Author: News Desk

Wayanad: Nearly 1,000 people have been rescued following severe landslides in Indian state of Kerala’s Wayanad district. The disaster, triggered by heavy rains, has claimed at least 165 lives, with more than 150 individuals still missing. The landslides struck early morning on July 30th, causing hillsides to collapse and unleash torrents of mud, water, and boulders across tea and cardamom estates, as well as small settlements. The catastrophic event is the worst the state of Kerala has faced since the deadly floods of 2018. State officials confirmed the devastation emphasising the significant loss of life and the ongoing search for…

Australia: In a groundbreaking initiative, Australia is set to offer a pioneering treatment programme aimed at building immunity against peanut allergies in infants. The world-first kind of programme will be administered under the supervision of select paediatric hospitals across the country. The new treatment involves gradually increasing the doses of peanut powder to the eligible babies over a period of at least two years. This approach aims to reduce sensitivity and potentially decrease the severity of peanut allergies. While clinical trials of oral immunotherapy have demonstrated promise, this is the first time it is being implemented as a national model…

United States: The global outage that affected Microsoft products, such as the email service Outlook and the video game Minecraft, has been fixed, according to a statement from the computer behemoth. The company added that initial findings indicate that a cyberattack and inadequate defences against it were the root cause of the outage. The incident, which lasted for about ten hours and led thousands of users to report problems with Microsoft services, was already apologized for by the firm. It occurred less than two weeks after a critical worldwide outage caused by a faulty software upgrade by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike…

London: Peter Hendy, the newly appointed United Kingdom Minister of State for Rail, is scheduled to meet with Network Rail to discuss the future of the long-awaited overhaul of Ely Junction in Cambridgeshire. The crucial railway junction, which has been in the planning stages for several years, is a major area where five railway lines converge, including those serving Norfolk and Suffolk. The upgrade was first announced by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in October. However, uncertainties regarding funding and project timelines have persisted. The Department for Transport has acknowledged the significant benefits that the scheme could offer to both…

United States: McDonald’s has announced its first decline in global sales in more than three years as consumers who are weary of inflation cut back on eating out and look for less expensive options. The fast food behemoth McDonald’s said on Monday that its global sales decreased by 1 percent in the April–June quarter. This is the first decline since the final quarter of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic and governmental restrictions forced millions of people to stay at home and closed operations. Sales at licensee-run outlets in so-called international developmental licensed markets fell by 1.3 percent as a result…

Paris: The men’s triathlon at the Paris Olympics has been postponed due to high pollution levels in the Seine River, World Triathlon announced. The race, originally scheduled for Tuesday, will now take place on Wednesday at 10:45 a.m. (0845 GMT), immediately following the women’s triathlon, which is set for 8 a.m. on the same day. Organisers had expressed confidence that water quality would improve in time for the event after heavy rainfall last week caused significant contamination in the river. However, despite recent improvements, water quality readings at several points along the swim course still exceed acceptable limits. “Paris 2024…

Switzerland: The United Nations (UN) reports 86 percent of Gaza is under Israeli evacuation orders as 33 more Palestinians are killed amid ongoing attacks and displacement. Following further orders from the Israeli army to evacuate, thousands of Palestinians left the central Gaza refugee camps of Bureij and Nuseirat on Monday. According to Philippe Lazzarini, the director of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, 86 percent of the besieged enclave is under Israeli military orders to evacuate. Wearing black sunglasses, Kahder Baroud, a blind Palestinian man, said he got a call on Sunday from the Israeli army telling him to…

Caracas: President Nicolas Maduro has been declared the winner of the Venezuelan presidential election, securing a third six-year term with 51.2 percent of the vote, according to Elvis Amoroso, president of the National Electoral Council (CNE). Opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who led in opinion polls, received 44.2 percent of the vote. However, the announcement of the result has been widely opposed. Opposition representatives reported discrepancies between the tallies that they had collected from polling stations and the figures released by the CNE, which is controlled by Maduro loyalists. They alleged that their data reveals Gonzalez leading significantly over Maduro.…

Jordan: Jordan’s Umm al-Jimal village was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List and was praised by the tourism minister as a “great achievement.” UNESCO, hosting a World Heritage Committee meeting in New Delhi, announced on X that the oldest structures found at Umm al-Jimal date back to the 1st century AD, when the region was part of the Nabataean Kingdom. “Greek, Nabataean, Safaitic, Latin, and Arabic uncovered on the site… sheds light on the changes in its inhabitants’ religious beliefs,” it continued. The town, which is 86 kilometres (53 miles) north of Amman, the capital of Jordan, is close…

Tokyo: Foreign ministers from Australia, India, Japan, and the United States, collectively known as the ‘Quad,’ have gathered in Tokyo for high-stakes discussions centered on maritime security and bolstering cyber defences. The meeting featured Australia’s Penny Wong, India’s Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Japan’s Yoko Kamikawa, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The talks followed security discussions between Tokyo and Washington, where the allies identified China as the region’s ‘greatest strategic challenge.’ Wong opened the Quad discussions by acknowledging the transformative changes affecting the region and emphasised the need to safeguard peace, stability, and prosperity. Kamikawa underscored the importance of enhancing cybersecurity…