Author: HeraldStar

Cricket commentator Andrew Leonard discusses the United States’ historic win over Pakistan in the 2024 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup.

Shakoofa Khalili was waiting for her husband to return home with bread from the market when she heard their eight-year-old daughter scream from the balcony. The girl had seen police approach her father in the street outside their safe house in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad and ran to confront them. “(She) cried and grabbed the policeman’s hand begging him to let her father go,” Khalili told CNN, as she recounted what she thought was her worst fears coming true. When Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in 2021, hundreds of thousands of refugees fled across the border to neighboring Pakistan, seeking safety…

Taiwanese actor Barbie Hsu, one of the most prominent stars in the Chinese-speaking world, has died of a flu-related illness at age 48, Taiwan’s official Central News Agency reported Monday, citing her sister. Hsu died of pneumonia after catching the flu during a family holiday in Japan, her younger sister Dee Hsu said in a statement shared by her agent, CNA reported. “I am grateful that I could be her sister in this life, to take care and accompany each other,” Dee Hsu said. “I will always be grateful to her and miss her.” The star had faced poor health…

DeepSeek’s artificial intelligence (AI) model can be used in various military applications, from controlling unmanned vehicles to giving commands, according to a white paper recently published by Chongqing Landship Information Technology, an autonomous driving solution provider. Landship said DeepSeek has excellent potential in military use, such as command, communications, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR). “In military strategic planning, DeepSeek can conduct in-depth analysis of massive intelligence information and provide military commanders with accurate decision-making support,” it said. “DeepSeek has powerful language understanding and generation capabilities, allowing it to adapt to battlefield tasks quickly.” Landship added that DeepSeek could collaborate with satellites,…

In a troubling escalation of violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), government forces and Rwandan-backed M23 rebels traded blame for a deadly explosion during a rally in the rebel-held city of Bukavu on Thursday. The attack, which killed at least 13 people and injured dozens more, has further heightened tensions in a region already gripped by conflict, raising fears of a broader regional war. The explosion occurred during a rally at Bukavu’s central square, where one of the M23 rebel leaders was delivering a speech. According to the DRC’s army, Rwandan troops and their proxies launched rockets…

French President Emmanuel Macron expressed growing concern on Friday regarding the detention and health of Franco-Algerian author Boualem Sansal, who has been held in Algeria since November. Macron’s remarks, made during his visit to Porto, Portugal, underscored the escalating tensions between France and Algeria, as the two countries face a series of unresolved issues, including immigration agreements and human rights concerns. Sansal, an acclaimed novelist known for his critical views of the Algerian government, has been detained on charges that many human rights organizations deem politically motivated. His arrest and continued detention have sparked widespread condemnation, with French authorities and…

Jamaica, a nation that gained its independence from Britain in 1962, has long debated whether to sever its remaining colonial ties by removing the British monarch, currently King Charles, as head of state. With a shifting public sentiment increasingly favoring the abolition of the monarchy, the Jamaican government, led by Prime Minister Andrew Holness, presented a bill late last year aimed at making that change. However, the bill has sparked significant controversy, particularly over the details of the proposal and the process by which a new head of state would be selected. Jamaica, like 13 other former British colonies, has…

The stunning blow-up between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the White House came after weeks of frustration by Trump and his top aides who saw the Ukrainian leader as an obstacle to their goals of quickly ending the war, restoring ties with Moscow and sealing a potentially lucrative minerals deal, multiple sources familiar with the matter said. The U.S. president has long taken an adversarial stance toward Zelenskiy and Ukraine. But the divide between the Ukrainian leader and the Trump White House has ballooned in recent days as talks over a much-anticipated minerals deal for joint development of Ukraine’s natural resources…

Hamas said on Saturday that it rejected Israel’s “formulation” of extending the first phase of the ceasefire in Gaza, on the day the first stage of the deal was set to expire. The group’s spokesperson Hazem Qassem also told Al-Araby TV there were no current talks for a second ceasefire phase in Gaza with the group.

Pope Francis, who has been in hospital for just over two weeks fighting double pneumonia, had a peaceful night and is resting, the Vatican said on Saturday. After days of a cautious optimism, the 88-year-old pontiff suffered a setback on Friday, experiencing an “isolated breathing crisis” that required non-invasive, mechanical ventilation, the Vatican said. The pope, it said, also had “an episode of vomiting with inhalation and a sudden worsening of the respiratory condition.” He needed aspiration to help remove the vomit from his airways, the Vatican added. His doctors are expected to take 24-48 hours to evaluate how the episode will…