World Echo

At least one body was recovered while more than 30 people are missing after an inter-island ferry sank off the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, the prime minister's office said on Sunday. Of the more than 40 crew members and passengers on board, 15 people have been accounted for alive, according to a statement on US social media platform Facebook. The statement, citing Luganville MP Matai Seremiah, said the search in open waters is being scaled back as efforts shifted to the southeast coast, where currents may have carried survivors. "The loss appears to be the result of strong winds and marine warnings not being heeded, and possibly of negligence including overloading of the vessel," said the prime minister's office. Read: Eleven bodies recovered after boat carrying migrants sinks off Tunisia It urged ship owners to prioritize safety, ensure vessels are seaworthy and properly equipped, and maintain reliable communication systems. "Ignoring ...

Yemeni government forces thwarted a large-scale attack by the Houthi group in the oil-rich Marib province in central Yemen on Saturday, according to local media. The government-aligned West Coast news website said government forces repelled the attack in the Al-Mashjah and Al-Zour areas, west of Marib. The website provided no further details, while neither government forces nor the Houthis issued an immediate statement on the report. The development comes amid ongoing fighting between government forces and the Houthis across several fronts, including Marib, Al-Jawf, Taiz, Al-Dhale and Al-Bayda provinces. Read: Trump says Iran probably responsible for attack on Saudi pipeline Social media activists circulated videos purportedly showing dozens of Houthi members who were killed or captured during fighting Friday on several fronts along Marib’s borders. Yesterday, the Trump administration had no plans for direct military action against Houthi forces in Yemen, though it is p...

Saudi Arabia’s shutdown of its vital East-West oil pipeline following drone strikes has brought renewed attention to its role in carrying crude from the kingdom’s eastern oil-producing region to the Red Sea while bypassing the Strait of Hormuz. The Saudi Energy Ministry said on Friday that the pipeline had been targeted on Thursday morning by several drones in the Riyadh and Medina regions, prompting authorities to halt its operation as a precaution. An official ministry source, cited by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), said emergency and technical teams had begun securing the pipeline and checking its safety, adding that any further developments would be announced as they became available. The Saudi Foreign Ministry said the attack was carried out using several drones launched from Iraq and resulted in injuries and material damage. The ministry did not specify the number of casualties, the extent of damage to the pipeline or its pumping stations, or how long the shutd...

An Afghan woman accused of supporting the Islamic State has been deported from the United States in the first case to be pursued by the US Department of ​Justice through a little-known court created 30 years ago to deport "alien terrorists." Nazira Haji ‌Zada, a 47-year-old who had been residing in Texas as a lawful permanent resident of the United States, was deported after agreeing not to continue to fight against her removal in the Alien Terrorist Removal Court following her ​arrest in July, the department said on Friday. The Justice Department had accused her of ​helping conceal a failed, Islamic State-inspired plot to commit a mass shooting on ⁠Election Day 2024. She was never charged with any crime, but her son and son-in-law ​pleaded guilty to related charges last year. Her case had been filed in a court that had ​gone unused in the decades since its creation by Congress in 1996. That court allows the government to rely on classified evidence in deportation...

The Israeli army on Friday claimed to have killed three Palestinian commanders in Gaza, alleging they were part of the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas. “In a precise strike yesterday, Israeli forces and the Shin Bet security agency eliminated Mohammed al-Yazouri in the Khan Younis area,” the army said in a statement. It claimed that al-Yazouri served as commander of Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade. The army also claimed that Hudhaifa Muammar, a “company commander,” and Muhammad Bahjat Rashi, who it said was from Hamas’ military wing in the Khan Younis Brigade, were killed in the same strike. There was no immediate comment from Hamas or the Qassam Brigades. Read: Israeli whistleblowers detail Gaza civilian toll Since October 2023, Israel has been carrying out a genocide in Gaza, killing more than 73,000 Palestinians and injuring over 174,000 others, while destroying around 90% of the enclave’s infrastructure. The attacks conti...

The United Arab Emirates is quietly revising plans for a 5-gigawatt AI data centre project – one of the biggest outside the US – after the Iran ​war prompted a rethink of how and where critical infrastructure should be built, six people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Originally envisaged as a 10-square-mile (26-square-kilometre) campus in Abu Dhabi, the project will ‌now likely comprise a network of data centres spread across the UAE, according to four of the sources, who all spoke on condition of anonymity. Authorities are also considering ways to better protect the facilities from drone and missile attacks, including with air defences and by building some underground, they said. The likely modifications to the project’s blueprint have not previously been reported. Data centre project is central to UAE's global AI ambitions Plans for the UAE-US AI Campus, which is being built in partnership with American tech companies, were announced du...