CAIRO: Arab foreign ministers on Saturday (Feb 1) rejected the transfer of Palestinians from their land under any circumstances, presenting a unified stance against United States President Donald Trump’s call for Egypt and Jordan to take in residents of the Gaza Strip. In a joint statement following a meeting in Cairo, the foreign ministers and officials from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League said such a move would threaten stability in the region, spread conflict and undermine prospects for peace. “We affirm our rejection of (any attempts) to compromise Palestinians’…
Author: Team_Benjamin Franklin Institute
BREAKINGBREAKING, Hamas hands over Ofer Kalderon and Yarden Bibas to the Red Cross in Gaza’s Khan Younis, while Keith Siegel is to be freed in Gaza City.The Palestinian group Hamas has released two of three Israeli captives in the latest stage of a gradual exchange under a ceasefire deal that ended the 15-month Israeli genocide in Gaza. French-Israeli national Ofer Kalderon and Israeli citizen Yarden Bibas were handed over to the Red Cross in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, Al Jazeera TV showed on Saturday. Both Kalderon and Bibas were seen waving to the crowd of Palestinians…
The Super Bowl is not just the single biggest football game of the season. It is also one of the biggest cultural events in the United States and will have a significant portion of the country tuning in whether they are football fans or not.The halftime show, commercials and celebrities make it an event that even the most casual of viewers want to watch. When it comes to the latter point, it is hard to ignore the presence of pop icon Taylor Swift and what will surely be another appearance as she continues to support Kansas City Chiefs tight end…
Amazon announced on Wednesday that it was laying off dozens of workers in its communications and sustainability departments, and earlier this month, the company let go of 200 employees from its North America stores team. It’s only the beginning.In September, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced that the company would be eliminating excess layers of middle management by the end of March. Now, a leaked Amazon Web Services (AWS) sales team guidelines document, obtained by Business Insider on Thursday, sheds light on how those middle-manager cuts will happen.The document tells AWS sales managers to increase their number of direct reports, pause…
The urge to scratch an itch may have evolved for a reason, but we have struggled to pinpoint whyCavan Images/Alamy Forget what your parents told you, scratching an itch may be good for you, by boosting your body’s defence against bacteria. Scratching is a paradoxical phenomenon. It can feel nice to run your nails over an itchy bit of skin, which hints that there is an evolutionary reason we get pleasure from doing it, and yet it can also aggravate eczema and rashes or reopen a wound. To dig into this dichotomy, Dan Kaplan at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,…
Hamas released eight hostages, including three Israelis and five Thais, on Thursday as part of a hostage-for-prisoner exchange, more than a year after they were taken captive during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.Agam Berger, an Israeli army soldier, was released first in a highly choreographed ceremony in northern Gaza. A second hostage release in southern Gaza descended into chaos as crowds pushed forward to try to get a glimpse of them.The hostage release is part of a 42-day cease-fire deal that went into effect this month, pausing the fighting between Israel and Hamas. Hamas agreed…
Investors worried about how much money big technology companies are spending on artificial intelligence did not get much relief from Microsoft when it reported its latest financial results on Wednesday.In its most recent quarter, which ended on Dec. 31, Microsoft kept up its rapid drive to build data centers to power cloud computing and artificial intelligence. It spent $22.6 billion on capital expenses, almost twice as much as a year earlier.Microsoft has said it would spend around $80 billion in data centers this fiscal year, which ends in June. It is sprinting because it has said it does not have…
This article is an on-site version of our FirstFT newsletter. Subscribers can sign up to our Asia, Europe/Africa or Americas edition to get the newsletter delivered every weekday morning. Explore all of our newsletters hereGood morning. In today’s newsletter: OpenAI’s IP theft concernsA deadly stampede in IndiaThe threat of ‘a demographic suicide’OpenAI says it has found evidence that Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek used the US company’s proprietary models to train its own open-source competitor, as concerns grow over a potential breach of intellectual property.The San Francisco-based ChatGPT maker told the FT it had seen some evidence of “distillation”, which…
Credit: Paul Brennan via Wikimedia Following months of speculation and conspiracy theories surrounding mysterious drone sightings up and down the East Coast, the White House confirms they flew with federal government authorization. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, addressed the sightings during a press briefing on Tuesday, confirming that drones flown around the eastern seaboard late last year, specifically New Jersey, had been “authorized to be flown by the FAA.” The press secretary quashed concerns that the sightings were attributed to foreign adversaries. “This was not the enemy,” she said. “After research and study, the drones that were flying…
The Rihanna Navy is calling out their beloved idol for her alleged decision to support her beau A$AP Rocky amid his legal drama.Displeased fans voiced their concerns on social media after reports claimed the “Breakin’ Dishes” hitmaker would attend her lover’s upcoming trial. The news did not sit right with many who saw the rapper as a stain on their goddess’ record.Although Rihanna and A$AP Rocky have been turning heads as a power couple in the entertainment industry, many still wish the Barbadian beauty would level up her lover. Critics’ concerns have since skyrocketed as they worry about how the…