Rafah was a "tragic accident" which his government was investigating. "In Rafah, we evacuated a million uninvolved residents and, despite our best efforts, a tragic accident happened yesterday," Netanyahu told parliament. He added that "we are investigating the case and will draw the conclusions" after Gaza's health ministry reported 45 dead as the strike late Sunday sparked a fire that tore through a tent city for displaced Gazans. The ministry in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip also said that 249 people were wounded. Israel faced a wave of international condemnation on Monday over the Rafah strike, including from across the region as well from the European Union, France and the United Nations. The Israeli military said it had launched a probe into the strike which it said was carried out based on "precise intelligence inf...

Planned discussions between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to resolve the impasse over Tehran's nuclear programme have been suspended following the death of President Ebrahim Raisi this month, the agency said. One day after the May 19 helicopter crash which killed Raisi and others "Iran indicated that due to the 'special circumstances', it was no longer appropriate to hold substantive discussions" and a new date would be set, according to a confidential report seen by AFP on Monday. Tensions between Iran and the IAEA have repeatedly flared since a 2015 deal curbing Tehran's nuclear programme in exchange for sanction relief fell apart. In recent years, Tehran has decreased its cooperation with the IAEA by deactivating surveillance devices needed to monitor the nuclear programme and barred UN inspectors. Earlier this month, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi visited Iran in a bid to improve cooperation with Tehran. After returning from his tri...

More than 300 million children a year are victims of online sexual exploitation and abuse, according to the first global estimate of the scale of the problem published on Monday. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh found that one in eight of the world's children have been victims of non-consensual taking, sharing and exposure to sexual images and video in the past 12 months. That amounts to about 302 million young people, said the university's Childlight Global Child Safety Institute, which carried out the study. There have been a similar number of cases of solicitation, such as unwanted sexting and requests for sexual acts by adults and other youths, according to the report. Offences range from so-called sextortion, where predators demand money from victims to keep images private, to the abuse of AI technology to create deepfake videos and pictures. The problem is worldwide but the research suggests the United States is a particularly high-risk area, with one in ni...

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said early Monday that at least 35 people were killed and dozens wounded in Israeli strikes on a centre for displaced people near the Palestinian territory's far-southern city of Rafah. Israel's army said it had killed two senior Hamas officials in an air strike on a compound in the city and said it was aware of reports that civilians had been harmed in the incident. The Gazan ministry said in a statement that Israeli strikes "claimed the lives of 35 martyrs and left dozens injured, most of them children and women". Israel's army said its aircraft "struck a Hamas compound in Rafah", killing Yassin Rabia and Khaled Nagar, both of whom were senior officials for the Palestinian Hamas group in the occupied West Bank. Both men were involved in Hamas's activities in the West Bank, including planning attacks and transferring funds, while Nagar also managed funds intended for the group's operations in Gaza, accor...

At least nine people were killed across the central United States as tornadoes and other extreme storms hit several states including Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma, officials said Sunday. Rescue efforts were ongoing and hundreds of thousands of people were without power after the storms struck the Southern Plains region beginning late Saturday. In Texas, Cooke County Sheriff Ray Sappington told ABC affiliate WFAA that five people were dead after a tornado ripped through the Valley View area, north of Dallas. "Sadly, I think that number will rise," Sappington told The Weather Channel, adding that search and rescue operations were ongoing. The twister destroyed homes and a gas station and overturned vehicles on an interstate highway. Sappington called the damage "pretty extensive." There had been "a lot" of injuries, though none there were life-threatening, he earlier told ABC affiliate WFAA.  In Oklahoma, at least two people were dead after a tornado hi...

Four US Army vessels supporting the temporary pier built to deliver aid to Gaza have run aground in heavy seas and Israel is aiding a recovery effort, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said Saturday. "The vessels broke free from their moorings and two vessels are now anchored on the beach near the pier. The third and fourth vessels are beached on the coast of Israel near Ashkelon," the statement said. "No US personnel will enter Gaza. No injuries have been reported and the pier remains fully functional," it continued, adding that the Israeli navy is assisting with recovering the vessels. Gaza is suffering through its bloodiest ever war, which broke out after Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 35,800 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory'...

The first evacuation flights for tourists stranded in France's Pacific territory of New Caledonia took off Saturday, the high commission in the archipelago said, as President Emmanuel Macron's government sought to defuse the crisis. The international airport in the capital Noumea has remained closed for more than a week and all commercial flights have been cancelled due to the unrest until at least Tuesday. "Measures to send foreigners and French tourists home continue," the high commission, which represents the French state, said in a statement. The tourists departed Saturday from the Magenta airfield in Noumea aboard military aircraft headed for Australia and New Zealand, according to an AFP journalist. They will then have to take commercial flights to mainland France. "I came on vacation to visit my best friend... The conflict broke out and I got stuck," in Noumea, Audrey, who did not give her last name, told AFP. Australia and New Zealand had alrea...

American rapper Nicki Minaj said on social media on Saturday that she was held at Amsterdam Schiphol airport on allegations of possession of soft drugs. Minaj, 41, was detained hours before she was due to perform a concert in Manchester, England. Dutch military police confirmed a 41-year-old American woman had been held for possession of soft drugs on Saturday, adding it was prohibited to take such substances out of the Netherlands. Police did not identify the suspect, but in a later post on social media platform X said the woman had been fined and released around 1945 GMT. pic.twitter.com/h9UrZM9Abm — Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) May 25, 2024 That was 45 minutes after Minaj had been due to begin performing a concert in Manchester, England, at the Manchester Co-op Live. The singer had earlier posted a video on X in which a Schiphol employee apparently told her that police wanted to "search all her luggage". Another video on her social media showed a police officer tell...

"Anora", a raw and often hilarious story about an erotic dancer who strikes gold with a wealthy client, took the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday. US indie director Sean Baker won the festival's top prize for his free-wheeling sex farce starring Mikey Madison. (Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.) from NDTV News-World-news https://ift.tt/3WbC24f

A London-born Italian teenager who spent his short life spreading the faith online will become the Catholic Church's first millennial saint, after the Vatican attributed to him a second miracle. Carlo Acutis, who died of leukaemia in 2006 aged 15, was beatified four years ago after the Vatican ruled he had miraculously saved another boy's life. He will now become a saint after Pope Francis approved another miraculous act, an intercession on behalf of a young woman in Florence who suffered severe head trauma in July 2022. Carlo was born in London on May 3, 1991, to Italian parents, and moved with them to Milan as a young boy, where he grew up with a huge interest in computers. "He was considered a computer genius... But what did he do? He didn't use these media to chat and have fun," his mother Antonia Salzano said in an interview with Vatican News at the time of his 2020 beatification. Instead, "his zeal for the Lord" drove him to make a website on ...

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Thursday he will use his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin to get Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich freed from a Russian prison. The assertion was ridiculed by the campaign of Democratic President Joe Biden, which cited Trump's frequent criticism of the news media as an "enemy of the people." Trump wrote on his Truth Social media platform that the journalist would be freed soon after the Nov. 5 US presidential election where he faces a rematch against Biden. "Evan Gershkovich, the Reporter from The Wall Street Journal, who is being held by Russia, will be released almost immediately after the Election, but definitely before I assume Office. He will be HOME, SAFE, AND WITH HIS FAMILY," Trump said. "Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, will do that for me, but not for anyone else, and WE WILL BE PAYING NOTHING!" Gershkovich was arrested in Russia in March last year o...

Myanmar has been scrapped as the host of this year's Miss Grand International beauty pageant due to the civil war roiling the country, its organisers told AFP on Thursday. Dozens of contestants were slated to arrive in the commercial hub Yangon in October to compete in the pageant, hosted by Thailand-based Miss Grand International. "We confirm that MGI 2024 will no longer be held in Myanmar, due to the current situation," Ratchaphol Chantaratim, a representative for the company, told AFP. An alternate venue "will be announced later", he said in an email. Myanmar opened up to tourists in 2011 following decades of military rule, becoming popular with travellers seeking a new destination away from the well-trodden backpacker haunts of Southeast Asia. However, foreign arrivals have plummeted since the military seized power again in 2021 and sparked a widespread armed uprising. Around 2.7 million people have been displaced by the conflict, according to the Unit...

In a tragic incident, an Indian student In New York died after he met with a bike accident. Shri Belem Atchyuth from Andhra Pradesh was a student at The State University of New York (SUNY) and passed away in a bike accident Wednesday evening. "Saddened to learn about the untimely demise of Shri Belem Atchyuth, a student at SUNY who met with a bike accident and passed away yesterday evening," the Consulate General of India said in a post on X. Saddened to learn about the untimely demise of Shri Belem Atchyuth, a student at SUNY who met with a bike accident and passed away yesterday evening; our deepest condolences to the family; @IndiainNewYork is in touch with the bereaved family & local agencies to extend all… — India in New York (@IndiainNewYork) May 23, 2024 Expressing "deepest condolences" to his family, the Consulate said they are in touch with the "bereaved family & local agencies to extend all assistance including sending the mortal remai...

Israeli television aired previously withheld footage on Wednesday of five pyjama-clad female army conscripts being seized by Hamas gunmen during the Oct. 7 raid that triggered the Gaza war. The captives' families hoped the footage would increase pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree a truce with Hamas and secure the hostages' release. The government saw the release of the subtitled three-minute clip to national and international media as an opportunity to shore up support. "These girls are still in the captivity of Hamas. Please don't look away," government spokesperson David Mencer told reporters. "Watch the film. Support Israel in bringing our people home." The footage shows the young women, all of them stunned and some bloodied, being bound and bundled into a jeep. "I have friends in Palestine," one of the conscripts, 19-year-old Naama Levy, pleads in English. One of the gunmen can be heard shouting back in Arabic: ...

The United Kingdom will head to the polls on July 4 in a long-anticipated general election called on Wednesday by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Here are the main players in the nationwide vote. Rishi Sunak Sunak, 44, is seeking his own mandate from the British public having been installed as Conservative leader, and therefore prime minister, by his own MPs in October 2022. He succeeded Liz Truss, who was ousted following just 49 days in power after her tax-cutting economic agenda spooked markets and lost her the support of her party. Sunak, who is of Indian descent, became the UK's first British Asian and Hindu prime minister when he was elected unopposed by fellow Tory MPs. The ex-financier has been credited with steadying government following the chaos of the Truss and Boris Johnson premierships and for halving inflation. He has failed though to meet several promises, including cutting health waiting lists, stopping irregular immigration, and sending migrants to Rwanda. Opi...

Donald Trump drew disbelief -- and some support -- Wednesday after suggesting that standard language from an FBI search warrant executed in 2022 on his Florida mansion showed that President Joe Biden wanted armed agents to shoot him. Trump's latest incendiary claim was in response to a court filing outlining plans for the FBI search at the Mar-a-Lago club, where he kept classified national security documents after leaving the White House. The filing included standard FBI wording stating that agents are allowed to use deadly force if someone is in imminent danger. But Trump, who is running to unseat Biden in November's election, distorted the statement to say that it showed the Justice Department was ready to shoot him and harm his family. "It's just been revealed that Biden's DOJ was authorized to use DEADLY FORCE for their DESPICABLE raid in Mar-a-Lago. You know they're just itching to do the unthinkable," Trump said Tuesday in a fundraising email sha...

The United States should slap sanctions on International Criminal Court officials who seek an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a top foreign policy adviser to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Tuesday after meeting the Israeli leader. Robert O'Brien, who served as Trump's fourth and final national security adviser, made the comments in a Jerusalem interview with Reuters after meeting Netanyahu and other Israeli officials during a multi-day visit to the U.S. ally. O'Brien, who said Trump would be briefed on the results of the trip, discussed what he called the ICC's "irrational decision" to issue a warrant for Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, along with three Palestinian Hamas leaders, in his meetings with the Israeli officials. "We can sanction the bank accounts, the travel. We can put visa restrictions on these corrupt prosecutors and judges. We can show some real mettle here," O'Brien tol...

The funeral of Iran President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and others killed in helicopter crash will be held tomorrow at Tehran University, in the capital city of Iran.  India's vice president Jagdeep Dhankar will fly to Iran to attend the funeral of Raisi and others in the capital city. At Tehran university, the funeral will be led by Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei following which the procession will go to Maidan-e-Azadi (Azadi Square).  The people of Tehran will pay tribute to Raisi, Hossein Amir Abdollahian and others. Ten and thousand of mourners have alreadt gathered, waving Iranian flags and portraits of the late president.  The mourners marched in the northwestern city of Tabriz, where Raisi's helicopter had been headed when it crashed. Ashraf Zaidi, an expert on Iran affairs, said that their bodies will be kept in The Sa'dabad Complex - the presidential complex - from 3 pm to 6 pm, where guests from other countries w...

Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, will be stepping down from his executive role. He will be transitioning to a non-executive role by January 2025. "By January 2025, Klaus Schwab will transition from Executive Chairman to Chairman of the Board of Trustees," the World Economic Forum (WEF) said in a statement. "In addition, the Forum's prominent Board of Trustees will be organised around four strategic committees to further reinforce the impact of our work," it said. The Forum's governance is also set to change as a consequence of the move and Schwab hasn't yet named a successor. "Since 2015, the World Economic Forum has been transforming from a convening platform to the leading global institution for public-private cooperation. As part of that transformation, the organization has also been undergoing a planned governance evolution from a founder-managed organization to one where a President and Managing B...

Israel intends to broaden its military operation in Rafah, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on Monday told a senior aide to US President Joe Biden, who has warned against major action in the southern Gazan city that may risk mass civilian casualties. Israel describes Rafah, which abuts the Gaza Strip's border with the Egyptian Sinai, as the last stronghold of Hamas whose governing and combat capabilities it has been trying to dismantle during the more than seven-month-old war. After weeks of public disagreements with Washington over the Rafah planning, Israel on May 6 ordered Palestinian civilians to evacuate parts of the city and began troop and tank incursions. "We are committed to broadening the ground operation in Rafah to the end of dismantling Hamas and recovering the hostages," a statement from Gallant's office quoted him as telling visiting US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. Israel believes dozens of hostages from the cross-border Hamas rampage on Oc...

A decades-long UK scandal in which thousands of people died after being treated with infected blood was covered up and largely could have been avoided, according to a bombshell report published Monday. More than 30,000 people were infected with viruses such as HIV and hepatitis after being given contaminated blood in Britain between the 1970s and early 1990s, the Infected Blood Inquiry concluded. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday said he was "truly sorry" for the decades-long institutional cover-up that saw thousands of people receive infected blood products. "I want to make a wholehearted and unequivocal apology for this terrible injustice," he told MPs, promising to pay "whatever it costs" to compensate those affected and the families of victims who died. Victims included those needing blood transfusions for accidents and in surgery, and those suffering from blood disorders such as haemophilia who were treated with donated blood plasma products....

A volcano on the remote Indonesian island of Halmahera has spectacularly erupted, spewing a grey ash cloud into the sky, and people from seven nearby villages have been evacuated, authorities said on Sunday. Mt. Ibu erupted on Saturday evening, sending ash 4 km (2.5 miles) high, as streaks of purple lightning flashed around its crater, according to information and images shared by Indonesia's volcanology agency. A joint team comprised of police, military and search and rescue officials was dispatched to the area to evacuate residents from surrounding villages, Abdul Muhari, from the disaster mitigation agency, said in a statement. Photos shared by the disaster agency showed authorities assisting the elderly, while other residents were moved in pick-up trucks and accommodated in emergency tents for the night. The agency did not provide any information about how many people had been moved, but authorities have recommended that a seven-km (4.35-mile) radius be cleared. Indonesia...

Fresh floods killed 66 people in northern Afghanistan, a provincial official said Sunday, after weeks of flooding that has inundated farms and villages and swept away swathes of communities. Hundreds of people have died in flash floods this month that have also swamped agricultural lands in a country where 80 percent of the population depends on farming to survive. The latest heavy floods hit multiple districts of Faryab province on Saturday night and "resulted in human and financial losses," said Asmatullah Muradi, spokesman for the Faryab governor, in a statement. "Due to the floods 66 people were killed," he said, adding that at least five people were injured and others were still missing. The flooding damaged more than 1,500 houses, swamped more than 1,000 acres of agricultural land and killed hundreds of livestock, he said. The floods came a day after provincial police said more than 50 people were killed in flash flooding in the western province of Ghor. ...

Spain recalled its ambassador to Buenos Aires for consultations on Sunday after Argentina's President Javier Milei made derogatory comments about Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's wife during a far-right rally in Madrid. Milei had called Sanchez's wife Begona Gomez "corrupt" during a rally in Madrid organised by the far-right Vox party and attended by many of its international allies. Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said he expected an apology from Milei. Other ministers also condemned Milei's speech, in which he described socialism as "cursed and carcinogenic". Sanchez leads Spain's Socialist Party. "With his behaviour, Milei has brought the relationship between Spain and Argentina to its most serious state in recent history," Albares said in a video statement. Milei's visit broke with diplomatic protocol as he refused to meet Spain's King Felipe and Sanchez, instead preferring to promote his book alongsi...

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan will visit Saudi Arabia this weekend for talks expected to touch on a civil nuclear cooperation agreement, one piece of a wider arrangement Washington hopes will lead to normalization of Israeli-Saudi relations. Below is a description of the key issues involved in a US-Saudi civil nuclear deal, what risks and benefits it may offer the United States and Saudi Arabia, and how it fits within US efforts to broker Israeli-Saudi reconciliation. What is a civil nuclear coorperation agreement? Under Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act of 1954, the United States may negotiate agreements to engage in significant civil nuclear cooperation with other nations. It specifies nine nonproliferation criteria those states must meet to keep them from using the technology to develop nuclear arms or transfer sensitive materials to others. The law stipulates congressional review of such pacts. Why does Saudi Arabia want a US nuclear cooperation ag...

Europe's top rights organisation on Friday adopted the first ever legally binding international treaty governing the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Experts have called on international organisations and governments to mitigate risks from AI technology, which is expected to transform nearly every aspect of human life in the coming years. "The treaty, which is also open to non-European countries, sets out a legal framework that covers the entire lifecycle of AI systems and addresses the risks they may pose, while promoting responsible innovation," the Council of Europe said in a statement. The text was adopted at the annual ministerial meeting of the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers, which brings together the foreign ministers of the 46 member states. "The Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence is a first-of-its-kind, global treaty that will ensure that Artificial Intelligence upholds people's rights," Council of Europe Secreta...

Fifteen EU states have demanded a further tightening of the bloc's asylum policy, making it easier to transfer undocumented migrants to third countries, including when they are rescued at sea. The demand, sent in a letter to the European Commission that AFP received today, comes less than a month before European Parliament elections, in which far-right anti-immigration parties are forecast to make gains. The letter asks the European Union's executive arm to "propose new ways and solutions to prevent irregular migration to Europe". The group includes Italy and Greece, which receive a substantial number of the people making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea to reach the EU -- many seeking to escape poverty, war or persecution, according to the International Organization for Migration. They want the EU to toughen up its recently adopted asylum pact, which introduces tighter controls on those seeking to enter the 27-nation bloc. That reform includes s...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his military to practise the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons after what Moscow said were threats from France, Britain and the United States. Why, and what will happen? What Drills Will Take Place And Where? Russia's defence ministry said missile forces in the Southern Military District will take part, together with aviation and the navy. The southern district, headquartered in Rostov-on-Don, lies alongside Ukraine and includes parts of Ukraine which Russia controls. Belarus will also be involved. The Russian Foreign Ministry linked the drills to what it called "combatant statements" by Western officials which it said created security threats for Russia. It specifically mentioned French President Emmanuel Macron, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and the delivery to Ukraine of U.S. Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS). Macron has floated the idea of sending European troops to fight Russia in Ukraine while Cam...