Hamas negotiators stayed in Cairo for a third day of ceasefire talks yesterday after two days yielded no breakthrough, as a deadline approached to halt the fighting in time for Ramadan, free Israeli hostages and stave off famine in the Gaza Strip.

Meta suffered a highly unusual outage of all its social media platforms yesterday with users of Facebook, Instagram and Threads locked out of their accounts. 

Iran executed at least 834 people last year, the highest number since 2015, as capital punishment in the Islamic republic surged to a “staggering” level, human rights groups said yesterday.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos took back his spot as the world’s richest man on Monday, dethroning Elon Musk on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Bezos’ net worth stands at USD200 billion, according to the tracker, surpassing the Tesla chief’s USD198 billion.

Two Palestinian toddlers with sunken eyes and emaciated faces, one in a yellow cardigan and the other in a stripy top, were lying side by side on a bed in a Gaza clinic, their thin, bony legs protruding from diapers that looked too big for them.

Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram faced a global outage for nearly an hour

Anant's pre-wedding bash was attended by Bill Gates, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, fellow Indian billionaires Gautam Adani, as well as many cricketers and Bollywood film stars such as Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan.

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Pakistani counterpart Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday for his return to the premiership, a rare expression of goodwill between leaders of the two nuclear-armed rivals

Iran executed a "staggering" total of at least 834 people last year, the highest number since 2015 as capital punishment surged in the Islamic republic, two rights groups said today

An aid mission to two hospitals in northern Gaza found horrifying scenes of children dying of starvation, amid dire shortages of food, fuel and medicines, the World Health Organization said Monday

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos took back his spot as the world's richest man on Monday, dethroning Elon Musk on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index

Former top executives of Twitter sued Elon Musk yesterday saying he has failed to pay them nearly $130 million after the billionaire took over the social media company and dismissed them

China today set a growth target of around five percent for 2024, an ambitious objective analysts said would be a challenge to meet given the severe headwinds battering the world's second-largest economy

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council and an ally of President Vladimir Putin, described Ukraine yesterday as part of Russia and said what he called historical parts of Russia needed to “come home.”

The EU yesterday hit Apple with a more than 1.8-billion-euro fine (USD1.9 billion) for violating the bloc’s laws by preventing European users from accessing information about alternative, cheaper music streaming services.

The Gaza war between Israel and Hamas is a “powder keg” with the potential to spark broader conflict in the Middle East, UN human rights chief Volker Turk said yesterday.

Pakistan’s election commission yesterday blocked lawmakers loyal to jailed ex-prime minister Imran Khan from taking a share of parliamentary seats reserved for women and minorities, after a poll marred by rigging claims.

Haiti’s government declared on Sunday a state of emergency and nighttime curfew in a bid to regain control of the country after a deadly gang assault on the capital’s main prison that allowed thousands of inmates to escape.

Iran yesterday announced a turnout of 41 percent in last week’s elections for parliament and a key clerical body -- a record low since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, according to voting records.

They are among the wonders of our deserts: star dunes, the vaguely pyramid-shaped sand formations up to about 1,000 feet (300 metres) tall with arms stretching out from a central peak to give them a star-like appearance when viewed from above.