Author: ALJAZEERA

Iranian state media reported on Friday that the country had activated its air defence systems over the central city of Isfahan, to bring down three aerial objects, amid sounds of explosions. Flights were briefly suspended in many parts of the country, before the alert was lifted. US broadcasters, quoting senior American officials, reported that Israeli missiles had hit Isfahan. Iranian officials said they were still confirming the source of the apparent attack by drones, while Israel has not commented on the incident. Meanwhile, Syria’s state-owned SANA news agency quoted a military official as saying that missile strikes in the early…

Medan, Indonesia – When Michelle Tew, the owner of Malaysia-based food company Homiah, received a cease and desist letter from American-Korean celebrity chef David Chang last month, she felt “sadness and betrayal”. The letter informed Tew that she had 90 days to stop using the term “chili crunch” on the labels of her sambal – a chilli-based condiment popular across Southeast Asia – as Chang had trademarked the phrase. “David Chang is such a large name in the Asian-American food community and it felt very personal, even though I don’t know him personally,” Tew told Al Jazeera. “The Asian food…

Iran’s air defences brought down three small drones over the central city of Isfahan, state media reported, hours after US broadcasters, quoting senior United States officials, said Israeli missiles had hit an Iranian site. Iranian state television reported explosions in Isfahan as air defences were activated and flights across several areas, including the capital Tehran and Isfahan, were suspended. Airspace was reopened about four and a half hours after the incident and there were no reports of casualties. Second Brigadier General Siavash Mihandoust, the top military official in Isfahan, told state media that air defence batteries hit “a suspicious object”…

Tech giant says employees engaged in ‘completely unacceptable behaviour’ during sit-in at company offices.Google has fired 28 employees following a sit-down protest over the tech giant’s contract to provide cloud computing and artificial intelligence services to the Israeli government The terminations come after the group No Tech for Apartheid on Tuesday occupied Google offices in California and New York to protest the $1.2bn contract known as Project Nimbus. Video of the demonstrations shared on social media showed police arresting employees in the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian. In a statement on Thursday, Google said that physically impeding employees…

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Boeing has been the subject of 32 whistleblower complaints with the workplace safety regulator in the United States during the past three years, newly obtained documents reveal, amid mounting scrutiny of standards at the beleaguered aircraft maker. The figures shed light on the extent of alleged retaliation by Boeing against whistleblowers as the Virginia-based company is facing mounting questions over its safety record and standards. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which handles claims of retaliation against workers who blow the whistle on their employer, received the complaints of retaliation between December 2020 and March of this year, according…

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Palestinians have witnessed devastation as they returned to the northern part of the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza after the Israeli army withdrew. Palestinians inspected damaged homes and salvaged usable items from the rubble of demolished houses. Israel’s war on Gaza has displaced 85 percent of the territory’s population amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while most of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the United Nations. The health ministry in Gaza said on Thursday that at least 33,970 people have been killed in the territory during more than six months of war.…

The United States has vetoed a widely supported resolution at the UN Security Council that would have paved the way for the State of Palestine to gain full membership at the United Nations. Twelve countries voted in favour of the resolution, which was brought for a vote following an hours-long Security Council session in New York on Thursday, while two others — Britain and Switzerland — abstained. After vetoing the measure, the US deputy envoy to the UN, Robert Wood, said Washington believes there is no other path to Palestinian statehood than through negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. “We also…

Gangtok, India — When a glacial lake burst through a major dam in India’s northeastern state of Sikkim last October, it destroyed the region’s largest hydro-electric project, the Teesta III. It also unleashed a torrent of political criticism around the 1200-megawatt (MW) power plant that its proponents had insisted would transform Sikkim’s economy, but for many has instead become emblematic of opacity and alleged corruption around the state’s infrastructure development. As India’s smallest state — with a population of less than 700,000 people — prepares to vote in national elections on April 19, the now-defunct Teesta III is at the…