Author: ALJAZEERA

The organisers of the Eurovision Song Contest are under increasing pressure to exclude Israel from this year’s competition as it wages a devastating war on Gaza. More than 20 politicians wrote to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) on Tuesday saying Israel’s participation in the contest “whitewashes a regime that is carrying out ethnic cleansing in Palestine and committing war crimes and genocide”. European Parliament members and politicians from Spain’s left-wing Podemos party are among the signatories of the letter seen by Al Jazeera. The annual contest is set to take place in May at Sweden’s Malmo Arena after Swedish singer…

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Egypt on his fifth regional tour since October last year, aimed at paving the way for an agreement between Israel and Hamas as the war in Gaza rages on. Blinken was set on Tuesday to meet Egyptian mediators, who, together with other Arab counterparts, have tried to put together a deal to end the vicious war, which has killed more than 27,500 Palestinians, mostly women and children. Most of the besieged enclave’s 2.3 million population is displaced, facing severe shortages of food, water, medicine, and shelter, with the majority of…

Follow our live build-up, team news and commentary of the first AFC Asian Cup 2023 semifinal in Qatar at 18:00 GMT. Source link

They accuse Washington of raising the risk of escalation in service of Biden’s election hopes.Russia and China have slammed the United States for its recent air strikes on targets in Iraq and Syria. The two countries accused Washington of raising the risk of regional escalation at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council late on Monday. Moscow also asserted that the US decision to launch the attacks was linked to the upcoming presidential election in November. Russia, whose invasion of Ukraine has been the topic of bitter debate at the UNSC over the past two years, had requested the…

Slump comes after customers in Muslim countries boycotted brand over its perceived support for Israel.McDonald’s has cited Israel’s war in Gaza as a factor in the fast food giant missing its first quarterly sales target in nearly four years. McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski said on Monday that the war had had a “disheartening” effect on sales in Middle Eastern countries and other Muslim-majority nations such as Malaysia and Indonesia. “So long as this conflict, this war, is going on … we’re not expecting to see any significant improvement in this,” Kempczinski said in a conference call. “It’s a human tragedy,…

NewsFeedFamilies in Syrian towns devastated by last year’s earthquake are still choosing to sleep in tents outside, one year on. They fear that another quake could strike at any moment and that they could be crushed in their sleep. The Turkey-Syria earthquakes struck the region on February 6, 2023, killed more than 50,000 people.Published On 6 Feb 20246 Feb 2024 Source link

Pakistani voters head to the polls on Thursday amid a deep-seated economic crisis. Inflation is hovering at 30 percent, close to 40 percent of people live below the poverty line, and the debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio has climbed to 72 percent. Pakistan’s new government will have to contend with these and an ageing public infrastructure. “We have power outages every day for two hours,” says Muhammad Waqas, a janitor from Islamabad. “In the summer, when it’s hot, you sit idly and suffer.” As with other state-owned firms, the inability of successive governments to invest in Pakistan’s National Transmission and…

Bin Mubarak replaces Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed amid rising tensions as Houthi rebels attack Red Sea shipping, triggering US and British reprisal strikes.Yemen’s internationally recognised government has named Foreign Minister Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak as the new prime minister in a surprise appointment. Bin Mubarak replaces Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed at a time of rising tensions in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country after a spate of Red Sea attacks by Houthi rebels on ships that have prompted retaliatory strikes by the United States and the UK. A decree issued on Monday by Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council and carried by the official Saba…

Technology minister says technology has potential to ‘transform our public services and the economy for the better’.The United Kingdom has unveiled plans to spend over 100 million pounds ($125m) on research and training related to artificial intelligence (AI). Under the plans announced on Tuesday, the government will launch nine new AI research hubs across the UK, support research projects examining the responsible use of AI in education, policing and creative industries, and train regulators on managing the risks and benefits of the technology. Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology Michelle Donelan said AI had the potential to “transform…

The United Nations is looking to reassure donors with more than a dozen countries having suspended their funding to UNRWA as a result of allegations that 12 out of the 13,000 or so UN employees in Gaza may have taken part in the attacks on Israel on October 7. At a time when more aid, not less aid, is needed in Gaza, the UN announcing the formation of this independent review committee to look at whether UNRWA is doing everything in its power to ensure neutrality amongst its employees, whether or not there have been breaches, and how those are…