Category: World

Beijing has been designated the UNESCO-UIA World Capital of Architecture for 2029, placing the Chinese capital at the centre of a global programme examining how architecture and urban planning can create more sustainable and liveable cities. UNESCO Director-General Khaled El-Enany approved the designation following a recommendation from the Joint UNESCO-International Union of Architects Committee for the World Capital of Architecture, chaired by French architect Dominique Perrault. Beijing will become the fourth city to hold the title after Rio de Janeiro, Copenhagen

Spain has introduced temporary border controls for travellers arriving from Italy, escalating a migration dispute between Madrid and Rome after Italy tightened checks on arrivals from Spain following the mass crossing of migrants into Ceuta. The Spanish Interior Ministry said the controls would take effect from midnight on Saturday and remain in place until September 7. The measure applies to arrivals from Italy and mirrors controls imposed by Rome after tens of thousands of people crossed from Morocco into Spain’s North

President Donald Trump has ordered a new layer of trade protection for the US solar supply chain, imposing tariffs and minimum import prices designed to favour domestic manufacturing while raising the prospect of higher costs for developers and households adopting solar power. The measures place a 15% tariff on imported polysilicon and products derived from it, alongside minimum prices covering key stages of crystalline-silicon solar manufacturing. The price floors are $21 per kilogram for polysilicon, $100 per kilogram for ingots

BTS have pushed their comeback album ARIRANG beyond 4 billion Spotify streams, setting a new speed record for an album by a group and by an Asian act on the world’s largest subscription music-streaming service. The milestone was reached about 137 days after the album’s 20 March release, extending an extraordinary streaming run that began when all 14 tracks entered Spotify’s global chart simultaneously. The performance makes ARIRANG the first album released in 2026 to cross 4 billion streams on the

African technology developers are increasingly adopting Chinese artificial intelligence models as lower costs, open access and easier customisation reshape competition with more powerful proprietary systems developed in the United States. Models from Alibaba, DeepSeek and Beijing-based Moonshot AI are becoming widely used foundations for applications in education, agriculture, healthcare and financial services. Their appeal is strongest among start-ups and research teams working with limited computing capacity, constrained funding and languages poorly represented in mainstream AI systems. Alibaba’s Qwen, DeepSeek’s model family and

WASHINGTON — SpaceX has launched three AST SpaceMobile satellites designed to deliver high-speed cellular broadband directly to ordinary smartphones, expanding a constellation intended to connect users beyond the reach of terrestrial mobile towers. A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 3.49 am Eastern Time on Wednesday, carrying the BlueBird 11, 12 and 13 spacecraft into low-Earth orbit. The rocket’s reusable first stage separated as planned and landed on the

Gold prices surged above $4,200 an ounce on Wednesday as weaker US employment data, a softer dollar and falling Treasury yields drove investors towards the precious metal, although claims that bullion gained 4.5% during the day appeared to overstate the move recorded by leading benchmarks. Spot gold climbed more than 3% to about $4,200 an ounce, its highest level since late June. US gold futures advanced roughly 2.6% to around $4,261, placing the actively traded contract close to the $4,255 level

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has rejected a report that the military has exhausted nearly 80 per cent of its principal high-altitude missile interceptors during the war with Iran, insisting that American forces retain the weapons required to sustain operations. Hegseth described the account as untrue after CNN reported that the Pentagon had used almost four-fifths of the interceptor inventory for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, known as THAAD, compared with levels held before the conflict. The report also

The Development Bank of Southern Africa has backed a major financing package to rehabilitate and expand Angola’s Lobito railway, strengthening a trade route designed to connect Central Africa’s copper and cobalt-producing regions with Atlantic markets. The bank is providing up to $200 million in senior debt alongside $553 million from the US International Development Finance Corporation. The $753 million package has reached financial close, allowing work to proceed on the railway and associated freight infrastructure after financing agreements were signed in

Qatar said mediators were making progress towards ending the war between the United States and Iran, but an attack on a commercial vessel near the Strait of Hormuz exposed the fragility of the diplomatic effort and renewed concerns over energy supplies. Doha’s assessment followed contacts involving Qatar, Oman and Pakistan, which have been working to move Washington and Tehran towards formal negotiations. The initiative has focused on securing a ceasefire, reopening the Strait of Hormuz and establishing conditions for broader talks

Arabian Post Staff -Dubai A political controversy erupted in Srinagar after Peoples Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti was seen holding the national flag upside down during a protest against the constitutional changes imposed on Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019. Mufti, a former chief minister of the erstwhile state, led PDP workers in an overnight sit-in outside the party headquarters on Tuesday. The demonstration preceded the seventh anniversary of the removal of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and its division into

Arabian Post Staff -Dubai The Calcutta High Court has questioned whether a legal challenge to the compulsory singing of all six stanzas of Vande Mataram in madrasas can proceed before any punitive action is taken against students or institutions. A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Partha Sarathi Sen made the observation on Tuesday while hearing a public interest litigation challenging a government directive requiring the complete national song to be rendered in madrasas. “The heavens will not

Iran is considering allowing European countries to clear naval mines from the Strait of Hormuz, signalling a possible compromise that could help restore commercial shipping and advance negotiations to halt the wider conflict. The proposal would mark a shift from Tehran’s opposition to any foreign military presence in the waterway. France, Belgium and the Netherlands are among the European countries with specialist mine-countermeasure vessels and trained crews capable of supporting a large clearance operation. Any European mission would probably be limited to

Dubai Chamber of Commerce has supported Techies Infotech’s expansion into South Africa, enabling the Dubai-headquartered technology company to establish operations in Johannesburg and Cape Town as part of a wider push into African markets. Techies Infotech registered a local company, opened its South African head office in Johannesburg and established an engineering and technology delivery centre in Cape Town. The expansion followed the company’s participation in a Dubai Chamber of Commerce trade mission to the two cities in June. The company plans

Amazon’s market value crossed $3 trillion for the first time on Monday as accelerating cloud revenue and artificial intelligence demand pushed its shares to a record high. The stock gained about 5% to trade near $285 in New York, valuing the ecommerce and cloud-computing group at roughly $3.08 trillion. The advance extended Amazon’s gain for 2026 to more than 23% and placed it among a small group of technology companies to have breached the threshold. Investor enthusiasm intensified after Amazon reported its

Denmark will increase its military presence around the Faroe Islands, extending a wider defence buildup designed to strengthen surveillance and operational readiness across the Arctic and North Atlantic. The deployment will bring more Danish armed forces personnel, vessels and aircraft into Faroese waters and airspace, where military activity has traditionally been limited compared with Greenland. Training exercises with NATO partners are also expected to become more frequent as Copenhagen places the islands within its broader High North security planning. Defence Minister Troels

Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche has formally cancelled a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponisation” fund after two Republican senators threatened to block his confirmation, removing a major obstacle before a decisive Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Tuesday. The Justice Department order terminated the fund before it became operational. No commissioners had been appointed, no claims had been processed and no money had been transferred. Blanche also clarified that a separate agreement limiting tax audits of President Donald Trump and associated individuals applied

A homemade bomb carried by a woman exploded outside an upscale restaurant in central Moscow, killing three people and injuring at least 21 others as investigators examined whether the venue or guests attending a private gathering were deliberately targeted. The blast struck near the entrance of Balzi Rossi, an Italian restaurant on Kudrinskaya Square, shortly before 8 pm on Saturday. The restaurant occupies part of a Stalin-era skyscraper in a heavily frequented district close to Moscow’s commercial and government centre. The dead

Wildfires sweeping through eastern Washington have destroyed about 600 homes, businesses and other buildings, forcing roughly 60,000 people to evacuate as firefighters struggle to contain several fast-moving blazes around Spokane. About 5,000 homes were covered by evacuation orders by Sunday, while thousands of residents remained displaced and large sections of the region were without electricity. No deaths, serious injuries or missing people had been reported, although authorities cautioned that damage assessments were continuing across neighbourhoods where flames had moved rapidly through

Arabian Post Staff -Dubai The Allahabad High Court has said no person can interfere with the voluntary decision of adult women to change their religion, marry partners of their choice or determine the course of their lives. Justice Sandeep Jain made the observation while hearing a habeas corpus petition concerning two sisters who were allegedly confined by their father after embracing Islam and deciding to marry men they had chosen. The women, aged about 20 and 35, have been ordered to

Arabian Post Staff -Dubai Girl students burnt an effigy of BJP Lok Sabha member Kangana Ranaut in Jabalpur on Saturday, escalating protests over her remarks against young people who demonstrated over the NEET-UG paper leak. The protesters assembled at Ghantaghar in the Madhya Pradesh city, raised slogans against the Mandi parliamentarian and demanded her resignation. They accused Ranaut of insulting students who had sought accountability over alleged examination irregularities and the treatment of demonstrators at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. The protest followed a

The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ebola outbreak has become the second largest recorded worldwide, with confirmed infections surpassing the total from the country’s devastating 2018-2020 epidemic. Health ministry data issued on Friday showed 3,532 confirmed cases and 1,556 deaths. The outbreak has expanded rapidly across five eastern provinces since it was formally declared on May 15, placing immense pressure on an already fragile health system affected by armed conflict, displacement and chronic funding shortages. Only the 2013-2016 West Africa epidemic was

Renowned mountaineer Nirmal Purja has died after an avalanche struck his expedition on Broad Peak in northern Pakistan, his climbing company confirmed on Saturday. Elite Exped, which Purja co-founded, said the Nepal-born climber, widely known as Nimsdai, lost his life after the avalanche swept through the group on Thursday. The company also confirmed that other members of the international expedition had not survived. Purja was leading a team towards the summit of the 8,047-metre Broad Peak when the avalanche struck between Camp