International News

The Trump administration has said it paused all immigration applications on Tuesday, including green card and US citizenship processing, filed by immigrants from 19 non-European countries, citing concerns over national security and public safety.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday a deal with Syria is possible and he expects Syrian authorities to establish a demilitarised buffer zone from Damascus to Mount Hermon and other areas.

Palestinian group Hamas said it was handing over the remains of one of the two last hostage bodies still in Gaza on Tuesday, and Israel said it was preparing to receive "findings".

Dr. Badr Abdel Ati, Egypt's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Migration, has emphasised the need to move immediately to the second phase of US President Donald Trump’s peace plan regarding Gaza, after the near completion of the first phase.

Hong Kong's leader said on Tuesday a judge-led committee will investigate the cause of the city's deadliest fire in decades and review oversight of building renovations blamed for fanning an inferno that killed at least 156 people.

Pope Leo made a fervent appeal to Lebanon's diverse communities to unite to solve the crisis-hit country's myriad problems at a Mass on Tuesday attended by tens of thousands which wrapped up his first overseas trip as Catholic leader.

US President Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law Jared Kushner were due to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday for talks on a possible way to end the war in Ukraine.

Search operations continue across South and Southeast Asia after deadly storms swept across large parts of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand left hundreds dead.

A teenager suing the Australian government to overturn a ban on social media for under-16s says the measure would make the internet more dangerous for young people and be widely circumvented.

Donald Trump has invited Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House in the "near future," the prime minister's office said on Monday, shortly after the US President said Israel should maintain a strong and true dialogue with Syria.

A son of imprisoned Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman on Monday pleaded guilty in a US drug trafficking case, months after his brother struck a similar deal.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared in court on Monday for the first time since asking the country's president for a pardon in his long-running corruption trial, a move backed by close ally US President Donald Trump.

Hong Kong authorities said on Monday they had arrested 13 people for suspected manslaughter in a probe into the city's deadliest fire in decades, pointing to substandard renovation materials for fuelling a blaze that has claimed at least 151 lives.

A Bangladesh court sentenced British lawmaker and former minister Tulip Siddiq in absentia to two years in jail on Monday in a corruption case involving the alleged illegal allocation of a plot of land, prosecutors said.

Rescue teams in western Indonesia were battling on Monday to clear roads cut off by cyclone-induced landslides and floods, as improved weather revealed more of the scale of a disaster that has killed close to 700 people in Southeast Asia.

US President Donald Trump has confirmed that he had spoken with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, but did not provide details on what the two leaders discussed.

The sons of Pakistan's jailed former prime minister Imran Khan fear authorities are concealing "something irreversible" about his condition after more than three weeks with no evidence that he is still alive, one of them said.

Rescuers in Sri Lanka were scrambling on Monday to clear roads and deliver aid to more than half a million people hit by a cyclone last week, as the death toll climbed to 355, with 366 missing, official figures showed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the country's president on Sunday for a pardon in his years-long corruption trial, arguing that criminal proceedings were hindering his ability to govern and a pardon would be good for Israel.

Pope Leo arrived in Lebanon on Sunday, where he is expected to appeal for peace in a country that is a continued target of Israeli air strikes, on the second and final leg of his first overseas trip as leader of the Catholic Church.

The death toll mounted to over 600 from floods and landslides caused by torrential rains across three countries in Southeast Asia, officials said on Sunday, as relief efforts for tens of thousands of displaced people continued over the weekend.

Sri Lanka's death toll from Cyclone Ditwah climbed to 212 with 218 missing, officials said on Sunday, as flood waters breached a dam and rescue operations continued into a fourth day.

More than a thousand people turned out on Sunday to pay tribute to the victims of Hong Kong's deadliest fire in more than 75 years, as Beijing warned it would use a national security law to crack down on any "anti-China" protest in the wake of the fire.

Four people died after 14 people were shot at a family gathering in Stockton in northern California on Saturday night, police said.

Ukrainian naval drones hit two sanctioned tankers in the Black Sea as they headed to a Russian port to load up with oil destined for foreign markets, an official said on Saturday, as Kyiv tries to pile pressure on Russia's vast oil industry.

The number of people confirmed killed in Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip has passed the 70,000 mark, the enclave's health ministry said on Saturday..

Global airlines scrambled on Saturday to fix a software glitch on their Airbus A320 jets as a recall by the European planemaker temporarily grounded aircraft in Asia and Europe and threatened travel in the US during the busiest weekend of the year.

A vast Russian overnight attack on Ukraine killed two people and wounded two dozen, Ukraine's foreign minister said on Saturday, adding that Moscow continued to "kill and destroy" while the world was discussing peace plans for the conflict.

The death toll from Hong Kong's worst fire in nearly 80 years has risen to 128 and about 200 people remain missing from the high-rise residential complex that was engulfed by the blaze, the city's security chief said on Friday.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's powerful chief of staff Andriy Yermak, a close ally who has headed Ukraine's negotiation team at fraught US-backed peace talks, quit on Friday, hours after anti-corruption agents searched his home.

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday his administration will "permanently pause" migration from all "third world countries", following the death of a National Guard member in an attack near the White House.

Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to visit India on December 4-5 at the invitation of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss bilateral ties and international issues, the Kremlin and India's Foreign Ministry said on Friday.

The International Criminal Court ruled on Friday that the Philippines' 80-year-old former President Rodrigo Duterte must remain detained despite a defence appeal for his release on grounds of age and declining health.

Ten people were killed by Israeli fire in a village in southern Syria on Friday, Syrian state media reported, while the Israeli military said five soldiers were wounded in a clash during an operation to apprehend members of a rebel group there.

The death toll from floods across large swathes of Southeast Asia rose to at least 321 on Friday, with authorities working to rescue stranded citizens, restore power and communications and coordinate recovery efforts as the waters began to recede.

A cyclone swept across Sri Lanka on Friday, leaving 46 people dead and 23 more missing, officials said, with the weather department warning the storm could intensify as it moves across the island over the next 12 hours.

A National Guard member has died on Thursday after being shot near the White House in an ambush that investigators say was carried out by an Afghan national, an attack President Donald Trump blamed on Biden-era immigration vetting failures as he ordered a sweeping review of asylum cases.

Hong Kong police arrested the bosses of a construction company on suspicion of manslaughter on Thursday over the city's worst fire in nearly 80 years, which killed at least 75 people with 300 still listed as missing.

The FBI searched multiple properties in Washington state and San Diego on Thursday in what officials said was a terrorism probe into an Afghan national suspected of shooting two National Guard members, who remained in critical condition.

Pope Leo arrived in Turkey on his first trip outside Italy as leader of the Catholic Church on Thursday and was expected to make appeals for peace in the Middle East and urge unity among long-divided Christian churches.

The party of Pakistan's jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan demanded a meeting with him on Thursday, saying it was worried about his health as he has been barred from seeing his family and lawyers for over three weeks.

A train ran into a group of railway workers in the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming on Thursday, killing 11 and injuring two, officials there said, the country's deadliest rail accident in more than a decade.

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services said late on Wednesday it has stopped processing all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals indefinitely, after two National Guard soldiers were shot and critically wounded in Washington.

Floods and landslides brought about by torrential rain in Indonesia's North Sumatra province had killed at least 28 people by Thursday, with rescue efforts hampered by what an official described as a "total cut-off" of roads and communications.

A Peruvian court on Wednesday sentenced former President Martin Vizcarra to 14 years in prison after finding him guilty of taking bribes years before he took office, adding to a list of former leaders jailed for corruption.

Donald Trump has announced South Africa will not be invited to take part in next year's G20 summit in Florida after Washington boycotted the leaders' summit in Johannesburg last week, which the African nation called a "punitive" measure against it.

A group of army officers said they had seized power in coup-prone Guinea-Bissau on Wednesday, a day before the planned announcement of results from a hotly contested presidential election.

Russian forces staged a mass drone attack on the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia late on Tuesday, triggering fires, injuring 19 people and badly damaging buildings and vehicles, the regional governor said.

Israeli security forces on Wednesday launched what the military described as a counter-terrorism operation in the northern West Bank, which Palestinians said was targeting the city of Tubas.

A massive fire ripped through multiple high-rise residential blocks in Hong Kong's northern Tai Po district on Wednesday, killing at least 14 people and injuring scores as authorities struggled to bring the blaze under control.

A constitutional challenge against Australia’s social media ban on children younger than 16 has been filed in the nation’s highest court, two weeks before the world-first law is set to take effect.

India said it had registered a strong protest with China over what it said was the arbitrary detention of an Indian citizen at Shanghai Airport.

Thailand airlifted patients and flew critical supplies, including oxygen tanks, into a submerged southern city on Wednesday, as the death toll from some of the region’s worst floods in years climbed to 33.

A massive fire tore through one of Dhaka’s largest slums on Tuesday evening, leaving thousands of people homeless and turning rows of tin-roofed shanties into charred rubble, officials said.

Twenty-four girls, who were abducted from a government boarding school in northwestern Nigeria last week, have been released, the state governor's media aide said on Tuesday.

The head of Sudan's Rapid Support Forces has said late on Monday that his paramilitaries would immediately enter into a three-month humanitarian truce, after US President Donald Trump said he would intervene to seek an end to the war.

A vehicle used by the late Pope Francis during a visit to Bethlehem more than a decade ago has been transformed into a mobile health clinic that Christian leaders hope will soon be used to provide care to Palestinian children in Gaza.

At least 10 people were killed after Pakistani forces bombed the home of a local resident in Afghanistan's Khost province, Afghan Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Tuesday.

China's first emergency space launch entered orbit after blasting off on Tuesday, as the country looks to plug safety risks at its crewed space station after a vessel was damaged in orbit earlier this month.

Russian forces attacked the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early on Tuesday, triggering fires in at least two residential buildings and killing one person, a senior official said.

Indian airlines Air India and Akasa Air said on Tuesday they were cancelling some flights after ash plumes from a volcanic eruption in Ethiopia disrupted operations.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the US and Israeli-backed organisation to distribute aid in Gaza, said on Monday it was ending its operations after months of criticism over deaths of hundreds of Palestinians trying to reach its hubs.

Israeli forces killed three Palestinians in Gaza near the line demarcating areas of Israeli control on Monday, underlining the struggle to broaden a fragile ceasefire deal approved over six weeks ago to global acclaim.

Ukraine will continue to work with partners including the US on peace proposals, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday, the second day of talks in Switzerland after Washington proposed a plan calling for concessions from Kyiv.

Three bombers targeted the headquarters of a Pakistani paramilitary force on Monday, killing three personnel and wounding at least five, authorities said.

Malaysia plans to ban social media for those under the age of 16 starting from next year, joining a growing list of countries choosing to limit access to digital platforms due to concerns about child safety.

Fifty out of more than 300 students kidnapped from a Nigerian school last week have escaped and reunited with their parents, with 253 children and 12 staff members and teachers still held captive.

Israel targeted the chief of staff of Lebanon's Hezbollah group in a strike in the capital Beirut's southern suburbs, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Sunday.

The Israeli military said on Sunday that it had killed a local Hamas commander in Gaza, as both Israel and the Palestinian group continue to trade accusations of ceasefire violation.

Ukraine struck a heat and power station in the Moscow region on Sunday with drones, triggering a major fire and cutting off heating for thousands in one of Kyiv's biggest attacks to date on a power station deep inside Russia.

COP30 has unveiled a new 'Five-Year Vision for the Global Climate Action Agenda', marking a major step forward in delivering real-world climate action.

An Israeli airstrike on a car in Gaza City killed at least four people and wounded several others, local health authorities said on Saturday, in a further test of a fragile ceasefire between Hamas and Israel.

The Christian Association of Nigeria on Saturday increased its estimate of the number of students and teachers abducted from a Catholic school on Friday to 315 from an earlier estimate of 227.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that Ukraine risked losing its dignity and freedom over a US peace plan that endorses key Russian demands, a proposal Donald Trump said Kyiv should accept within a week.

After months of trading insults, US President Donald Trump and incoming New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani swapped compliments and pledged to collaborate at an unexpectedly friendly meeting at the White House on Friday.

The death toll from torrential rain, flooding and landslides in central Vietnam has risen to 55, with 13 people reported missing, the country's disaster agency said on Saturday.

Israeli forces killed two Palestinian teenagers during an overnight raid on a town near Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, residents said, as violence surges in the territory with a growing number of dead.

The death toll from landslides in two regions of Indonesia's Central Java has risen to 30 as rescue efforts continued, the country's disaster mitigation agency said on Friday.

COP30 summit president Brazil released a draft text for a proposed deal for this year's UN climate summit early on Friday, dropping a proposal to develop a global plan to shift away from fossil fuels that had been included in an earlier version.

At least five people were killed and around 100 injured after a 5.7-magnitude earthquake struck Bangladesh on Friday, the government said, with buildings damaged in many areas including the densely populated capital Dhaka.

Talks at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil were disrupted on Thursday after a fire broke out in the venue, triggering an evacuation just as negotiators were hunkering down to try to land a deal to strengthen international climate efforts.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has announced after talks with a top US Army official on Thursday he was ready for "honest" work with Washington on a plan to end the war, while European allies pushed back against punishing concessions to Russia.

The death toll from a new barrage of torrential rain, flooding and landslides in central Vietnam since the weekend has risen to 41, state media reported on Thursday, with water levels rising further in already inundated towns and villages.

India's anti-terrorism agency said on Thursday it had arrested four more people, including three doctors, in connection with last week's deadly car blast in Delhi.

US President Donald Trump signed legislation on Wednesday ordering the Justice Department to release documents from its long-running investigation into offender Jeffrey Epstein following immense pressure for greater transparency in the case.

The UN nuclear watchdog's 35-nation Board of Governors passed a resolution on Thursday saying Iran must inform the watchdog "without delay" of the status of its enriched uranium stock and bombed atomic sites.

Israel’s expulsion of tens of thousands of Palestinians from three West Bank refugee camps in early 2025 amounts to war crimes, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday, calling for urgent international measures to hold Israeli officials accountable.

A Philippine trial court has sentenced a former mayor accused of having ties to Chinese criminal syndicates to life imprisonment after finding her guilty of human trafficking, a government anti-crime agency said on Thursday.

US President Donald Trump said he will meet New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani at the White House on Friday in what would be the first meeting of the republican leader with the democratic socialist who won this month's mayoral election.

Indonesian authorities evacuated more than 900 people and were facilitating the safe return on Thursday of 170 climbers stranded after the eruption of its Semeru volcano, one of the country's tallest mountains.

At least 25 Palestinians were killed in four Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday in a part of Gaza under Hamas control since a shaky ceasefire took effect in October, health authorities said.

Turkey will host next year's UN climate summit while Australia will lead the conference's negotiations among governments, under a compromise deal taking shape in talks in Brazil, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Thursday.

All 267 people on board a South Korean passenger ferry that ran aground off the southwestern tip of the Korean peninsula on Wednesday were rescued, in an incident that revived memories of the major ferry disaster in 2014 in which 300 people died.

Indonesia's Semeru volcano erupted on Wednesday and the country's volcanology agency increased the alert level of Java Island's tallest mountain to the highest.

Nineteen people were killed in a heavy overnight Russian missile and drone attack that struck an apartment building in the western Ukrainian city of Ternopil, Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Portugal's football star Cristiano Ronaldo were among the elite guests at a dinner hosted by US President Donald Trump for Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud at the White House.

France's Louvre Museum will install 100 external cameras by the end of 2026 as part of measures to tighten security after last month's spectacular heist, its director said on Wednesday.

A fire ripped through more than 170 buildings and killed one person in a southern Japanese coastal city on Wednesday, with military and firefighting helicopters scrambling to extinguish the country's largest urban blaze in almost half a century.

Major internet platforms, including X and ChatGPT, were inaccessible for thousands of users globally on Tuesday as web-infrastructure firm Cloudflare was hit by an outage, disrupting internet services.

Russian representatives will not take part in talks on Ukraine in Turkey on November 19, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday called for Hamas to be expelled from the region, a day after the UN Security Council endorsed President Donald Trump's plan to end the war that offers the group amnesty.

The UN Security Council has voted to adopt a US-drafted resolution endorsing US President Donald Trump's plan to end the war in Gaza and authorising an international stabilisation force for the enclave.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani's political bloc has won the most seats in Iraq's election, final election results showed on Monday, but a new government could still be months away due to wrangling to build a majority.

A Bangladesh war crimes court sentenced ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to death on Monday, concluding a months-long trial that found her guilty of ordering a deadly crackdown on a student-led uprising last year.

More than 200,000 protesters turned out on Monday for the second day of an anti-graft rally in the Philippines, demanding accountability over accusations of corruption in flood-mitigation projects.

A Russian missile strike on the eastern Ukrainian city of Balakliia killed three people and wounded 10, Kharkiv regional officials said on Monday.

At least six people were killed in central Vietnam when a bus carrying them was hit by a landslide on Sunday evening, state media reported on Monday, as heavy rain pounded the area.

Rain-triggered landslides in two regions in Indonesia's Central Java province last week have led to the deaths of at least 18 people, authorities said on Monday, with search operations ongoing.

Federal agents have arrested at least 81 people in Charlotte, North Carolina this weekend, a senior commander said on Sunday, marking a sharp escalation in the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign.

India's federal anti-terror agency said on Sunday it had arrested a resident of Kashmir who it accused of conspiring with the driver of acar that exploded in Delhi last week, killing eight people and wounding at least 20 others.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday Israel remained opposed to a Palestinian state after protests by far-right coalition allies over a US-backed statement indicating support for a pathway to Palestinian independence.

Ukraine is working to resume the exchange of prisoners with Russia, hoping for the release of 1,200 Ukrainians, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his Security Council chief said.

People granted asylum in the UK will have to wait 20 years before they can apply to settle permanently, under plans due to be announced by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood on Monday, the BBC reported on Sunday.

At least nine people were killed and 27 injured when a pile of confiscated explosives blew up at a police station in Indian Kashmir, the region's police chief said on Saturday, days after a car blast in New Delhi killed eight people.

A landslide after heavy rains in Central Java killed 11 people, Indonesia's disaster management agency said on Saturday, adding that rescuers were searching for a dozen who are still missing.

US President Donald Trump has said he would likely sue the BBC for as much as $5 billion after the British broadcaster admitted it wrongly edited a video of a speech he gave but insisted there was no legal basis for his claim.

Several people were killed and injured when a bus hit a bus stop in central Stockholm on Friday.

Russian forces launched a massive drone and missile attack on Kyiv early on Friday, striking residential buildings and triggering explosions and fires across the Ukrainian capital, officials said.

The British Broadcasting Corporation sent a personal apology to US President Donald Trump on Thursday but said there was no legal basis for him to sue the public broadcaster over a documentary his lawyers called defamatory.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling coalition is set to comfortably retain power in state of Bihar, a vote count showed on Friday, giving him a boost after a disappointing national vote last year.

India's Supreme Court has asked lawyers to stay away and argue cases on a virtual platform instead, media said, in the latest disruption to life in the capital caused by deteriorating air quality.

Two crude bombs exploded near Dhaka airport on Thursday night, deepening tensions as Bangladesh awaits Monday's verdict in a domestic war crimes case against ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

France paid an emotional tribute on Thursday to 130 people killed 10 years ago during a rampage by IS gunmen and suicide bombers targeting cafes, restaurants and the Bataclan concert hall.

Afghan nationals carried out two bombings in Pakistan this week, including one in the capital Islamabad, Pakistan's Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi told the parliament on Thursday.

President Donald Trump has signed a legislation on Wednesday ending the longest government shutdown in US history, bringing federal workers idled by the 43-day shutdown back to their jobs starting as early as Thursday.

House Democrats have released emails that they said raised new questions about US President Donald Trump's ties to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and how much he knew about Epstein's offences.

US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson is hospitalised and currently under observation for progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), the Chicago-based Rainbow PUSH Coalition, which he founded, said.

A light truck crashed into a market in South Korea on Thursday, ploughing 150 metres along a passageway lined with stalls before coming to a halt, killing two people and injuring 18, according to emergency officials and media reports.

Pakistan's parliament approved a constitutional amendment on Wednesday to expand the powers of the country's army chief and curb the remit of its Supreme Court, in a move that critics say damages democracy.

At least 37 people were killed and dozens injured after a bus plunged into a ravine in the mountainous Arequipa region of southern Peru on Wednesday.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog has received a letter from US President Donald Trump urging him to consider granting a pardon to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Herzog's office said on Wednesday.

Israel reopened the Zikim Crossing in northern Gaza to allow humanitarian aid trucks into the enclave on Wednesday, COGAT, the Israeli military's arm that oversees aid flows, said.

The Indian government confirmed on Wednesday that it was treating a car blast that killed at least eight people and wounded dozens others in Delhi as a "terror incident" and vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice as swiftly as possible.

Turkey on Wednesday said 20 of its soldiers were killed when a military transport plane crashed in Georgia a day earlier, marking the NATO member's deadliest military incident since 2020.

Thailand has demanded an apology from Cambodia after accusing it of laying fresh landmines that have injured Thai soldiers, a foreign ministry official said on Wednesday, a day after Bangkok suspended a ceasefire pact brokered by US President Donald Trump.

ഇന്ത്യ സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യത്തിന്റെ 75-ആം വാർഷികം ആഘോഷിക്കുന്നു

Sir Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group, will be boarding Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity and blasting off to space on Sunday.

Singapore is reviewing penalties for violent offences following an outcry over a 12-day prison sentence for a student who strangled his girlfriend until she blacked out.