Author: ALJAZEERA

The top legislator in the United States Senate, Chuck Schumer, has offered his most strident criticism of Israel since the war in Gaza began, calling for a leadership shake-up in the country. On Thursday, Schumer, a Jewish-American Democrat, took direct aim at Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a speech from the US Senate floor, saying the Israeli leader has been “too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza”. Schumer pushed Israel to hold elections to replace Netanyahu and said the prime minister had “lost his way” in his pursuit of “political survival”. “There needs to be a fresh…

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The move comes as the Palestinian Authority faces pressure to reform from the US amid Israel’s war on Gaza.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has appointed his longtime economic adviser Mohammed Mustafa to be the next prime minister in the face of US pressure to reform the Palestinian Authority as part of Washington’s post-war vision for Gaza. Mustafa, a US-educated economist and political independent, now faces the task of forming a new government for the PA, which has limited powers in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. In a statement announcing the appointment on Thursday, Abbas asked Mustafa to put together plans…

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The space travel company SpaceX has completed its most successful test yet of Starship, the world’s most powerful rocket — but as the unmanned rocket completed its flight, it was destroyed upon re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. Thursday’s test flight was the third conducted with Starship rockets, ahead of planned missions with the United States space agency NASA to send astronauts to the moon. SpaceX, a company founded and owned by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, livestreamed the latest Starship experiment, noting that the vessel flew farther and faster than it had in two previous tests. However, as the rocket returned to…

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Amid concerns over user privacy and national security, Mnuchin told US media that TikTok ‘should be owned by US businesses’.Former United States Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has announced plans to rally investors in the hopes of buying the popular video-sharing app TikTok. The announcement comes after the House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday that seeks to ban the app unless its China-based parent company ByteDance divests from its US operations, amid national security concerns. The Senate, however, has yet to schedule a vote on the bill. Mnuchin, an investment banker who served under former US President Donald Trump…

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The European Union also sent requests for info to tech giants on their use of generative artificial intelligence.The European Commission has opened a formal investigation into Chinese e-commerce site AliExpress over concerns about illegal and pornographic content on its platform. In a statement on Thursday, the European Union’s executive arm said it would investigate the e-commerce giant under its Digital Services Act (DSA), a law requiring companies to do more to tackle illegal and harmful products on their platforms. The probe will determine if AliExpress breached the DSA in “areas linked to the management and mitigation of risks, to content…

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An Algerian court has issued a six-month suspended sentence and a 50,000 dinars ($372) fine to the prominent democracy activist Karim Tabbou, according to a local rights group. One Algerian activist, who did not disclose his name for fear of reprisal, said that the wording of the sentence indicates that Tabbou will not serve jail time. However, observers see the sentence, handed down on Wednesday, as part of a broader campaign of harassment and arrest against activists from Algeria’s pro-democracy Hirak movement. According to the National Committee for the Release of Detainees, Tabbou was convicted of “incitement to unarmed assembly”,…

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At least 60 people died as the boat spent about a week lost at sea after leaving Libya, survivors tell rescuers.Survivors from a deflating rubber dinghy rescued in the central Mediterranean Sea reported that at least 60 people who departed Libya with them a week ago died during the journey, a charity rescue group has said. SOS Mediterranee said on Thursday that it had rescued 25 people in a “very weak” condition in coordination with the Italian coastguard a day earlier. Two unconscious people were also flown to Sicily by helicopter but later died. “The survivors departed from Zawiya, Libya,…

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