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Al Jazeera - Top Stories

2026-07-30 03:13:24 (2 weeks ago)

India’s arms sale to Israel risks complicity in Gaza genocide, Amnesty says

Rights group says India continues to support the Israeli military despite genocide 'broadcast worldwide on daily basis'.

The Guardian - World News

2026-07-30 03:08:01 (2 weeks ago)

Shell’s profits more than double after jump in oil and gas prices

Environmental groups renew calls for windfall tax to support households following Q2 earnings rise to $9.84bn

Shell more than doubled its profit in its second quarter of the year, as Europe’s biggest oil and gas company reaped the benefits from the jump in oil and gas prices triggered by war in the Middle East.

The FTSE 100 company’s net profit hit $9.84bn (£7.4bn) in the three months to June, more than double compared with the same period last year.

Al Jazeera - Top Stories

2026-07-30 03:06:27 (2 weeks ago)

Can the UN’s Refugee Convention survive?

The 1951 UN Refugee Convention marks its 75th anniversary this week but is facing anti-migration sentiment in the West.

Al Jazeera - Top Stories

2026-07-30 03:02:42 (2 weeks ago)

In the waters off Malaysia, Iranian oil sales continue despite blockade

A large anchorage area off the coast of Malaysia is a major marketplace for sanctioned oil.

Times of India

2026-07-30 03:01:27 (2 weeks ago)

An Italian man built a fake Roman amphitheatre, fooled tourists for nearly 10 years and charged €40 for guided tours

The Guardian - World News

2026-07-30 03:00:59 (2 weeks ago)

Double tops: Littler and Pogacar in a class of their own, but nothing lasts for ever | Jonathan Liew

The champions are capable of shattering every record in a temporary aligning of the planets, the elusiveness of pure perfection

Treble-20. “Ohh, he couldn’t.” Treble-19. “Oh, you spiteful young man.” Bull. “You spiteful person! That is ridiculous!” As ever, Wayne Mardle – commentating on the World Matchplay final for Sky Sports on Sunday night – put it most succinctly of all.

The great individual champions require a vindictive streak. The ability not just to harness their own strength, but to tessellate it with their opponent’s moment of greatest vulnerability. To sense weakness, recognise doubt and pounce mercilessly upon it. To nurture and desire the very same qualities we try to extinguish and discourage in our children. To find a 167 checkout, when your opponent is sitting on double-10, in a major final.

The Guardian - World News

2026-07-30 03:00:58 (2 weeks ago)

‘They played noughts and crosses on the PM’s huge forehead!’ An Indian standup picks his favourite gen Z protest memes

They turned the news into a Funny or Die video. They cooked up a romcom between PM Modi and Giorgia Meloni. And they fought the police with Lana del Rey memes. Our writer observes the Cockroach party’s bold new strategy

I’ve spent 16 years doing standup in India, 10 of them under prime minister Narendra Modi’s government. I’ve learned – especially at corporate events, private shows and turns at various associations, universities and business schools among the English-speaking urban elite – that people are most thrilled when politics doesn’t come up, as if it doesn’t exist. I’m often told: “Anuvab, you can joke about anything – just don’t mention any specific names, places, incidents or events.”

You might read that and think I live in some humourless, semi-monarchic stasis. That isn’t true either. Many comedians and influencers joke about the government. Some get into trouble and some don’t, the overall assessment being that it is not worth the risk. In India, whatever is true, the opposite is often true as well.

The Guardian - World News

2026-07-30 03:00:56 (2 weeks ago)

‘Give respect to Africa and the bush people’: Mulatu Astatke on pioneering Ethio-jazz and honouring his roots

The multi-instrumentalist faced resistance when he premiered his sound in the 60s but audiences have fallen in love with it since. Now aged 82, he’s still finding new directions – and wants recognition for Africa’s indigenous artists

“Do you know the Metro club?” I feign recognition to the 82-year-old father of Ethio-jazz, Mulatu Astatke, who knows the UK capital’s vanished haunts better than I do (the Soho venue closed down decades ago). By then, he had immersed himself in the city’s 60s jazz scene, befriending Ronnie Scott and the saxophonist Joe Harriott, with whom he occasionally jammed across Soho’s clubs, as well as musicians from Africa and the Caribbean.

But when he returned to “Swinging Addis” years later with the new genre he’d innovated in England and the United States, the audience at one of his first performances weren’t so taken by his fusion of jazz riffs with the harp-like begena. “Stop,” Astatke was told. “No more!” He didn’t say a word. Instead, he bowed, said his thanks and walked off. “I said: ‘I’ll show you,’” recalls Astatke in his smoky voice. “‘One day, I’ll come back and show you.’”

The Guardian - World News

2026-07-30 03:00:56 (2 weeks ago)

Halo: Campaign Evolved review – they don’t make ‘em like this any more

PC, Xbox, PlayStation 5; Halo Studios/Xbox Game Studios
Halo’s modernised introduction to all that was great about the 00s’ first-person shooter is also a welcome return trip for those of us who were there at the time

This 25th-anniversary remake of Xbox’s most iconic shooter comes loaded with symbolism. It arrives at a time when Xbox’s whole gaming division (and indeed the games business as a whole) is in turmoil. It’s been made by Halo Studios, an outfit that has arguably never quite recaptured the magic conjured by Halo: Combat Evolved’s original developer Bungie, a studio now owned by rival Sony. It has been polished and prettified using Unreal Engine 5, making it look and feel more modern at the expense of visual uniqueness: Halo now looks similar to hundreds of other games made with those same tools, where Bungie’s 2001 original, made with a bespoke engine, still looks austerely distinctive. I never wanted to become this person, but: perhaps things were better in the old days?

I had my misgivings after opening level, in which the freshly defrosted supersoldier Master Chief fends off an alien attack on a disintegrating spaceship. Originally this was a masterclass in explosive action: you wake up, you look around (once a clever way to determine whether you needed to invert the controls), and you get right into it, firing gaming’s best pistol at chittering alien grunts who scatter from your bullets. Now it’s wrapped in needlessly expanded cutscenes and explanations. Where Halo Studios has made changes to Combat Evolved’s pacing, it really feels noticeable.

Halo: Campaign Evolved is out now

The Guardian - World News

2026-07-30 03:00:55 (2 weeks ago)

Was Florentine friars’ fatigue-fighting elixir a precursor to Coca-Cola?

Document believed to be from 19th century details recipe using Bolivian coca leaves, kola nuts and wine

An Italian friar has unearthed a document from the pharmacy archives of an ancient convent in Florence describing a medicinal potion made from Bolivian coca leaves and kola nuts, prompting suggestions it could have been a precursor to the famous US soft drink, Coca-Cola.

Father Manuel Russo, rector of the San Marco convent, said he stumbled across the yellowed document, a sort-of promotional flyer, while sorting out the archives.

The Guardian - World News

2026-07-30 03:00:55 (2 weeks ago)

You be the judge: should my brother stop hogging the living room while staying in my flat?

Daniella doesn’t want to go to bed early. Seamus says she shouldn’t offer the sofabed if she doesn’t want guests. Who has room for improvement?

• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

It’s not that I don’t want him here, but he needs to understand that I am giving up my space to host him

The Guardian - World News

2026-07-30 03:00:55 (2 weeks ago)

I’m torn by the hard hat v graduation cap debate. Is it wrong that I want my kids to go to university? | Emma Brockes

As Andy Burnham intervenes, it’s clear that the shine is coming off higher education. But is society ready for this mindshift? Am I?

For a while now I’ve been having a conversation with friends that a few years ago would’ve been largely unthinkable. Partly, this is because of how sheltered we all tend to be when trying to imagine our kids’ lives running on different tracks to our own. But it’s also about the world changing. A brilliant young person I know left school, took up an internship, turned it into a job and now she’s in her early 20s with no debt and a great position at a big fashion house. “Maybe I won’t go to university, either,” said one of my kids, eyeing me for a reaction, while I nodded thoughtfully and tried to ride out the panic.

Andy Burnham’s announcement this week that university shouldn’t be the single, aspirational goal of all young people is perfectly timed and sensibly presented and shouldn’t sound as radical as it does. It is, of course, a correction to existing norms that university-for-all is a proper national goal and the only personal determinant of ambition and success. By contrast, Burnham said on Tuesday, this country should “value the hard hat every bit as much as the graduation cap” as he spoke about tailoring technical and vocational training to meet local job needs and tackle youth unemployment.