Daily News Pakistan

Brazil's telecommunications regulator said on Friday it was suspending access to Elon Musk's X social network in the country to comply with an order from a judge who has been locked in a months-long feud with the billionaire investor. The popular social media platform missed a court-imposed deadline on Thursday evening to name a legal representative in Brazil, triggering the suspension. Musk has argued that Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes was trying to enforce unjustified censorship, while the judge has insisted that social media needs hate speech regulations. "They're shutting down the #1 source of truth in Brazil," Musk said in a post on X on Friday. The judge's ruling could cause X to lose one of its largest and most coveted markets, at a time when Musk has struggled with advertising revenue for the platform. X remained accessible in Brazil late on Friday, though some Brazilians posted on other platforms that their access to X was already b...

A helicopter being airlifted from Kedarnath to Gauchar in Uttarakhand by an Indian Air Force MI-17 chopper crashed this morning, officials reported. The private helicopter went down near the Mandakini River in Lincholi, but fortunately, no one was injured in the incident, which was captured on video. The helicopter was en route to the Gauchar airstrip for repairs with the assistance of the MI-17 aircraft. However, the MI-17 began to lose balance due to the weight of the helicopter and strong winds, prompting the pilot to drop the helicopter in a vacant area near Tharu camp, according to Rahul Chaubey, the tourism officer for Rudraprayag district. "There were no passengers or luggage on board the helicopter," Chaubey stated, adding that a rescue team was dispatched to the crash site immediately after the incident. The same helicopter had previously made an emergency landing near the Kedarnath helipad in May due to technical issues. It had been used to transport passengers...

Typhoon Shanshan soaked large swathes of Japan with torrential rain on Friday, prompting warnings for flooding and landslides hundreds of miles from the storm’s centre, halting travel services and shutting production at major factories. At least four people have been killed and 99 injured in storm-related incidents in recent days, according to the disaster management agency. In the southwestern region of Kyushu, where the storm that authorities say could be one of the strongest ever to hit the region made landfall on Thursday, residents were surveying the damage after a night of heavy rain and severe winds. Yu Fukuda, 67, who runs a fish farm and adjoining restaurant in the resort town of Yufu in Oita prefecture said she arrived on Friday morning to find flood waters one metre high had inundated the building. “There were streaks on the windows and everywhere there were marks from mud and dirt, so I could tell how high the water had risen. I felt very sad,” she told Reuters as her...

The government has officially confirmed the enforcing of an advanced Web Management System with the purpose of better regulation and management of online content within the country. The system, recently upgraded by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, independently monitors, detects, and blocks websites along with mobile applications involved in unlawful activities, leakage of personal data, or carrying what they call harmfully nugatory content against national institutions. The Cabinet Division officially informed the National Assembly of the installation and activation of the WMS. As submitted in the report of the division, the PTA has already blocked 2,369 URLs and 183 mobile applications containing material in violation of legal and procedural safeguards for internet users. This upgraded functionality of the WMS allows the PTA to autonomously carry out content blocking, which multiplies the effectiveness and agility of the system by leaps and bounds. The integration of a...

China lacks the ability to “fully” invade Taiwan as it does not have the equipment, but is bringing on line advanced new weapons and has other options to threaten Taiwan, such as inspecting foreign cargo ships, the island’s defence ministry said. China, which views democratically-governed Taiwan as its own territory, has ramped up military and political pressure over the past five years to assert its claims, which Taipei strongly rejects. China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control. The government of the defeated Republic of China fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists, and no peace treaty or armistice has ever been signed. In an annual threat assessment of China sent to lawmakers on Friday, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters, Taiwan’s defence ministry said Beijing continues to hone skills such as joint command operations. “However, the use of tactics and strategies against Taiwan is still limited by the ...

WhatsApp, the popular messaging app, has rolled out a new beta update for Android users, introducing passkeys feature for encrypted backups. The passkeys feature simplifies the process of accessing encrypted backups, replacing complex passwords with biometric authentication methods such as fingerprints or facial recognition. Currently, WhatsApp allows users to protect their backups with either a custom password or a 64-digit encryption key. While these methods are highly secure, they can be difficult to remember, leading to potential lockouts. The new passkey feature eliminates this issue, enabling users to quickly and securely access their backups using their biometric data. The passkey itself will be stored in a password manager, adding an extra layer of convenience and security. This feature is currently in development and will be available in a future update. Earlier, the Meta-owned instant messaging platform, announced to introduce a new feature that will allow users to ch...

The US Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday said SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket has been grounded after failing an attempt to land back on Earth during a routine Starlink mission, forcing the company's second grounding this year. SpaceX's Falcon 9 successfully launched a batch of Starlink internet satellites into orbit early on Wednesday morning from Florida. The rocket's reusable first-stage booster returned to Earth and attempted to land on a sea-faring barge as usual, but toppled into the ocean after a fiery touchdown, a SpaceX live stream showed. "The incident involved the failure of the Falcon 9 booster rocket while landing on a drone ship at sea. No public injuries or public property damage have been reported. The FAA is requiring an investigation," an FAA spokesperson said. Groundings of Falcon 9, a rocket that much of the Western world relies on to put satellites and humans in space, are rare. The rocket was last grounded in July for t...

Meta's Llama artificial intelligence models are being used by companies including Goldman Sachs (GS.N) and AT&T (T.N) for business functions like customer service, document review and computer code generation, the social media giant said in a statement on Thursday. The mostly free-of-charge Llama models have been downloaded almost 350 million times since Meta began releasing them publicly last year, an increase from the 300 million downloads the company announced when it released the biggest version of its latest Llama 3 model in late July. Usage via cloud providers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure has also increased, more than doubling between May and July this year, Meta said. The announcement comes as Meta and other tech companies plowing billions into AI have faced questions from investors about how widespread adoption of the technology appears to be and what kind of payoff they can expect for their spending. Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has argued...

The EU’s humanitarian chief Janez Lenarcic on Thursday slammed the Israeli army’s major military offensive in the occupied West Bank. “The situation in the occupied #WestBank is deteriorating further, with indiscriminate use of Israeli military force and settler violence against civilians and extensive destruction of homes and infrastructure, in violation of international law and human rights,” said Commissioner for Crisis Management in the European Commission Janez Lenarcic on X. On Wednesday, the Israeli army launched a major military operation in the northern West Bank, the largest in two decades, killing 17 Palestinians, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz called for the "temporary evacuation" of Palestinian civilians as well as "whatever steps are required" to carry out the operation. Israel has continued its brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip following a Hamas attack last Oct. 7, despite a UN Secur...

WhatsApp’s new PIN feature will allow users to start new conversations without sharing their phone numbers. According to WABetaInfo, the latest WhatsApp beta update for Android 2.24.18.2 includes details about this PIN feature. After selecting a unique username, users will be prompted to set up a PIN. This PIN must be shared with others to initiate a conversation using the username, allowing users to manage who can message them and block spammers. However, the release date for this feature hasn't been announced yet, as it's still under development. In addition to this feature, WhatsApp is also working on a new option that will allow users to easily block messages from unknown senders.

Russia said the West was playing with fire by considering allowing Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with Western missiles and cautioned the United States on Tuesday that World War Three would not be confined to Europe. Ukraine attacked Russia's western Kursk region on August 6 and has carved out a slice of territory in the biggest foreign attack on Russia since World War Two. President Vladimir Putin said there would be a worthy response from Russia to the attack. Sergei Lavrov, who has served as Putin's foreign minister for more than 20 years, said that the West was seeking to escalate the Ukraine war and was "asking for trouble" by considering Ukrainian requests to loosen curbs on using foreign-supplied weapons. Since invading Ukraine in 2022, Putin has repeatedly warned of the risk of a much broader war involving the world's biggest nuclear powers, though he has said Russia does not want a conflict with the U.S.-led NATO alliance. "We are now confi...

Japan has issued an emergency warning as a powerful typhoon approaches its southwest, prompting carmaker Toyota to shutter factories and airlines to cancel flights. The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) on Wednesday estimated that Typhoon Shanshan was situated 70km (43 miles) from Yakushima island at 2pm (05:00 GMT), heading north towards Kagoshima and Miyazaki prefectures on the southwestern Kyushu island. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters that Shanshan would approach southern Kyushu with “extremely strong force” on Thursday. Hayashi said the typhoon, expected to pack gusts of up to 250km/h (155mph), would bring “violent winds” and “high waves” stronger than those experienced in the past. The JMA said that Shanshan will strike Kyushu over the next few days, approaching the central and eastern regions, which include the capital, Tokyo, around the weekend. Authorities issued evacuation orders on Wednesday for more than 800,000 residents in Kagoshima prefect...

A team of Google scientists has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model capable of diagnosing diseases by analysing a person’s coughing and breathing sounds. This year, the tech giant introduced Health Acoustic Representations, or HeAR — a bioacoustic foundation model — to help researchers build models that can analyse sound patterns and produce health insights. The HeAR model, currently available for researchers, has been trained using “300 million pieces of audio data curated from a diverse and de-identified dataset,” and “roughly 100 million cough sounds.” It captures meaningful patterns in health-related acoustic data and creates a powerful foundation for medical audio analysis, the Google Research Team said, ranking this AI system higher than other models on a wide range of tasks and for generalising across microphones. An India-based respiratory healthcare company — Salcit Technologies — has designed Swassa, an AI-powered tool that assesses lung health by analysing ...

China has strongly condemned the recent terrorist attacks in Balochistan and expressed deep condolences to the victims, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian, responding to a question at a daily press briefing, stated, “China firmly opposes all forms of terrorism and will continue to firmly support Pakistan in advancing counter-terrorism operations, maintaining social unity and stability, and protecting people's safety.” The attacks, which occurred on Sunday night, saw terrorists targeting Pakistani security forces and police across multiple locations in Balochistan. The assailants stopped vehicles, killed innocent civilians, and destroyed infrastructure, including roads and railways. “China is willing to further strengthen counter-terrorism and security cooperation with Pakistan to jointly safeguard regional peace and security,” Lin added. Balochistan has witnessed a surge in violence recently, including targeted killings and mi...

Apple has confirmed the date for its annual iPhone-centric event, which is being called "It's Glowtime" this year, where the company is set to unveil a lineup of brand new devices that fans have been waiting for with bated breath. The phone-making giant announced Monday that the much-awaited event will take place on September 9 at the Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California. The event is scheduled to kick off at 10am Pacific Standard Time. At this year's event, Apple is set to unveil the iPhone 16 lineup, new Apple Watch models, and the AirPods 4. Additionally, the tech company is expected to reveal the official launch dates for iOS 18, macOS Sequoia, and other software updates, according to MacRumors. All four of the new iPhones are expected to sport the customisable Action Button and a new Capture Button tailored for taking photos, equipped with built-in gestures, such as a swipe for zooming in and out or a soft press for autofocus. The Capture Button will ...

The national security adviser of the United States, Jake Sullivan, has met China’s top diplomat Wang Yi as Beijing finds itself embroiled in security rows with key US allies. Japan scrambled fighter jets after a Chinese military aircraft’s incursion into its airspace on Monday with a military spy plane. Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said the airspace breach – the first by a military aircraft – was “not only a serious violation of Japan’s sovereignty but it also threatens our security”. Meanwhile, the Philippine defence chief on Tuesday accused China of being the “biggest disruptor” of peace in Southeast Asia following a week of confrontations between the two countries’ ships near a flashpoint disputed shoal in the South China Sea. Sullivan’s plane landed at Beijing’s Capital airport just before 2pm (06:00 GMT). He was welcomed on the tarmac by US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns and Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs offici...

An Asian industry group that includes Google (GOOGL.O), Meta (META.O) and X has called on the Malaysian government to pause a plan that will require social media services to apply for a license, citing a lack of clarity over the proposed regulations. In July, Malaysia's communications regulator said social media platforms with more than eight million users in the country would be required to apply for a license from this month as part of a drive to combat cybercrime. Legal action could be taken against the platforms if they failed to do so by Jan. 1, 2025, the regulator said. In an open letter dated Friday and addressed to Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, the Asia Internet Coalition (AIC) - whose members also include Apple Inc (AAPL.O), Amazon (AMZN.O) and Grab (GRAB.O) - said the proposed licensing regime was "unworkable" for the industry and could stifle innovation by placing undue burdens on businesses. The group said there had been no formal public consul...

WhatsApp's new augmented reality (AR) feature for call effects and filters, which was previously exclusive to Android users, will soon be rolled out to iOS users, according to WABetaInfo. The Meta-owned instant messaging app had previously added an AR feature for call effects and filters to Android users, enhancing the users' interactivity during video calls. However, WABetaInfo, citing the latest WhatsApp beta for iOS 24.17.10.74 update, reported that WhatsApp is now planning to extend the same features to iOS users. Currently, the feature is accessible only to beta testers who download the latest WhatsApp beta for iOS via the TestFlight app. These updates will soon be available to more people in the coming weeks. The new tool offers an array of dynamic facial filters to enhance users' video calling experience. These filters allow you to customise their appearance in real-time during video calls, modifying the overall colour tone of their video feed. Moreover, Whats...

Sixty global press freedom and human rights organisations have signed a letter calling on the European Union to take decisive action against Israel for its escalating violations of media freedom and the killing of journalists in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Israel. The letter on Monday urged the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement and the imposition of targeted sanctions on responsible Israeli officials. It was signed by organisations including the International Press Institute (IPI), Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Free Press Unlimited (FPU). Addressing top EU diplomat Josep Borrell and European Commission Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis, the appeal underscored the urgent need for action against what they describe as “unprecedented violations of media freedom by Israeli authorities”. “These are part of widespread and systematic abuses committed by Israeli authorities in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel, and elsewhere, as documented or acknowledged by Israeli...

China’s military has stepped up army and police patrols along its western border with Myanmar amid deepening conflict between the military regime and armed groups opposed to its coup. The patrols, which also involve air surveillance, will focus on the towns of Ruili, Zhenkang and other front-line areas, the military said in a statement on Monday. Ruili, in China’s southwestern province of Yunnan, is a main route for people and goods heading to and from Myanmar, but China has reported artillery shells injuring residents and damaging structures in its territory amid rising conflict across the border in Myanmar’s Shan State. Fighting has escalated there since late year when ethnic armed groups formed an alliance to push the military from the area. A Beijing-brokered truce in January broke down in late June and the armed groups say they have overrun multiple Myanmar military posts and taken control of key towns in a renewed, and expanded, offensive. The military has responded with b...

At least 13 people have died and 14 others remain missing after a boat capsized off Yemen on Tuesday, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said on Sunday. The migrant boat, carrying 25 Ethiopians and two Yemenis, had been sailing off the coast of Yemen's Taiz governorate in the southwest, IOM said. The bodies of the deceased, 11 men and two women, were recovered along the shores of Bab al-Mandab Strait — one of the world's most important sea routes for global commodity shipments. Search operations were continuing in the hopes of locating those who were still missing, which included the Yemeni captain and his assistant, said the report, adding it wasn't clear what had caused the vessel to sink. In July, a boat with at least 45 refugees capsized off the coast of Yemen's Taiz, and there were only four survivors. IOM, which runs a tally of migrants who are killed or missing on migration routes, has recorded 2,082 migrant deaths and disappearances along ...

Brazil’s Sao Paulo state said that wildfire outbreaks were affecting or closing in on 30 of its cities on Friday evening, adding two people had died in an industrial plant trying to hold back the flames. The cities have been affected by dry, hot weather in recent days, the government said in a statement. The state government also warned that forest fires could spread rapidly from gusts of wind, potentially razing large areas of natural vegetation. For now, the government has not reported flames directly reaching the city of Sao Paulo, Latin America’s largest by population with more than 11 million residents. Still, local media reported smoke blocking out some parts of state capital’s sky. The government said two employees at an industrial plant in the city of Urupes had died on Friday while fighting a fire, without providing more details. Earlier in the day Raizen, the world’s largest sugarcane processor, said that industrial operations at a plant in Sertaozinho had been halted...

Two US astronauts who flew to the International Space Station in June aboard Boeing’s faulty Starliner capsule will need to return to Earth on a SpaceX vehicle early next year, Nasa officials said on Saturday, deeming issues with Starliner’s propulsion system too risky to carry its first crew home as planned. Veteran astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, both former military test pilots, became the first crew to ride Starliner on June 5 when they were launched to the ISS for what was expected to be an eight-day test mission. But Starliner’s propulsion system suffered a series of glitches in the first 24 hours of its flight to the ISS that has so far kept the astronauts on the station for 79 days as Boeing scrambled to investigate the issues. Nasa officials told reporters during a news conference in Houston that Wilmore and Williams, both former military test pilots, are safe and prepared to stay even longer. They will use their extra time to conduct science experiments along...

SpaceX's attempt at the first ever private spacewalk next week will be a test of trailblazing equipment, including slim spacesuits and a cabin with no airlock, in one of the riskiest missions yet for Elon Musk's space company. A billionaire entrepreneur, a retired military fighter pilot and two SpaceX employees are poised to launch on Tuesday aboard a modified Crew Dragon craft, before embarking on a 20-minute spacewalk 434 miles (700 km) into space two days later. Until now, walking into the empty expanse of space has only been attempted by government astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS), 250 miles (400 km) above Earth. SpaceX's five-day mission - dubbed Polaris Dawn - will swing in an oval-shaped orbit, passing as close to Earth as 190 km (118 miles) and as far as 1,400 km (870 miles), the farthest any humans will have ventured since the end of the United States' Apollo moon program in 1972. Crew members, including billionaire Jared Isaacman, will...

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's plane utilized Pakistan's airspace during his return journey from Poland to Delhi on Saturday morning. According to civil aviation sources, the aircraft entered Pakistani airspace at 10:15am and remained within the country's borders for 46 minutes. The plane entered Pakistan's territory over Chitral and then passed through the air control zones of Islamabad and Lahore. It eventually exited Pakistani airspace into India over Amritsar at 11:01am. Civil aviation authorities confirmed that the flight was monitored as it crossed key regions of Pakistan before making its way into Indian territory.

Three people were killed and four others seriously wounded in a stabbing attack at a festival on Friday night in the western German city of Solingen, police said. They said that at around 10 pm (2000 GMT) a single, unidentified man attacked multiple people and that the perpetrator was still at large. "It tears my heart apart that there was an attack on our city. I have tears in my eyes when I think of those we have lost," Solingen Mayor Tim-Oliver Kurzbach said in a statement. "I pray for all those who are still fighting for their lives." Fatal stabbings and shootings in Germany are relatively uncommon. The police said the attack occurred at a festival to honour the town's 650th anniversary. Solingen is in North Rhine-Westphalia state, Germany's most populous and bordering the Netherlands. The state's interior minister, Herbert Reul, visited the scene, telling reporters it was a targeted attack on human life but declining to speculate on the moti...

Half of the passengers in a bus carrying 43 Indians died on Friday when the vehicle plunged into a rain-swollen river in neighbouring Nepal, according to a spokesperson for the Himalayan nation’s armed police. A total of 21 people died and 22 were injured, Shailendra Thapa, a spokesperson for the armed police said, adding that all 41 passengers and two crew were Indian and headed to the capital Kathmandu from the tourist city of Pokhara when the accident occurred. Roads in the mountainous region can challenge drivers as they are often narrow and treacherous, making it tough to manoeuvre large vehicles around hairpin curves. Rescuers pulled 22 people from the rain-swollen waters of the Marsyangdi river in the Tanahun district, about 118 kilometres from Kathmandu, of which 12 were seriously injured and airlifted to the capital. Police and army teams climbed down long metal ladders to reach the river, using ropes to pull out the injured and dead. Exhausted women and children lay am...

A massive 2,492-carat diamond — the second largest in the world — has been discovered in Botswana, the Canadian mining company that found the stone announced on Thursday. The diamond was discovered in the Karowe Diamond Mine in northeastern Botswana using x-ray detection technology, Lucara Diamond Corp. said in a statement. Lucara did not give a value for the find or mention its quality. But in terms of carats, the stone is second only to the 3,016-carat Cullinan Diamond discovered in South Africa in 1905. “We are ecstatic about the recovery of this extraordinary 2,492-carat diamond,” Lucara president William Lamb said in the statement. Pictures released by the company show the diamond is as large as the palm of a hand. This find was “one of the largest rough diamonds ever unearthed” and was detected using the company’s Mega Diamond Recovery X-ray technology installed in 2017 to identify and preserve large, high-value diamonds, the statement said. Tobias Kormind, managing directo...

Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic presidential nomination in Chicago on Thursday before a rapturous crowd, pledging a “new way forward” if she beats Republican Donald Trump in November’s blockbuster election. The 59-year-old sought to strike a presidential tone as she delivered a message of unity and opportunity for Americans following one of the most extraordinary turnarounds in US political history. She lashed out at Trump, accusing him of trying to “take our country” backwards and of cosying up to foreign “tyrants” like Russian President Vladimir Putin. “On behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on earth, I accept your nomination to be president of the United States of America,” the vice president said to huge cheers. “I will be a president who unites us around our highest aspirations,” she vowed. The convention became a giant party to celebrate Harris’s astonishing ascent from something of a political afterthought to Democratic standa...

Australia approved on Wednesday plans for a massive solar and battery farm that would export energy to Singapore, a project billed as the "largest solar precinct in the world". Authorities announced environmental approvals for SunCable's $24 billion project in Australia's remote north that is slated to power three million homes. The project, which will include an array of panels, batteries and, eventually, a cable linking Australia with Singapore, is backed by tech billionaire and green activist Mike Cannon-Brookes. "It will be the largest solar precinct in the world — and heralds Australia as the world leader in green energy," said Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek. It is hoped that energy production will begin in 2030, providing four gigawatts of energy for domestic use. Two more gigawatts would be sent to Singapore via undersea cable, supplying about 15% of the city-state's needs. SunCable Australia's managing director Cameron Garnswort...

The body of British tech magnate Mike Lynch was retrieved on Thursday from the wreck of his family yacht that sank earlier this week off the coast of Sicily during a violent storm, a senior Italian official said. Lynch’s 18-year-old daughter Hannah is still unaccounted for, interior ministry official Massimo Mariani told Reuters after being briefed by the emergency services. The bodies of four other people who vanished when the boat went down were recovered from the yacht on Wednesday. The British-flagged Bayesian, a 56-metre-long superyacht carrying 22 passengers and crew, was anchored off the port of Porticello, near Palermo, when it disappeared beneath the waves in a matter of minutes after the bad weather struck in the early hours of Monday. Lynch, 59, was one of the UK’s best-known tech entrepreneurs and had invited friends to join him on the yacht to celebrate his acquittal in June in a major U.S. fraud trial. His body was brought ashore in a blue body bag and driven in an...

Zoom Video Communications (ZM.O) raised its annual revenue forecast on Wednesday, driven by strong demand for its AI-powered collaboration tools deployed in hybrid work models, and said Kelly Steckelberg would step down as its CFO. Shares of the video-conferencing provider were trading 3% higher after the bell. Zoom has been doubling down on efforts to integrate artificial intelligence into its products and expand its range of services and leverage the growing trend of hybrid work. Zoom Contact Center, the company's AI-powered, omnichannel platform that provides businesses personalized responses for their customers, secured several high-profile clients, including its largest single-order deal to date in the second quarter. Zoom said large accounts, with customers contributing more than $100,000 in trailing 12-month revenue, increased 7.1%. Online average monthly churn also reached its lowest ever rate. This suggests that Zoom is "doing more than simply holding its groun...

A Greek-flagged oil tanker with 25 crew members on board has caught fire after multiple attacks and is adrift in the Red Sea. The Sounion was attacked by more than a dozen people on two small boats who fired multiple projectiles at the ship when it was about 77 nautical miles (143km) west of Yemen’s port city of Hodeidah on Wednesday morning, the Greek shipping ministry and the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said. There was a brief exchange of fire, the UKMTO said. In a later update, it said the ship reported another attack that caused the fire and led the vessel to lose engine power and its ability to manoeuvre. The EU Red Sea naval mission said it responded to a request from the shipping company and the captain of the vessel and dispatched a unit to provide protection to the crew, made up of 23 Filipinos and two Russians. The crew abandoned the vessel and were rescued by the mission, an official told the Reuters news agency. There were no reports of injuries. ...

Space X’s Polaris’ four astronauts Jared Isaacman, Scott Poteet, Anna Menon and Sarah Gills will be launched on August 26 from the Kennedy Space Station for a spacewalk mission that has never been done by any privately arranged crew. The Polaris crew will spend five days aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule set to soar higher than any other spacecraft since Nasa ended its Apollo programme in the 1970’s. Isaacman and his crew will extend their orbital path high enough to plunge them into the Van Allen radiation belts that pose significant risks to the human body. Effects on the human body include the disruption in the central nervous system, suppression of hematopoiesis in bone marrow, cataracts and other vision impairments, and acute radiation sickness. These are the effects of long-term low-level or short-term high-level exposure to radiation and they can affect EVAs, as per the European Space Agency (ESA). ESA further details that there are also stochastic effects which normally...

At least three staff members have been killed in a shooting at a school in the northwest of Bosnia and Herzegovina, authorities say. Among those killed in Wednesday’s shooting were the principal, secretary and a teacher at the Sanski Most High School Center, Adnan Beganovic, a spokesman for the Ministry of Internal Affairs, told media. The shooting took place at 10:15am (08:15 GMT). The Reuters news agency reported quoting police that a school employee was involved in the shooting. The Sanski Most town is located approximately 200km (124 miles) northwest of the capital, Sarajevo. Schools in Bosnia are closed for the summer holiday, which means no classes were being held at the time of the shooting. While no students were present, teachers were meeting to prepare for the upcoming school year. The suspect “used a military firearm, an automatic rifle, to kill three school employees and tried to kill himself”, Beganovic told national radio. The wounded man was reported to be in ser...

After receiving immense flak from netizens and information technology sector bodies over intermittent internet disruptions, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) has finally commented on the issue linking it with a "fault in the undersea submarine cable". "Submarine Consortium has informed [us] that the internet [services] are affected due to a fault in the submarine cable which will be resolved by August 27," PTA Chairman Major General (retd) Hafeez-Ur-Rehman said while briefing the National Assembly Standing Committee on IT. He added that seven fibre optic cables are connected with Pakistan of which one is damaged. The PTA chief's remarks come in the wake of the prevailing internet slowdown and limited connectivity that experts and stakeholders have attributed to the purported testing of an internet firewall to rein in social media, which is equipped with filters to block unwanted content from reaching a wider audience. However, the government ...

With global crime rates in the rise, many people often worry about their phones being snatched. However, Android users may worry less now because their phones will soon be protected by artificial intelligence. In May, Google announced plans to introduce an advanced anti-theft feature for Android phones, set to debut with Android 15 and fans have been anticipating the exciting feature ever since. According to Google, the Theft Detection Lock tool is designed to use AI technology and the phone's gyroscope and accelerometer to identify suspicious movements associated with theft. Upon sensing erratic motion patterns, such as a sudden jerk followed by rapid acceleration, the feature will swiftly lock the device's screen, safeguarding the owner’s personal information. According to ZDNET, Google is finally rolling out the much-awaited AI-powered feature but only to a select group of users in Brazil who signed up for the company’s beta program. Once the feature rolls out fully, ...