Gulfnews

Nepali rescue teams recovered on Saturday the first body from around 50 people missing after monsoon rains triggered a landslide that swept two buses off a highway and into a river. The force of Friday’s landslide in central Chitwan district pushed the vehicles over concrete crash barriers and down a steep embankment, at least 30m (100’) from the road. “One body has been found about 55km (35 miles) from the accident site,” police spokesman Kumar Neupane told AFP. District official Khimananda Bhusal told AFP that roughly 50 people remained unaccounted for, revising down the number of missing from the 63 reported by authorities on Friday. “It is hard to confirm the total number because we don’t know if the buses stopped to add or remove passengers along the way,” he said. Dozens of rescuers spent hours struggling to comb the raging Trishuli river with rafts, sensor equipment and dive teams to find any trace of the passengers or the vehicles. Teams also moved downstream on Saturday ...

HE Qatar's Permanent Representative to the UN Sheikha Alya Ahmed bin Saif al-Thani took part in a media stand following the meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee of the General Assembly for the Announcement of Voluntary Contributions to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA Pledging Conference), at the UN headquarters in New York. The group expressed its solidarity and full support for UNRWA's work, highlighting its indispensable role as the backbone in providing humanitarian aid to civilians in the Gaza Strip. (QNA) source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/686585/international/qatars-un-permanent-representative-attends-media-stand-supporting-unrwa

At least nine people were killed today and four others were critically injured in a landslide that took place in the North of Vietnam.The people were in a vehicle trapped by a landslide in Bac Me district, the Vietnam News Agency reported, the sand from the landslide buried the people in the vehicle. Rescue work is ongoing to rescue the people that are still under the debris. source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/686568/international/aseanphilippines/landslide-in-vietnam-kills-9-people

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has reiterated his call for an end to the war in the Gaza Strip, urging all parties to quickly reach an agreement.In a post on the social media platform X today, Guterres said, it was time to end the war in Gaza, and that the parties involved had to demonstrate political courage and the will to finally reach an agreement.Guterres's call coincides with a message from Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations Riyad Mansour, urging the international community and the UN to stop the Israeli massacre of the Palestinian people and ensure the protection of Palestinians in accordance with international law and the binding provisional measures issued by the International Court of Justice.US President Joe Biden emphasized last Thursday that the war in Gaza should end now and that there should be no Israeli occupation of the strip afterward. source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/686567/international/un-secre...

A planet relatively close to Earth could be the first ever detected with a potentially life-sustaining liquid ocean outside our Solar System, according to scientists using the James Webb space telescope.More than 5,000 planets have been discovered outside of the Solar System so far, but only a handful are in what is called the 'Goldilocks zone' — neither too hot or too cold — that could host liquid water, a key ingredient for life.The exoplanet LHS 1140 b is one of the few in this habitable zone, and has been thoroughly scrutinised since it was first discovered in 2017.It sits 48 light years from Earth, which equates to more than 450tn km (280tn miles) — relatively close in the vast distances of space.The exoplanet had been thought to be a small gas giant called a 'mini-Neptune' with an atmosphere too thick with hydrogen and helium to support alien life.However, new observations from the Webb telescope have confirmed that the exoplanet is in fact a rocky 'super-Eart...

Bangladesh’s top court on Wednesday temporarily suspended quotas for coveted government jobs after thousands of students staged nationwide protests against what they call a discriminatory system, lawyers said.The quota system reserves more than half of well-paid and massively over-subscribed civil service posts, totalling hundreds of thousands of government jobs, for specific groups including children of liberation heroes.Students launched protests earlier this month, demanding a merit-based system, with demonstrations on Wednesday blocking highways and railway lines.“We will not return to classrooms until our demand is met,” protest leader Rasel Ahmed of Chittagong University said.The quota system was abolished in 2018 after weeks of protests, but reinstated in June by Dhaka’s High Court, sparking fury from students. The Supreme Court on Wednesday suspended that order for a month, said lawyer Shah Monjurul Hoque, who represents two students seeking to end the quota system.Hoque said c...

Authorities in Libya said yesterday that up to four in five foreigners in the North African country are undocumented, and hosting migrants hoping to reach Europe has become “unacceptable”.Libya, about 300 kilometres from Italy, is a key departure point for migrants, primarily from sub-Saharan African countries, risking perilous Mediterranean Sea journeys to seek better life in Europe.But with mounting efforts by the European Union to curb irregular migration, many have found themselves stranded in Libya.“Today, there are approximately 2.5mn foreigners in Libya,” said Imad Trabelsi, the interior minister in the war-torn country’s Tripoli-based administration.He told a news conference that “70 to 80% of them entered the country illegally”. “The issue of immigration concerns our national security,” said Trabelsi.“It’s time to resolve this problem”, he added, because “Libya cannot continue to pay its price”.According to Trabelsi, the country has turned from a “transit country to a country ...