Author: ALJAZEERA

“How many tennis balls can fit in a passenger plane?” Neeraj, a young economics graduate from the premier Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), was given 15 minutes to solve this question during his interview rounds at Nation With Namo (NwN), one of the in-house political consultancies of India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He got the calculation right and joined a small team of graduates from India’s top universities who were dispatched to the eastern state of Tripura to conduct surveys, collect and analyse voter data for elections that were due in February last year. Their job was to identify…

The move comes after the UK said it would bring forward legislation to block such state-backed takeover deals in media.An Abu Dhabi-backed group planning to take over Britain’s Telegraph Media Group (TMG) has said it will withdraw after the UK government moved to block the deal. RedBird IMI, a joint venture between US firm RedBird Capital and Abu Dhabi’s International Media Investments, struck a 1.2 billion-pound ($1.5bn) deal with TMG’s previous owners, the Barclay family, in November. The agreement, which has faced opposition over its potential impact on free speech given Abu Dhabi’s press freedom record, saw RedBird IMI pay…

South Korean tech giant reports $4.85bn profit during the first three months of 2024.Samsung Electronics has reported a nearly 10-fold jump in first-quarter operating profit amid the recovery of its key memory chip business. The tech giant, the flagship subsidiary of Samsung Group, South Korea’s largest family-controlled conglomerate, said that operating profit rose to 6.61 trillion won ($4.85bn) in the first three months of the year on the back of strong sales of its flagship Galaxy S24 smartphone and higher prices for memory semiconductors. Overall revenue rose to 71.9 trillion won ($52 billion), an increase of nearly 13 percent. The…

PodcastPodcast, The TakeMass graves uncovered after International Court of Justice finds it plausible Israeli acts in Gaza might amount to genocide. Palestinians have dug up more than 400 bodies from mass graves at two Gaza hospitals. Some have shown signs of torture and possible executions. The International Court of Justice had already issued a preliminary order against Israel after finding that its actions in Gaza might amount to genocide. So how will the world respond to this? In this episode:  Episode credits: This episode was produced by Khaled Soltan and Chloe K Li with our host Kevin Hirten, in for…

The weakness of the Japanese yen is in the spotlight again after its latest tumble in value. On Monday, the currency sank to 160.17 against the US dollar, its lowest since April 1990. The yen recovered to 155.01 per dollar later in the day, prompting speculation that Japanese authorities had intervened to prop up the value of the currency. The yen weakened slightly again on Tuesday, but held onto most of the previous day’s gain. Why is the yen falling? The value of a country’s currency rises and falls relative to currencies elsewhere in line with the laws of supply…

International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors have reportedly gathered testimony from staff of two major hospitals in the Gaza Strip, in what is believed to be the first confirmation that ICC investigators are speaking to medical workers about possible crimes during Israel’s nearly seven-month war on the besieged territory. The sources, who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the subject, told Reuters news agency that the investigators had interviewed staff who had worked at al-Shifa Hospital and Nasser Hospital, on the grounds of which Palestinian officials say they have discovered mass graves following the withdrawal of Israeli troops.…

Chief executive Tim Jordan says flights suspended amid discussions on ‘ongoing viability of the business’.Australia’s low-cost airline Bonza has suspended all flights amid concerns about the viability of its business, leaving potentially thousands of passengers stranded. The budget carrier, which launched in January last year, said on Tuesday that it had suspended all services for the day amid discussions about the “ongoing viability of the business”. “We apologise to our customers who are impacted by this and we’re working as quickly as possible to determine a way forward that ensures there is ongoing competition in the Australian domestic aviation market,”…

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Taipei, Taiwan – Alice Guo sparked a flurry of interest on Xiaohongshu, the Chinese social media and e-commerce platform, when she decided one day in 2021 to share advice on preparing for a job interview. Chinese-born Guo was living in Toronto at the time, grounded by the COVID-19 pandemic after years of bouncing between jobs in Vancouver, Hong Kong, New York, Los Angeles and Shanghai. “I started to do a few posts and one day, I just posted about the interview process that got me into a venture capital firm,” Guo, who is in her early 30s, told Al Jazeera.…

In a new twist in Sudan’s civil war, a notorious tribal chief has re-emerged from obscurity to support the army. Named Musa Hilal, he is the original leader of the nomadic (also referred to as “Arab”) tribal militias, known as the Janjaweed, responsible for atrocities during the Darfur War that started in 2003. In that war, Hilal fought alongside Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo as part of the Sudanese government’s war on sedentary farming tribes (referred to as “non-Arab” tribes) that had rebelled against the state. More than 300,000 people were killed due to armed conflict as well as disease and…