International News

 A convoy of clearly marked armored U.N. vehicles in Gaza was encircled and held at gunpoint on Monday by Israeli forces seeking to question two of the U.N. staff, the United Nations said on Tuesday. 

The death toll in Vietnam from Typhoon Yagi has risen to 141, the government said on Wednesday, as it warned that flood waters were causing the Red River to rise rapidly and threaten to inundate downtown districts of the capital Hanoi.

Republican Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris clashed over women's birth rights, the economy, immigration and Trump's legal woes at their combative first presidential debate on Tuesday night, each seeking a campaign-altering moment in their closely fought election. 

The death toll in Vietnam from Asia's worst storm this year reached 127 on Tuesday, with torrents of rain triggering floods and landslides, burying homes, sweeping away a bridge and now threatening the capital Hanoi.

Internet and mobile data services were suspended for five days and an indefinite curfew imposed in some parts of India's northeastern state of Manipur on Tuesday after student protests over continuing ethnic strife turned violent.

Russian officials said on Tuesday they shot down at least 15 drones around Moscow overnight in a wave of attacks that set residential buildings on fire, killed a woman and forced more than 30 flights in the capital to be suspended.

The United Nations General Assembly is likely to vote next week on a Palestinian draft resolution demanding Israel end "its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory" within six months. 

Ukraine's foreign ministry said it had summoned a senior Iranian diplomat to warn of "devastating and irreparable consequences" for bilateral relations if reports that Tehran had supplied Russia with ballistic missiles were correct.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the country is now implementing a nuclear force construction policy to increase the number of nuclear weapons "exponentially," state media KCNA said on Tuesday.

Israeli airstrikes on a tent camp for displaced Palestinians killed at least 40 people and injured 60 others in southern Gaza on early Tuesday, while Israel’s military said it targeted a Hamas command centre.

Kate, Britain's Princess of Wales, said on Monday she had finished her course of preventative chemotherapy for cancer, saying the treatment had given her a new perspective and made her grateful for "simply loving and being loved".

Ukraine's air force said it shot down six out of eight Russian-launched drones and two out of three missiles during an overnight attack over four Ukrainian regions.

Thousands of diaspora Indians protested in more than 130 cities across 25 countries on Sunday, organisers said, to demand justice after last month's assault and murder of a trainee doctor at a hospital in the city of Kolkata. 

Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez flew into Spain on Sunday to seek asylum, Madrid said, after a political and diplomatic crisis over July's disputed election. 

Landslides and floods caused by Typhoon Yagi have killed at least 24 people and injured another 299 in northern Vietnam over the weekend, the government said, as authorities warned of more flooding on Monday.

Algerian authorities declared President Abdulmadjid Tebboune the overwhelming winner of Saturday's election on Sunday, but a rival candidate alleged irregularities in the ballot count.

At least 14 people were killed late on Sunday in multiple Israeli strikes targeting the vicinity of Masyaf, a city in Syria's Hama province, Syria's state news agency reported on Monday.

Russia said on Sunday that its forces had taken full control of a town in eastern Ukraine as Moscow's forces advance on the strategically important city of Pokrovsk and seek to pierce the Ukrainian defensive front lines.

A gunman killed three Israeli civilians in an attack near the Allenby Bridge border crossing with Jordan before security forces shot him dead on Sunday, Israeli authorities said.

Typhoon Yagi, Asia's most powerful storm this year, was downgraded to a tropical depression on Sunday, after wreaking havoc in northern Vietnam, China's Hainan and the Philippines, claiming dozens of lives, according to preliminary reports.

Kentucky police were searching rugged terrain near a national forest for a suspect after at least seven people were wounded by gunfire while driving down the rural stretch of an interstate highway, officials said on Saturday evening.

Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said her government had not been weakened by a controversy over a consultancy role offered to the former lover of a minister who resigned after a tearful televised apology.

A case of poliovirus has been reported from the federal capital after 16 years, taking the tally of cases reported this year to 17, officials have confirmed.

The US and British foreign intelligence agencies said they are working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza to press for peace, according to the Associated Press.

The Japan Meteorological Agency has decided to launch more robust “wide-area” ashfall forecasts to prepare for the ash that would hit the Tokyo metropolitan area after a major eruption of Mt. Fuji.

Super Typhoon Yagi pounded south China's island province of Hainan with heavy rain and gusty winds, leaving at least two people dead and 92 injured, local authorities said Saturday.

The Israeli army said on Saturday that the air force attacked more than 15 launch pads and military infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Twelve members of the UN Security Council strongly condemned the ongoing systematic gender discrimination and oppression of women and girls in Afghanistan by the Taliban.

A New York judge on Friday delayed former US President Donald Trump's sentencing in his hush money criminal case until after the November 5 election, writing that he wants to avoid the unwarranted perception of a political motive.

Israeli troops shot and killed a Turkish-American woman who had been taking part in a protest against settlement expansion in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Friday, Palestinian and Turkish officials said.

The teenager charged as an adult with killing four people at his high school in the US state of Georgia made his first court appearance on Friday, and his father later appeared before the same judge on charges of enabling his son to obtain the rifle used in the shooting.

Indian Olympic wrestlers Vinesh Phogat and Bajrang Punia joined the opposition Congress party on Friday, entering politics a year after protesting against the chief of the sport's governing body in India over alleged sexual harassment.

A fire in a school in central Kenya has killed 17 students, a police spokeswoman said on Friday, following media reports that they had been burnt beyond recognition.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called to renew a United Nations mandate for an international security mission, to assist Haiti fight armed gangs that have taken over much of the country's capital and expanded to nearby regions. 

Pope Francis left Indonesia on Friday morning for Papua New Guinea, where the 87-year-old leader of the global Catholic Church will continue an ambitious 12-day tour across Southeast Asia and Oceania.

Israeli forces have withdrawn from the city of Jenin and a refugee camp there, following a 10-day episode of "violent aggression", the Palestine news agency (WAFA) said on Friday.

Hunter Biden, son of US President Joe Biden, pleaded guilty to federal tax charges on Thursday, a surprise move that avoids a potentially embarrassing trial weeks before the US presidential election.

The British government said it would provide Ukraine with 650 lightweight multi-role missiles worth $213.13 million, to help protect the country from Russian drones and bombing.

Powerful gales and heavy rain from Super Typhoon Yagi drenched southern China on Friday, with schools shut for a second day and flights cancelled as one of the strongest storms to hit Asia this year headed for landfall along Hainan's tropical coast.

French President Emmanuel Macron appointed Michel Barnier, the European Union's former Brexit negotiator, as his new prime minister on Thursday, in a bid to put an end to political paralysis following an inconclusive snap election.

German police shot dead an Austrian gunman in Munich on Thursday in an exchange of fire close to the Israeli consulate.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine needed "new energy" on Wednesday, ordering a major government reshuffle at a crucial juncture in the war against Russia.

Haiti has expanded its state of emergency to cover the entire nation's territory, as the Caribbean country battles violent gangs that have taken over much of the capital and started expanding into nearby regions, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Garry Conille said.

The White House is scrambling to put forward a new proposal for a Gaza ceasefire and the release of hostages by Hamas in the coming days, two US officials, two Egyptian security sources and an official with knowledge of the matter said. 

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris campaign has accepted the rules of next week's debate against Republican Donald Trump, including microphones being muted when it is not a candidate's turn to speak.

Former Lebanese central bank chief, Riad Salameh, who was arrested on Tuesday over alleged financial crimes, will remain in detention at least until a hearing is scheduled, likely next week, two judicial sources said.

The US filed money-laundering charges against two employees of Russian state media network RT on Wednesday, for what officials said was a scheme to hire an American company to produce online content to influence the 2024 presidential election.

Law enforcement officers in the US state of Georgia responded on Wednesday to a shooting at a high school and where four people had been killed.

Seven people were rescued and 21 people are missing at sea after a migrant shipwreck off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa.

A public inquiry into the 2017 London Grenfell Tower blaze blamed the disaster on failings by the government, construction industry and, most of all, the firms involved in fitting the exterior with flammable cladding.

An overnight Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine's western city of Lviv, close to the border with NATO member Poland, killed seven people, including three children, local officials said.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will hold talks with President Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey on Wednesday in the first presidential visit in 12 years, following a warming of long-frozen relations between the regional powers.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said he had asked Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday to step up advocacy among Ukraine's Western partners to allow strikes on military targets deep inside Russia.

Egypt reiterated its firm stance on the conditions for any ceasefire agreement in Gaza, completely rejecting the presence of Israeli presence in the Philadelphi Corridor and the Rafah crossing in southern Gaza.

Haitian state-owned power firm Electricite d'Haiti (EDH) said that output at Peligre, the Caribbean nation's largest hydroelectric plant, was down to zero since Monday, after protests over distribution of the country's flailing power supplies.

At least 50 people were killed and 271 wounded after Russia hit a military institute in Ukraine's central town of Poltava with two ballistic missiles on Tuesday, the war's deadliest single attack this year.

The United States announced criminal charges against Hamas' top leaders over their roles in planning, supporting and perpetrating the deadly October 7 attack in southern Israel. 

The US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee subpoenaed Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday, saying he had refused to appear before the panel to testify on the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.

At least 12 migrants died on Tuesday after their boat capsized on its way across the Channel to Britain, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said, adding that rescue operations were underway to find two people still missing.

The death toll from floods in Bangladesh rose to 71 on Tuesday with millions of people still stranded in devastated areas and increasing concern about outbreaks of waterborne disease as the inundation recedes.

Dozens of excited Indonesians waved at a motorcade carrying Pope Francis through the capital as he began the first leg of an ambitious Asia-Pacific tour on Tuesday, expected to urge global action on climate change as part of his longest trip yet.

The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) said it held talks in Tripoli to help resolve a central bank crisis on Monday that sparked a blockade of oil production and threatens the worst crisis in years for the major energy exporter. 

Yemen's Houthi group attacked two crude oil tankers in the Red Sea on Monday, the US military said.

At least 13 people have died in the Philippines due to tropical storm Yagi, while schools and government offices were closed in Manila and nearby provinces on Tuesday because of expected bad weather.

Hamas' armed wing said the group has been operating under new instructions on how to handle hostages should Israeli forces approach their locations in Gaza since June. 

The United Kingdom will suspend 30 of its 350 arms export licences with Israel due to risk such equipment might be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law, foreign minister David Lammy said on Monday. 

Loud explosions rocked Ukraine's capital Kyiv early on Monday as Russia launched a barrage of missiles, sparking fires and damaging homes and infrastructure, officials said.

A woman has died and more than 120,000 were left without power after high winds and heavy rain hit southern Australia, authorities said on Monday.

The Egyptian prosecution office has ordered the detention of two Israeli citizens for assaulting three hotel workers in the Red Sea town of Taba, near the border with Israel, Egyptian security sources said on Sunday. 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called the results of two regional elections that saw big wins for the far-right AfD and losses for his coalition "bitter" and urged mainstream parties to form governments without "right-wing extremists". 

Around 10,000 US hotel workers began a multi-day strike in several cities on Sunday, after contract talks with hotel operators Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide, and Hyatt Hotels were stalled, the Unite Here union said.

China urged the European Union to be "objective and fair" and careful with words and actions on issues in the South China Sea, after the bloc remarked on an incident that occurred over the weekend. 

Massive protests swept Israel on Sunday following the death of six hostages in Gaza as frustration mounted over the failure of the country's leadership to secure a ceasefire deal that would free Israeli captives.

Israeli Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday to conclude a ceasefire deal with Hamas to return the remaining hostages from Gaza, as the bodies of six of those taken on October 7 were brought home.

Kyiv launched one of the biggest drone attacks on Russia since the full-scale war began, targeting power plants and an oil refinery overnight, while Moscow's forces made further advances towards a key town in eastern Ukraine, officials said on Sunday.

Israel recovered the bodies of six hostages from a tunnel in southern Gaza where they were apparently killed not long before Israeli troops reached them, the military said on Sunday.

Tropical cyclone Shanshan, downgraded from a typhoon, left seven people dead and widespread damage as it churned off the Pacific coast of central Japan on Sunday.

The United Nations, in collaboration with Palestinian health authorities, began to vaccinate 640,000 children in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, with Israel and Hamas agreeing to brief pauses in their 11-month war to allow the campaign to go ahead.

Three Israeli police officers were killed on Sunday when their vehicle came under fire near the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, Israeli officials said.

Searchers found no survivors among the wreckage of a Russian helicopter that crashed in the far eastern peninsula of Kamchatka with 22 people on board, state news agency TASS said on Sunday.

One civilian was killed and four others injured in Russian shelling overnight on Ukraine's Sumy region on the border between the two warring countries, the local Ukrainian administration said on Sunday.

Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic said on Saturday his country was unlikely to enter the European Union in 2028, a date targeted by some other western Balkan countries hoping to join the bloc.

Five people were killed and 46 injured in a Ukrainian attack on the southwestern Russian city of Belgorod late on Friday, the local governor said.

The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms the heinous terrorist attacks resulting in the loss of civilian lives over the months in Burkina Faso in a statement.

Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani discussed bilateral relations between the two countries with the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Olaf Scholz, in a call.

The World Health Organisation chief said on Friday that mpox vaccines were set to arrive in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the next few days to fight a new strain of the virus.

A Russian guided bomb attack on Ukraine's northeastern city of Kharkiv on Friday hit a residential building and a playground killing six people, including a child, and injuring at least 55 more, local authorities said.

Israeli forces killed a local Hamas commander in the flashpoint city of Jenin on Friday as they pressed a major operation in the occupied West Bank for a third day, the Israeli military said.

The United Nations (UN) released $100 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). on Friday, to address critical underfunding of humanitarian emergencies across 10 countries in Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Middle East.

Libya's central bank governor Sadiq al-Kabir said he and other senior bank staff had been forced to leave the country to, "protect our lives" from potential attacks by armed groups.

Social media giant X said it expects Brazil's top court to order it to shut down, as a pitched legal battle plays out over compliance with local laws and owner Elon Musk's insistence the platform is being punished for resisting censorship. 

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has approved a request to provide the Secret Service with additional military support capabilities for presidential and vice presidential candidates for the upcoming election, the Pentagon and the Secret Service confirmed.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said he will require the government or insurance companies to pay for IVF fertility treatments if he is elected in November, a move likely aimed at appealing to women and suburban voters.

Israel's military and Hamas have agreed to three separate, zoned three-day pauses in fighting in Gaza to allow for the first round of vaccination of 640,000 children against polio, a senior WHO official said on Thursday. 

Palestinians in Gaza are waiting to see if there would be a pause in fighting to allow a polio vaccination campaign to begin, as the conflict raged across the besieged enclave, killing at least 20 people.

At least 179 people have died and tens of thousands been displaced in weeks of flooding in Nigeria, the National Emergency Management Agency said on Thursday.

China's coast guard urged the Philippines on Thursday to stop sending missions to resupply a vessel near a contested shoal in the South China Sea, warning that such "adventurous actions" could trigger unspecified incidents.

Heavy rains battered parts of India's western state of Gujarat this week, flooding cities, snapping utility links and forcing thousands to leave their homes, with at least 28 dead, authorities said on Thursday, warning of more heavy downpours.

The lawyer for Telegram boss Pavel Durov said it was, "totally absurd to suggest that the head of a social network" such as his client could be involved in criminal acts, as the tech founder was granted bail in Paris but handed a travel ban.

Israel’s Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, angered leaders from the region and beyond after alluding that Palestinians in the occupied West Bank should be evacuated.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) temporarily suspended movement of its employees across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, saying at least 10 bullets struck one of its clearly marked vehicles as it approached an Israeli military checkpoint.

Southwestern Japan was hit by heavy rain and very strong winds as Typhoon Shanshan made landfall in Kagoshima prefecture on Thursday, knocking out power supply for over a quarter million households and injuring dozens of people.

U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan wrapped up three days of talks in Beijing, intended to ease simmering tensions between the two superpowers, and set to meet one of Chinese President Xi Jinping's top military officials on Thursday.

The U.N. World Food Program (WFP) is investigating two of its top officials in Sudan over allegations including fraud and concealing information from donors about its ability to deliver food aid to civilians following the nation’s dire hunger crisis.

Israeli forces sent tanks deeper into Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip and launched strikes across the enclave as they battled Hamas, killing at least 34 Palestinians on Wednesday, according to medics.

Donald Trump faced a revised federal indictment accusing him of illegally trying to overturn his 2020 election loss, with prosecutors narrowing their approach after a US Supreme Court ruling that former presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution.

Russia said it wanted the International Atomic Energy Agency to take a "more objective and clearer" stance on nuclear safety after the head of the agency visited a Russian nuclear plant near where Ukraine mounted an incursion into the country.

At least 100 people have been killed during an armed attack in central Burkina Faso over the weekend in the deadliest incident in over a decade.

Protesters blocked train tracks, stopped buses and shouted slogans in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal on Wednesday, the latest in a series of protests that have rocked the state since the assault and murder of a trainee doctor. 

Ukraine's drones set several oil tanks on fire at the Glubokinskaya oil depot in Russia's Rostov region, several Russian Telegram channels reported on Wednesday.

Israeli security forces have initiated a major ground operation, with air support, in the north of the occupied West Bank on Tuesday evening, an Israeli military spokesman said.

The Greek-flagged crude oil tanker Sounion that was recently attacked by Yemen's Houthis is still on fire in the Red Sea and now appears to be leaking oil, a Pentagon spokesman said on Tuesday.

Israeli troops have recovered an Israeli hostage in "a complex rescue operation" in the southern Gaza Strip, the military said on Tuesday, more than 10 months after he was abducted.

Emergency responders were scrambling on Tuesday to find out how many people remain missing after waters burst through a dam in eastern Sudan, resulting in the worst in a series of floods that have devastated a country already torn by 500 days of war.

Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday that the war with Russia would eventually end in dialogue, but that Kyiv had to be in a strong position and that he would present a plan to US President Joe Biden and his two potential successors.

United Nations aid operations in Gaza ground to a halt on Monday after Israel issued new evacuation orders for Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, where the U.N. operations center is located, said a senior U.N. official.

Russia launched missile and drone attacks targeting scores of Ukrainian regions and killing at least five people, officials said on Tuesday, a day after Moscow's biggest air attack of the war on its neighbour.

The office of Venezuela's top prosecutor issued a second summons for opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez on Monday, who will reportedly be questioned about an opposition website that published detailed results of last month's disputed presidential election. 

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said ocean temperatures are rising in the Pacific Islands at three times the rate worldwide, and its population was "uniquely exposed" to the impact of rising sea levels. 

Four men have been arrested on suspicion of starting fires that have destroyed thousands of hectares of sugarcane plantations in Brazil's northern Sao Paulo state, the government said on Monday. 

The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) issued a statement late on Monday expressing deep concern "over the deteriorating situation in Libya resulting from unilateral decisions."

On Monday, US President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed the Russia-Ukraine war following Modi's visit to Ukraine, along with the situation in Bangladesh where protests led to the ousting of former leader Sheikh Hasina earlier this month.

Aviation officials from Asia are making a case for global action to reduce injuries from turbulence, with recent high-profile incidents driving calls to improve forecasting across borders.

Hopes of a Gaza ceasefire dimmed after Israel issued new evacuation orders for Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, forcing more families to flee, saying forces intended to act against Hamas and others operating in the area.

At least 73 people were killed in Pakistan's province of Balochistan when armed men attacked police stations, railway lines and highways, and security forces launched retaliatory operations.

Hezbollah launched hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel early on Sunday, as Israel's military said it struck Lebanon with around 100 jets to thwart a larger attack, in one of the biggest clashes in more than 10 months of border warfare.

A Ukrainian drone attack has injured a woman and damaged several homes across two key cities of Russia's Saratov region, located around 900 km from the border, the governor of the region southeast of Moscow said.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watched as new "suicide drones" took off and destroyed test targets including a mock tank, and urged researchers to develop artificial intelligence for the unmanned vehicles, state media reported on Monday. 

On Sunday, Ukraine called on Belarus to pull back what it described as significant levels of Belarusian forces and equipment deployed at their common border.

China's actions in the South China Sea are "patently illegal", the Philippines' defence secretary said Monday, following a clash in disputed waters on Sunday over what Manila said was a resupply mission for fishermen.

There was no agreement on Sunday in the Gaza ceasefire talks that took place in Cairo, with neither Hamas nor Israel agreeing to several compromises presented by mediators, two Egyptian security sources said, casting doubt on the chances of success in the latest U.S.-backed effort to end the 10-month old war. 

The Philippines and China clashed in disputed waters of the South China Sea on Sunday over what Manila said was a resupply mission for fishermen, the latest in a series of sea and air confrontations in the strategic waterway.

The Israel military said on Sunday that its fighter jets hit thousands of Hezbollah rocket launcher barrels in southern Lebanon that were aimed for immediate fire toward northern and central Israel.

Two NASA astronauts who flew to the International Space Station in June aboard Boeing's faulty Starliner capsule will need to return to Earth on a SpaceX vehicle early next year, NASA officials said on Saturday.

A man suspected of a stabbing rampage in the western German town of Solingen has been taken into police custody.

A Hamas delegation headed by its senior official Khalil al-Hayya will arrive in Cairo on Saturday to hear from mediators on the latest round of Gaza ceasefire talks that took place in the Egyptian capital, the Palestinian group said in a statement.

An Italian prosecutor has opened a manslaughter investigation into the deaths of British tech magnate Mike Lynch and six other people who were killed when a luxury yacht sank off Sicily this week.

German police said on Saturday that they were still searching for an unknown assailant hours after he killed three people and wounded others in a stabbing attack at a festival in the western city of Solingen.

A bomb blast in southwestern Pakistan killed two children and injured 16 people on Saturday, police officials said.

Russia has declared a state of emergency in part of the Voronezh region bordering Ukraine after an overnight drone attack, local governor Alexander Gusev said in his Telegram channel.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for global concerted action to control a new mpox outbreak, announcing a response plan that will require at least $135 million over the next six months.

Russia's security services shot dead four inmates on Friday who had taken hostages at a jail in Volgograd and fatally stabbed four of its staff.

Half of the passengers in a bus carrying 43 Indians died on Friday when the vehicle plunged into a rain-swollen river in neighbouring Nepal.

Italian rescue divers have found the body of the last person missing after British tech magnate Mike Lynch's family yacht sank off Sicily, believed to be his daughter Hannah.

India's Narendra Modi arrived in Kyiv on Friday for talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky, the first trip by an Indian prime minister to Ukraine since Kyiv gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

On Friday, Thai rescuers continued to search forested terrain for the remains of nine people aboard a charter flight that crashed the day before, authorities said, with all the travellers presumed dead. 

NASA said it expects to announce on Saturday its decision on whether the two astronauts who rode Boeing's glitchy Starliner spacecraft to the International Space Station will need a SpaceX vehicle to return to Earth.

Vice President Kamala Harris formally accepted the Democratic nomination for president with a rousing call to end the war in Gaza and to fight tyranny around the world, drawing a sharp contrast with Republican Donald Trump.

Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has charged a local man with cybercrime offences for spreading fake online information which fuelled riots in Britain, it said in a statement.

Alleged robbers armed with guns and rocket-propelled grenades ambushed a police convoy in Rahim Yar Khan, southern Pakistan on Thursday, killing at least eleven officers and wounding others, the police and interior ministry said.

Vice President Kamala Harris sought to redefine herself for America and draw a sharp contrast with Republican Donald Trump on Thursday as she accepted the Democratic Party's 2024 presidential nomination.

Israel's military court has extended the house arrest of soldiers accused of abusing a Palestinian detainee until September 4 but will allow the defence to hold a hearing on Sunday to request an alternative to detention, the military said.

Russia's FSB security service said it had opened a criminal case against a journalist working for CNN who it said had illegally crossed the Russian border to film a report inside the Kursk region after a Ukrainian cross-border incursion.

A volcano in southwestern Iceland erupted on Thursday, the meteorological office said, spraying red-hot lava and smoke in its sixth outbreak since December. 

US and Israeli delegations started a new round of meetings in Cairo on Thursday aimed at resolving differences over a truce proposal to end more than 10 months of war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

The body of British tech magnate Mike Lynch was retrieved on Thursday from the wreck of his family yacht that sank earlier this week off the coast of Sicily during a violent storm, a senior Italian official said.

A fire at a hotel in South Korea killed six people and injured 11 others, Yonhap news agency reported on Thursday, citing fire authorities.

More than 1,000 Indian opposition party supporters demonstrated in New Delhi, Mumbai and other state capitals on Thursday, demanding a probe into the market regulator chief's alleged conflict of interest in investigating the Adani Group.

The death toll from a river boat accident in western Democratic Republic of Congo has risen to at least 29 with at least 128 survivors identified and an unknown number still missing, local authorities say.

Three Palestinians have been killed by an Israeli strike on a house in the West Bank's Tulkarm refugee camp, the Palestinian health ministry said in a statement.

The helicopter crash in which Iran's late President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in May was caused by weather conditions and the aircraft's inability to handle the weight it was carrying, Iran's semi-official news agency said, citing a security source informed of the final investigation results.

A Greek-flagged tanker went adrift in the Red Sea on Wednesday, after repeated attacks that started a fire on the vessel and caused the ship to lose power, the UK maritime agency said. 

Protests are planned in Indonesia as parliament looks to annul changes to election laws made by the constitutional court, a reversal that could further strengthen the political influence of outgoing President Joko Widodo.

Four bodies were retrieved from the sunken wreck of a yacht belonging to the wife of British tech magnate Mike Lynch, the Italian fire brigade said, adding that they were continuing to search for two missing people.

On Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the urgency of sealing a deal for a truce in Gaza and the release of hostages, the White House said, but Israel and Hamas stuck firmly to their demands. 

At least 15 people were killed in an explosion on Wednesday at a pharmaceuticals manufacturing plant in southern India's Andhra Pradesh state.

Three staff members of a high school in the western Bosnian town of Sanski Most were killed on Wednesday when a school employee shot them.

A 116-year-old Japanese woman has been named the world's oldest person by Guinness World Records, following the death of 117-year-old Maria Branyas in Spain earlier this week.

Thailand has detected an mpox case in a European man who arrived from Africa last week and is awaiting test results to determine the strain, a disease control official said on Wednesday.

Ukraine attacked Moscow on Wednesday with at least 11 drones shot down by air defences in what Russian officials said was one of the biggest drone strikes on the capital since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The Taliban have barred United Nations-appointed special rapporteur Richard Bennett from entering Afghanistan, the administration's spokesperson told local broadcaster Tolo, accusing the human rights watchdog of "spreading propaganda". 

Michelle Obama tore into Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the Democratic National Convention, criticising his character and racist attacks that have targeted her and her husband Barack in the past.

A bus carrying Pakistani pilgrims overturned in central Iran, killing 28 passengers and injuring another 23 people, state media reported on Wednesday.

India Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he will "share perspectives" on the peaceful resolution of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, during his visit to Kyiv this week. 

Azerbaijan has formally applied to join the BRICS bloc, a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the country, the Azeri Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced.

A recently detected mpox case in the Philippines is of the mild Clade 2 variant and not the newer variant that has spread rapidly in Africa, the Philippines' health minister said on Wednesday. 

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.