Foreign News
Former Indian politician and brother shot dead live on TV
BBC reported that a former Indian politician convicted of kidnapping has been shot dead live on TV along with his brother.
Atiq Ahmed, who was under police escort facing murder and assault charges, was talking to journalists when a gun was pulled close to his head. After the shots were fired, three man who had been posing as journalists quickly surrendered and were taken into custody, local media reported.
Ahmed’s teenage son was shot dead by police days earlier. Ahmed had previously claimed there was a threat to his life from the police.
Video showed Ahmed and his brother, Ashraf, speaking to journalists on the way to a medical check-up at a nearby hospital seconds before they were both shot.
Atiq Ahmed’s teenage son Asad and another man, wanted in connection with a murder case, were killed by police earlier this week in what was described as a shoot-out.
In the footage, Ahmed is asked whether he attended his son’s funeral, and his last words to camera are: “They did not take us, so we did not go.”
The three men who had posed as journalists surrendered soon after the shooting, local media reported. A policeman and a journalist were also injured on the scene, police said.
Ahmed, who is a former MP, and his brother were in police custody and had been brought to Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh, where Ahmed was facing murder and assault charges. He was jailed in 2019 after he was convicted of kidnapping.
Last month India’s Supreme Court declined to hear his petition in which he alleged there was a threat to his life from the police.
Uttar Pradesh is governed by the Hindu-nationalist BJP, and opposition parties criticised the killings as a security lapse.
More than a 180 people facing various charges have been killed by police in Uttar Pradesh state in the past six years. Opposition parties say there is a climate of fear. Rights activists accuse the police of carrying out extra judicial killings, which the state’s government denies.
Robots ran alongside humans at the Yizhuang half-marathon in Beijing on Saturday.
Twenty-one humanoid robots, designed by Chinese manufacturers, raced alongside thousands of runners over a 21km (13-mile) course that included slopes, turns and uneven surfaces.
Some robots completed the race, while others struggled from the beginning. One robot fell at the starting line and lay flat for several minutes before getting up and taking off.
While robots have made appearances at marathons in China in the past, this is the first time they have raced against humans over the course of a half-marathon.
[BBC]
A United States judge has ruled that Alphabet’s Google illegally dominated two markets for online advertising technology, dealing another blow to the tech titan in an antitrust case brought by the US government.
On Thursday, US District Judge Leonie Brinkema, in Alexandria, Virginia, ruled that Google unlawfully monopolised markets for publisher ad servers and the market for ad exchanges, which sit between buyers and sellers. Antitrust enforcers failed to show the company had a monopoly in advertiser ad networks, she wrote.
The ruling could allow prosecutors to argue for a breakup of Google’s advertising products. The US Department of Justice has said that Google should have to sell off at least its Google Ad Manager, which includes the company’s publisher ad server and its ad exchange.
Google will now face the possibility of two different US courts ordering it to sell assets or change its business practices.
A judge in Washington will hold a trial next week on the DOJ’s request to make Google sell its Chrome browser and take other measures to end its dominance in online search.
[Aljazeera]
Hamas has formally rejected Israel’s latest ceasefire offer, saying it is prepared to immediately negotiate a deal that would see the release of all remaining hostages in return for an end to the war and the release of Palestinian prisoners.
In a video statement, Hamas’ chief negotiator, Khalil al-Hayya, said: “We will not accept partial deals that serve Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political agenda.”
Fifty-nine hostages remain in captivity and 24 are thought to be alive. Israel’s latest offer involved a 45-day ceasefire in return for the release of 10 hostages.
Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said it was time “to open the gates of hell” on Hamas.
Hamas officials had already indicated to the BBC earlier in the week that they would reject the plan.
“Netanyahu and his government use partial agreements as a cover for their political agenda, which is based on continuing the war of extermination and starvation, even if the price is sacrificing all his prisoners [hostages],” Hayya said.
He added the group was “ready to immediately negotiate a deal to swap all hostages with an agreed number of Palestinians jailed by Israel” and end the war.
Hamas has previously said it would contemplate an overall deal to end the war but the two sides are nowhere near any kind of agreement that would bring that about.
Israel’s stated aim is the complete disarmament and destruction of Hamas. Meanwhile dozens of Gazans are dying each day in air strikes with no humanitarian aid entering the strip at all.
The latest series of Israeli strikes killed at least 37 people, the majority of them displaced civilians living in a tented camp, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defence agency.
Witnesses in al-Mawasi said dozens of Palestinians including children had died after tents were set ablaze following a “powerful” explosion.
“I rushed outside and saw the tent next to mine engulfed in flames,” a man told the BBC’s Gaza Lifeline programme.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment but said that it was looking into reports of the strikes.
Israel has previously told Palestinians to evacuate from other parts of Gaza to al-Mawasi.
The Israeli military said attacks over the past two days had “struck over 100 terror targets” including “terrorist cells, military structures and infrastructure sites”.
Israel said there was no shortage of aid and that it was maintaining the blockade installed on 1 March to pressure Hamas to release the remaining hostages.
However the heads of 12 major aid groups said the humanitarian aid system in Gaza was “facing total collapse”.
The war began on 7 October 2023 when Hamas carried out a cross-border attack on Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s military campaign against Hamas has killed at least 51,065 people, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry
[BBC]
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