Author: Gulf News Week
The outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo is concerning.It has been spreading for weeks undetected in a part of the world where civil war makes getting on top of the virus difficult, and the species of Ebola involved is rare, so there are fewer tools to stop a virus that kills around a third of people infected.This is a critical moment in an outbreak where there is uncertainty about how far it has spread, but there are already almost 250 suspected cases and 80 deaths.Most Ebola outbreaks tend to be small, but specialists are haunted by the…
British fighter jets in the Middle East will be equipped with new missile systems to make it cheaper to intercept Iranian drones.Royal Air Force Typhoon jets will be fitted with an Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) to “destroy targets more precisely and at a fraction of the price of missiles currently in use”, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced.Gulf countries and allies in the region have been grappling with how to counter Iran’s Shahed drones, which are relatively cheap to make and have been causing considerable damage.During the 2024 conflict between Israel and Iran, the UK was reported to…
It is a “personal decision” for Sir Keir Starmer whether he chooses to fight any potential leadership contest, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has said. She told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that Sir Keir had “shown before that he’s up for a fight” and “I wouldn’t write off the prime minister”.The PM has defied calls to step down in recent days, after nearly 90 of his own MPs urged him to go and five ministers resigned.Nandy also voiced her support for Andy Burnham to be “back in Parliament at the heart of power”. The Greater Manchester mayor is seeking…
BIIRD had never played together when they stepped on stage in Trafalgar Square to face 10,000 people on St Patrick’s Day 2024.Eleven Irish traditional musicians stood side-by-side in elaborate costumes, some meeting for the first time only hours before the performance.Two years later, the all-female supergroup has sold out venues across the UK and Ireland, toured stadiums with Ed Sheeran, and built a global following – all without releasing a debut record.Their rise has been rapid, driven almost entirely by the strength of their live performances and word of mouth.For singer and flautist Miadhachlughain O’Donnell, from County Down, the scale…
Ahead of the first episode of Saturday Night Live UK, we asked whether the show could make us laugh.Many were sceptical about whether the 50-year-old US sketch-comedy variety show would translate for a British audience.As its eight-week run comes to a close, with guest-hosting duties performed by the likes of Hannah Waddingham, Jamie Dornan and Aimee Lou Wood, the consensus from fans and critics is, yes, it has made us laugh – but there are caveats.The final episode of the series, hosted by Sex Education and Doctor Who star Ncuti Gatwa, was one of the strongest when it came to…
The glass-paned office building perched above a ramen store in the heart of Manhattan’s Chinatown looked inconspicuous on a busy block of Chinese restaurants, grocery stores and apartments.In 2022, Lu Jianwang, the 64-year-old president of a Chinese community group, set up shop on one of the floors, creating a space where his attorneys said he planned to help expats renew their driver’s licences and play ping pong on a table in a conference room.But it was not long before the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the space, and accused Lu of taking orders from the Chinese government to establish the…
Israel’s attacks on Doha in September and Tehran in February demonstrated a new capability that may make warfare more unpredictable.On September 9, 2025, Israel struck Qatar. There was no battlefield, no front line. Instead, the target was a sovereign state hosting negotiations that Israel itself was involved in. When the missile hit Doha, it set a dangerous precedent.That same strike architecture reappeared on February 28, at the start of the US-Israel war on Iran, when the compound of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was targeted in Tehran.In both cases, Israeli aircraft remained outside the target state’s airspace and released a…
Three people were killed overnight in a large-scale Ukrainian drone attack on the Moscow region, Russian officials have said.A woman died in a house in Khimki, north of the capital, where a person was trapped under rubble, regional governor Andrei Vorobiev said. A man and a woman were killed in the village of Pogorelki. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 12 people were injured in strikes on a city oil refinery. Russia’s military said 556 drones were intercepted.In Ukraine, eight people were injured in Russian drone attacks and shelling in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, officials said.In a post on Telegram early…
Bulgarian pop star Dara has won the Eurovision Song Contest with her pneumatic dance anthem Bangaranga.The 27-year-old topped both the public and the jury vote in a nail-biting conclusion, soaring ahead of Israel in second and Romania in third to score a massive 516 points.Dara was far from a front-runner going into the contest, but her intricate choreography and naggingly catchy chorus helped her eclipse the competition – giving Bulgaria its first ever Eurovison title. The UK, however, continued its run of disastrous results. Look Mum No Computer’s song Eins, Zwei, Drei took last place, with one solitary point from…
The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo a public health emergency of international concern.The agency said the outbreak in DR Congo’s eastern Ituri province, which has seen around 246 suspected cases and 80 deaths reported, does not meet the criteria of a pandemic emergency.But it warned it could potentially be “a much larger outbreak” than what is currently being detected and reported, with significant risk of local and regional spread.The current strain of Ebola is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, the health agency said, for which there are no approved drugs…