FORMER Twitter cofounder and CEO Jack Dorsey was left poorer by $526 million after short-seller Hindenburg Research revealed that his digital payment company Block facilitates fraud against consumers and the Government. After his worst single-day decline, Dorsey is now worth $4.4 billion, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Block’s shares nosedived as much as 22 per cent on Thursday, before closing down 15 per cent late on Thursday. Block, formerly known as Square, claims to have developed ..

GENETIC material collected at a Chinese market near where the first human cases of COVID-19 were identified show raccoon dog DNA commingled with the virus, adding evidence to the theory that the virus originated from animals, not from a lab, international experts say. “These data do not provide a definitive answer to how the pandemic began, but every piece of data is important to moving us closer to that answer,” World Health Organisation Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday. ..

A COURT in the US has cleared Elon Musk in a class-action securities fraud over his tweets about taking Tesla private. The jurors deliberated for about two hours before reaching the verdict, called a “disappointed” one by Nicholas Porritt, partner at Levi & Korsinsky, the firm representing the Tesla shareholders in the class action, reports CNBC. Musk tweeted that he is “deeply appreciative of the jury’s unanimous finding”. His lead counsel Alex Spiro argued before the jury on Friday, saying “fraud ..

A SECOND Chinese spy balloon has been spotted, this time in the skies over Latin America, the Pentagon has said, a day after another one of the size of three buses and carrying a “large” payload was seen in US skies that prompted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone his planned visit to China. “We are seeing reports of a balloon transiting Latin America. We now assess it as another Chinese surveillance balloon. We have no further information to provide at this time,” Pentagon Press Secretary ..

AHEAD of its crucial talks with the cash-strapped Pakistan Government, the IMF has found an over Rs 2,000 billion breach in budgetary estimates for 2022-23 in its initial assessment that might result in escalating the budget deficit and primary deficit targets with a massive margin. Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials are scheduled to kick-start parleys from Tuesday for accomplishing the ninth review under the Extended Fund Facility during which the fiscal slippages and reconciliat..

FORMER Pope Emeritus BenedictXVI,theshyGerman theologian who tried to reawaken Christianity in a secularised Europe but will foreverberememberedasthe first pontiff in 600 years to resign from the job, died Saturday. He was 95. Benedictstunnedtheworld on Feb. 11, 2013, when he announced, in his typical, soft-spoken Latin,that he no longer had the strength to run the 1.2 billion-strong Catholic Church that he had steered for eight years through scandal and indifference. His dramatic decision paved the ..

TWITTER has abruptly suspended the accounts of several high-profile journalists who cover the social media platform and Elon Musk, who acquired the company in October. The accounts of Ryan Mac of ‘The New York Times’, Donie O’Sullivan of ‘CNN’, Drew Harwell of ‘The Washington Post’, Matt Binder of ‘Mashable’, Micah Lee of ‘The Intercept’, Steve Herman of ‘Voice of America’, and independent journalists Aaron Rupar, Keith Olbermann as well as Tony Webster had all been suspended as of Thursday evening, ..

AN INTELLIGENCE agency report submitted to Pakistan’s federal government on assassination attempt on former Prime Minister Imran Khan “does not find any conspiracy involved” and terms it a “lone-wolf” attack, a media outlet reported. The report says that the gunshots by the pistol were followed by SMG fire by some unknown deputed for security purposes in the rally...

THE Pakistan Army on Friday requested the Federal Government to initiate legal action against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan for defaming a senior Army personnel. Responding to Khan’s allegations on the involvement of a senior Army personnel in his assassination attempt, the Intelligence agency, Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (DG ISPR) said, “The baseless and irresponsible allegations by Chairman PTI against the institution and particularly a senior Army officer ..

INTERPOL plays no role in curbing any state-sponsored activities such as terrorism and its focus is on cyber criminals, drug dealers and child abusers, its Secretary General Jurgen Stock said on Monday. Stock addressed the press on the eve of the 90th General Assembly of Interpol in Delhi in which police chiefs and ministers of 195 countries are likely to participate. The General Assembly will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday. Asked if the global body will take steps to curb ..

THIS year’s Nobel Prize in economic sciences has been awarded to the former chair of the US Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke, and two US-based economists, Douglas W. Diamond and Philip H. Dybvig, “for research on banks and financial crises.” The prize was announced Monday by the Nobel panel at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. The committee said their work had shown in their research “why avoiding bank collapses is vital.”..

A NEW aerospace company reached orbit with its second rocket launch and deployed multiple small satellites on Saturday. Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space ForceBase, California, in early morning darkness and arced over the Pacific. “100% mission success,” Firefly tweeted later. A day earlier, an attempt to launch abruptly ended when the countdown reached zero. The first-stage engines ignited but the rocket automatically aborted the liftoff. Therocket’spayloadincluded ..

THE United Nations requires urgent and comprehensive reforms and emphasised that the Security Council must be reflective of the “aspirations and perspectives of the developing world” that form the majority of UN global membership, the Ministry of External Affairs said in a joint statement. The 32 countries including India highlight the urgency needed to push reforms in the UN Security Council in their joint statement. The signatories of the joint statement stated that they reaffirm that adapting the ..

   LONDON,THE House of Commons Speaker has refused permission for a Chinese Government delegation to attend the Queen’s Lying-in-State at Westminster Hall within the Parliament complex before the funeral at Westminster Abbey in London..

PRESIDENT Draupadi Murmu will be among an estimated 500 world leaders and foreign dignitaries, including Kings and Queens and heads of State and Government, who will attend Queen Elizabeth II’s state funeral at Westminster Abbey on Monday. The Ministry of External Affairs confirmed the President’s three-day UK visit on Wednesday as India’s Head of State invited for the state funeral in London. It marks the first state funeral in the UK in 57 years, last held at the Abbey for Britain’s war-time Prime ..

PRESIDENT Joe Biden said he brought up the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in his meeting Friday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, rejecting the idea that he was ignoring the kingdom’s human rights abuses as he tries to reset a critical diplomatic relationship. “I said, very straightforwardly, for an American President to be silent on an issue of human rights is inconsistent with who we are and who I am,” Biden said. “I’ll always stand up for our values.” US Intelligence believes that the crown ..

OVER six million people or over 28 per cent of Sri Lanka’s population are “food insecure” and this situation is likely to deteriorate as the crisis unfolds in the island nation which is grappling with its worst economic crisis, the World Food Programme has said. Sri Lanka is currently reeling under a severe foreign exchange crisis with falling reserves and the Government is unable to foot the bill for essential imports. The economic crisis has led to an acute shortage of essential items like food, ..

SRI Lanka’s embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa would resign on July 13, Parliament Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena said on Saturday night. President Rajapaksa informed the Speaker about this decision after Abeywardena wrote to him asking for his resignation following the all-party leaders meeting held Saturday evening. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Saturday offered to resign and form an all-party Government, hours after thousands of protesters stormed the official residence of President ..

AMERICAN electric carmaker Tesla, which has been seeking reduction in import duties to sell its vehicles in India, will not manufacture its products locally unless it is allowed to first sell and service its cars in the country, company founder and chief executive Elon Musk has said.In a tweet responding to a user asking about Tesla setting up a manufacturing plant in India, he said, “Tesla will not put a manufacturing plant in any location where we are not allowed first to sell & service cars.”..

THE Orlando Police Pension Fund has sued Elon Musk and his $44 billion buyout of Twitter, claiming that the deal cannot close till 2025 owing to Tesla CEO’s stake in the micro-blogging platform. The proposed class-action lawsuit, filed by the Orlando Police Pension Fund in the Delaware Chancery court, alleged that since Musk was an “interested stockholder” before the merger agreement was approved by Twitter’s board, “the proposed takeover may not lawfully close until 2025 absent approval by the affirmative ..

DAYS after the Joe Biden administration announced an additional USD 800 million in military assistance to Ukraine, Russia warns the United States of “unpredictable consequences” if the country continues to transfer weapons to Ukraine. ‘Washington Post’ reviewed a diplomatic note that Russia sent the US this week and said that the note warned that US and NATO shipments of the “most sensitive” weapons systems to Ukraine could bring “unpredictable consequences,” reported ‘Aljazeera’...

SRI Lanka’s central bank has decided to hike interest rates by an unprecedented 700 basis points to tame high inflation amid the worst economic crisis that has led to protests across the country and put President Gotabaya Rajapaksa under mounting pressure to resign. The move comes as Sri Lanka’s main Opposition party SJB on Friday announced that it will move a no-confidence motion against the Government of President Rajapaksa and is prepared to impeach the embattled leader if he fails to address ..

THE motion picture academy on Friday banned Will Smith from attending the Oscars or any other academy event for 10 years following his slap of Chris Rock at the Academy Awards. The move comes after a meeting of the academy’s Board of Governors to discuss a response to Smith’s actions. It is unclear whether the ban would apply to future nominations. “The 94th Oscars were meant to be a celebration of the many individuals in our community who did incredible work this past year; however, those moments ..

SRI LANKAN President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has declared a nationwide public emergency amidst a spate of protests, including outside his house, over the worst economic crisis in the island nation. Rajapaksa issued a special gazette notification late on Friday night, declaring a public emergency in Sri Lanka with immediate effect from April 1. In the gazette, the President states: “Whereas I am of opinion that by reason of a public emergency in Sri Lanka it is expedient to do so in the interests of ..

UKRAINE’S President made a surprise video appearance Saturday at Qatar’s Doha Forum, calling on the energy-rich nation and others to boost their production to counteract the loss of Russian energy supplies. Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on the United Nations and world powers to come to his aid, as he has in a series of other addresses given around the world since the start of the war Feb. 24. He compared Russia’s destruction of the port city of Mariupol to the Syrian and Russian destruction wrought ..