Arab News

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s government increased the prices of petrol and high-speed diesel (HSD) on Tuesday, a notification by the energy ministry said, as the country shifts to daily fuel price revisions due to global market volatility caused by renewed fighting between the United States (US) and Iran. The US and Iran have exchanged attacks for the past 10 days, constraining fuel supplies through the Strait of Hormuz maritime route. Nearly 20 percent of the world’s oil and gas supplies passed through the strait before the war between the US and Iran erupted in February.

This month’s Palestinian presidential decree setting a date for legislative elections — Nov. 28 — raises a fundamental question: should we see the glass as being half-empty or as half-full? Legislative elections offer a serious opportunity for reform and for injecting new blood into a Palestinian political system that has grown old without delivering liberation and independence. At the same time, skepticism is understandable. Some see the decree as an attempt to engineer election outcomes to protect the interests of those in power.

Megan Garcia did not set out to become one of the most consequential figures in the fight to regulate artificial intelligence. A lawyer and mother of three, Garcia is the kind of parent who notices things. When her eldest child, Sewell, turned 14, he quit the basketball team, retreated to his bedroom and grew quiet in disconcerting ways. Instead of ignoring the changes, she restricted his screen time and took his phone away as punishment; but even that was not enough.

The dramatic escalation in hostilities between the US and Iran over the Strait of Hormuz will ultimately decide the fate of the crucial waterway for decades to come. Until the outbreak of the Iran war in February, the strait was subject to the normal laws of the sea, with merchant ships passing freely through the narrow passageway, including those carrying about 20 percent of the world's energy needs.

The most predictable outcome of the Labour Party leadership contest — to become its next leader and, with it, the coveted prize of becoming the UK's prime minister — was confirmed last Friday. The winner was the newly elected MP for Makerfield and former mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham. He secured the backing of 379 of Labour's 403 MPs, along with overwhelming support from the trade unions, making the contest resemble more of a coronation than a genuine political race.

Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) is one of the most beloved painters in the world. But when an enterprising French journalist and art critic set out to recover his work in the mid-19th century, both his name and achievement were virtually forgotten. “Vermeer’s Afterlives” tells the remarkable story of how one of the great masters of the Dutch Golden Age was lost to obscurity until the rise of art history as a new discipline introduced his work to modern audiences and asks why his art compels so many other artists to respond with works of their own.

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Houthis should think twice before threatening Red Sea shipping, former CIA officer Norman Roule tells Arab News

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How Yemen's government exposed the Houthis' misleading ‘blockade' narrative