In Iranian waters, a strange trade is taking place — Pakistani fishermen exchange subsidised Iranian fuel for high-value tuna, a barter system now under threat from escalating United States-Iran tensions. Shah Zamin Khan is among thousands of Pakistani tuna traders whose lucrative business has been at a near standstill since February, when the war between the US, Israel and Iran began. The recent targeting of Iranian seaports by Washington has made matters worse. Iran's southern ports of Konarak, Pasabandar and Beris, which border Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province and serve as key fish trade hubs, are among the sites targeted by US airstrikes in recent weeks. "Our businesses were already affected by the war but the recent targeting of Iranian seaports have turned the region into a no-go area for us over the past one month," Khan told Anadolu. Boat owners, according to Khan, have completely stopped sending their vessels to the Iranian ports fo...
Partisan websites masquerading as media outlets now outnumber American newspaper sites, a research group that tracks misinformation said Tuesday, highlighting a local news crisis in a year of high-stakes elections. Hundreds of sites mimicking news outlets -- many of them powered by artificial intelligence -- have cropped up in recent months, fueling an explosion of polarizing or false narratives that are stoking alarm as the race for the White House intensifies. At least 1,265 "pink slime" outlets -- politically motivated websites that present themselves as independent local news outlets -- have been identified, the US-based research group NewsGuard said in a report. Read: Tackling fake news and threats to journalists By comparison, 1,213 websites of local newspapers were operating in the United States last year, according to Northwestern University's "local news initiative" project. "The odds are now better than 50-50 that if you see a news website purport...