World Echo

US President Donald Trump said late on Tuesday his meetings with Ukrainian ​President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were positive. Netanyahu and Zelenskiy were in Washington to attend a memorial service for Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican who died earlier this ​month and was an influential advocate for Israel and Ukraine. In separate ​short posts on Truth Social, Trump said he discussed ⁠various topics with them, without giving specifics. "Had a very good ​meeting! Obviously, many important subjects were discussed," Trump wrote on meeting ​Netanyahu. Trump voiced irritation with Netanyahu ahead of the meeting, complaining that details of Netanyahu's planned talking points on Iran had surfaced publicly. Read: Trump to host Netanyahu, Zelenskiy as Ukraine, Iran wars reach critical stages The US and ​Israel attacked Iran on February 28. Tehran respond...

An Iranian military official on Wednesday denied Tehran's involvement in projectiles launched from Iraq toward Saudi Arabia, rejecting accusations that Iran was behind recent attacks on the kingdom. Responding to a statement by the Saudi defence minister, the official told Iran's state broadcaster IRIB that attributing attacks against United States interests in the region to Tehran was "a grave mistake stemming from ignorance of the situation in the region." The official also "strongly denied any connection between projectiles fired from other countries toward targets in Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran." The remarks came after Saudi Arabia's Defence Ministry said its air defenses intercepted and destroyed several drones that attempted to target petroleum facilities in the kingdom's Eastern Province. صرح المتحدث الرسمي باسم وزارة الدفاع اللواء الركن تركي المالكي أنه إلحاقاً للبيانين الصادرين من وزارة الدفاع يومي الاثنين (١٣ صف...

Israel spent tens of millions of dollars on a digital influence campaign designed to shape how artificial intelligence systems respond to questions about the Gaza war, according to a report published Tuesday by Drop Site News. The report alleges that Brad Parscale, President Donald Trump's former campaign manager, and his firm, Clock Tower X, built a network of websites under a $46.5 million contract with the Israeli government to promote Israeli narratives and influence AI platforms including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. According to documents cited by Drop Site, Clock Tower X produced hundreds of articles across multiple websites covering the war in Gaza, Israel's military operations and US-Israel relations. The report said the campaign aimed to influence responses generated by large language models (LLMs) by creating content designed to be indexed by search engines and incorporated into AI systems, a practice sometimes referred to as "LLM poisoning....

A 7.1-magnitude earthquake hit Japan's southern Kumamoto prefecture on Tuesday, knocking out power to thousands of homes, rupturing roads and leaving some trapped and others presumed dead inside a partially collapsed shopping mall. Speaking to reporters at her office in Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said authorities were still assessing the full extent of the damage in the area, which was devastated by a deadly quake a decade ago. "We have already been informed that people have been injured. Power outages and fires have occurred in some areas, and there has also been damage to roads and bridges and the collapse of buildings," Takaichi said. "I ask everyone to take action to protect themselves, including evacuating to a safe location." Around 300,000 people have been instructed to go to evacuation centres, the disaster management agency said, while Takaichi said 3,600 soldiers would be deployed to help with the disaster recovery a...

India's Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the release of under-18s arrested during the youth protests over exam leaks and said authorities must ensure surveillance footage is preserved after petitioners alleged police brutality against demonstrators. Indian media reports said Chief Justice Surya Kant also directed authorities to preserve the digital and personal data of people who participated in the demonstrations and barred any coercive action against them. The reports said Kant took interim steps in response to petitions filed by student protesters and activists seeking action against police and paramilitary forces for what they said was the use of excess force and pellet guns during the weeks-long demonstrations in the national capital and other cities. He called for the preservation of all footage, including from drones, body cameras, and CCTV footage, and directed authorities to ensure protesters' data was not made public. Government mulls tougher punishment for p...

The next round of United States-led talks between Israel and Lebanon will be held in Rome next week, with negotiators seeking to build on recent progress toward implementing a security framework agreement, US media reported Monday. "We are entering these discussions with significant momentum following the successful launch of the first pilot zone in southern Lebanon and President Joseph Aoun's productive meeting with President Donald Trump last week," local media cited a US State Department official as saying. According to the official, technical working groups meeting in Rome on August 4 to 6 will focus on advancing full implementation of last month’s framework agreement. Read: Lebanese president sets 3 conditions for Hezbollah disarmament, including Israeli withdrawal The agenda will include expanding the pilot zone initiative, resolving outstanding border disputes, and working toward a comprehensive peace and security agreement between Israel and Leb...