Author: ALJAZEERA

The Yemeni group says it is expanding its attacks in response to the looming Israeli assault on Rafah in southern Gaza.Yemen’s Houthis will target ships heading to Israeli ports in any area within their range, the group’s military spokesperson Yahya Saree has said in a televised speech. “We will target any ships heading to Israeli ports in the Mediterranean Sea in any area we are able to reach,” Saree said on Friday, adding that the decision will be implemented “immediately, and from the moment this statement is announced”. The Iran-aligned Houthis have launched repeated drone and missile attacks on ships…

Every year on May 3, UNESCO commemorates World Press Freedom Day. It is being marked today at a particularly perilous time for journalists globally, with Israel’s war on Gaza becoming the deadliest conflict for journalists and media workers. “When we lose a journalist, we lose our eyes and ears to the outside world. We lose a voice for the voiceless,” Volker Turk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a statement today. “World Press Freedom Day was established to celebrate the value of truth and to protect the people who work courageously to uncover it.” Deadliest period for journalists in Gaza…

Former Spirit AeroSystems employee Joshua Dean dies after sudden illness, family says.A whistleblower who accused a Boeing supplier of ignoring defects in the production of the 737 MAX has died, family members and his lawyer have said. Joshua Dean, a former Spirit AeroSystems employee who alleged he was fired in retaliation for flagging lax standards at the company’s Wichita, Kansas, manufacturing plant, died on Tuesday after a sudden illness, his aunts and sister said in posts on social media. Dean’s lawyer Brian Knowles said his client’s death was a “loss to the aviation community and the flying public”. “He possessed…

Berlin, Germany – A Palestinian employee of Germany’s state-funded development agency has been imprisoned in Israel for more than a month, where she has been beaten and subject to abusive and humiliating treatment, her family members and lawyer say. Baraa Odeh, 34, works for the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), and was detained by Israeli border guards on March 5 while returning to her home in Ramallah from a work trip to Germany. She has since been sentenced to three months of administrative detention without charge. Neither her husband, who is a German national, nor her family have had…

Measures target nearly 300 entities, including 20 firms based in China and Hong Kong.The United States has imposed new sanctions on hundreds of individuals and firms linked to Russia’s war in Ukraine, accusing Moscow of illegally using chemical weapons against Ukrainian forces. US officials on Wednesday announced measures targeting more than 280 entities in their latest effort to paralyse Russia’s military and industrial capabilities, including 20 firms based in China and Hong Kong. The measures come as US President Joe Biden’s administration has been sounding the alarm about growing military cooperation between China and Russia. The Chinese companies targeted by…

Groups advocating for Palestinian prisoners say Adnan al-Barash, head of orthopaedics, died as a ‘result of torture’.A prominent Palestinian doctor from Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital has died in an Israeli jail after more than four months of detention, according to the enclave’s health ministry and groups advocating for Palestinian prisoners. Adnan al-Barash, the head of orthopaedics at Gaza’s largest medical facility, was detained by Israeli forces while temporarily treating patients at al-Awda Hospital in the north of the territory, the Palestinian Prisoners Affairs Committee and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society said in a joint statement on Thursday. The two groups blamed Israel…

Skye Murphy, who is 22 years old, has lived with type 1 diabetes since she was 14. In the past month, she learned that there would be a 30-to-60-day delay in receiving her medication Humalog, an insulin drug made by Eli Lilly. While announcing a shortage in March, Eli Lilly said several key insulin medications would be out of stock for several weeks, which, as reported by CNN, was because of a “brief delay in manufacturing”. The company has since scrubbed details on the shortage from the news release. More than 38.4 million people in the United States have diabetes…

The historic Kashan bazaar in central Iran once sat on a major caravan route, its silk carpets known the world over. But for the weavers trying to sell their rugs under its ancient arches, their world has only unravelled since the collapse of Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers and wider tensions with the West. Carpet exports, which exceeded $2bn two decades ago, have plummeted to less than $50m in the last year, according to government customs figures. With fewer tourists and increasing difficulties in making international transactions, Iranian rugs are going unsold as some weavers work for as little…

Franchise operator cites ‘challenging economic conditions’ amid local reports linking closures to boycotts of Israel.KFC Malaysia has temporarily closed some outlets in the country amid calls to boycott the chain over Israel’s war in Gaza. KFC is among a number of Western brands in Malaysia, where more than 60 percent of the population is Muslim, that have been subject to boycott calls over their perceived links to Israel. QSR Brands Holdings Bhd, which operates KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants in the country, said it temporarily shut the outlets amid “challenging economic conditions” in order to “manage increasing business costs and…

UN agency’s chief calls award a tribute to courage of journalists facing ‘difficult and dangerous’ conditions in Gaza.All Palestinian journalists covering Israel’s war on Gaza have been awarded UNESCO’s world press freedom prize, the United Nations cultural agency has said. “In these times of darkness and hopelessness, we wish to share a strong message of solidarity and recognition to those Palestinian journalists who are covering this crisis in such dramatic circumstances,” Mauricio Weibel, chair of the international jury of media professionals, said during the announcement on Thursday. “As humanity, we have a huge debt to their courage and commitment to…