World Echo

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...

A United Nations inquiry found on Wednesday that both Israel and Hamas had committed war crimes early in the Gaza war, and that Israel's actions also constituted crimes against humanity because of the immense civilian losses. The findings were from two parallel reports by the UN Commission of Inquiry (COI), one focusing on the October 7 attacks and another on Israel's response. Israel, which did not cooperate with the commission, dismissed the findings as the result of anti-Israeli bias. Hamas did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The war began on October 7 when militants led by Hamas, the Islamist group ruling Gaza, killed 1,200 Israelis and took more than 250 hostage, according to Israeli tallies. Israel's military retaliation has caused the deaths of more than 37,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's health ministry, displaced most of Gaza's population of 2.3 million, caused widespread hunger, and devastated housing and infrastr...

A fire that broke out in a building housing workers in the city of Mangaf in southern Kuwait early on Wednesday has killed at least 41 people, the country's deputy prime minister Sheikh Fahad Yusuf Saud Al-Sabah said during a visit to the site. The deputy PM accused real estate owners of violations and greed, saying those factors contributed towards the incident. "Unfortunately, the greed of real estate owners is what leads to these matters," said Sheikh Fahad, who also runs the interior and defence ministries. The fire was reported to authorities at 6:00 am local time, Major General Eid Rashed Hamad said. "The building in which the fire occurred was used to house workers, and there was a large number of workers there. Dozens were rescued, but unfortunately, there were many deaths as a result of inhaling smoke from the fire," another senior police commander told state TV. "We always alert and warn against" cramming too many workers into housing accommo...

India will focus on finding solutions to the border issues with Pakistan and China that have long strained ties between India and its neighbouring countries, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Tuesday after assuming charge for a second straight term. Relations between India have worsened since a 2019 suicide bombing of an Indian military convoy in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) which India claims was traced to Pakistan-based militants, leading New Delhi to carry out an airstrike on what it said was a militant base in Pakistan. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was sworn in on Sunday for a record-equalling third term at a grand ceremony at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the president's palace in New Delhi, attended by leaders of seven regional countries, underlining the government's "neighbourhood first" policy. On Monday, leaders of the two countries engaged in diplomacy via X. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his elder brother an...

Malawi's Vice President Saulos Klaus Chilima and nine others, including former first lady Shanil Dzimbiri, were killed when the military plane they were travelling in crashed, President Lazarus Chakwera said on Tuesday. The aircraft carrying Chilima, who was seen as a potential candidate in next year's presidential election, went missing on Monday. "I'm deeply saddened, I'm sorry to inform you all that it has turned out to be a terrible tragedy. The search and rescue team has found the aircraft near a hill. They have found it completely destroyed with no survivors," Chakwera said in an address to the nation. The plane left the capital Lilongwe at 09:17 a.m. (0717 GMT) on Monday but was unable to land at Mzuzu airport as scheduled at 10:02 a.m. due to poor visibility. It was ordered to return to Lilongwe but went off the radar and aviation authorities could not make contact with it. Chakwera said all passengers on board were killed on impact and that the milita...

Hamas accepts a UN resolution backing a plan to end the war with Israel in Gaza and is ready to negotiate details, a senior official of the Palestinian group said on Tuesday in what the US Secretary of State called "a hopeful sign". Conversations on plans for Gaza after the Israel-Hamas war ends will continue on Tuesday afternoon and in the next couple of days, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Tel Aviv after talks with Israeli leaders. "It's imperative that we have these plans." Blinken met Israeli officials on Tuesday in a push to end the eight-month-old Israeli air and ground war against Hamas that has devastated Gaza, a day after President Joe Biden's proposal for a truce was approved by the UN Security Council. Ahead of Blinken's trip, Israel and Hamas both repeated hardline positions that have undermined previous mediation to end the fighting, while Israel has pressed on with assaults in central and southern Gaza, among the bloodiest of the...

The United Nations Security Council will vote later on Monday on a United States (US)-drafted resolution backing a proposal outlined by US President Joe Biden for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The US finalised its text on Sunday after six days of negotiations among the 15-member council. It was not immediately clear whether veto powers Russia and China would allow the adoption of the draft. A resolution needs at least nine votes in favour and no vetoes by the US, France, Britain, China, or Russia to pass. Biden laid out a three-phase ceasefire plan on May 31 that he described as an Israeli initiative. Some Security Council members questioned whether Israel had accepted the plan to end the fighting in Gaza. Read more: Biden details Gaza truce proposal, Hamas responds positively The draft resolution welcomes the new ceasefire proposal, "which Israel accepted, calls upon Hamas to also accept it, and urges both parties to fully implement its terms without dela...