International News

Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico remains in serious condition and still faces risks of complications but has stabilised, officials said on Saturday, following Wednesday's assassination attempt.

Pakistan's foreign ministry said on Saturday it had summoned and handed a note of protest to Kyrgyzstan's top diplomat in the country in response to violence against Pakistani students in Bishkek.

After more than seven months of war in the Gaza Strip, a new poll showed that Israelis’ support for former general and government member Benny Gantz exceeds that for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At least 50 people are dead following a fresh bout of heavy rain and flooding in central Afghanistan, an official said on Saturday.

Australians stranded in New Caledonia are rationing food as they wait for a way out of the troubled Pacific island territory after riots that killed four people, a traveller from Sydney said on Saturday.

German police arrested eight climate activists who breached the grounds of Munich airport on Saturday, causing it to briefly close and leading to around 60 flight cancellations during a busy holiday weekend.

Slovak doctors will meet on Monday to assess Prime Minister Robert Fico's health and discuss the possibility of transporting him from Banska Bystrica to the capital Bratislava.

Donald Trump's lawyer accused star witness Michael Cohen of lying at the former US president's trial about a phone conversation he claimed to have had with Trump about a hush money payment to an adult star shortly before the 2016 presidential election.

Israel's tanks pushed into the heart of Jabalia in northern Gaza on Thursday, facing anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs from militants concentrated there, while in the south, its forces pounded Rafah without advancing.

The United States anchored a temporary floating pier to a beach in Gaza on Thursday to boost aid deliveries, but it was still unclear how it would be distributed given the challenges that have beset the United Nations and relief groups for months.

The Arab League Summit in Bahrain concluded on Thursday with the "Bahrain Declaration," a comprehensive statement addressing the Palestinian cause.

A man missing for more than 26 years has been found alive in his neighbour's cellar, just a few hundred metres from his family home. Omar bin Omran was reportedly kidnapped as a teenager and was discovered on Sunday.

China will always be a good neighbor, friend and partner of mutual trust with Russia, the state television quoted China president Xi Jinping as saying, as he mets Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is no longer in a life-threatening condition after he was shot in an assassination attempt when leaving a government meeting on Wednesday, a government minister said.

US President Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump on Wednesday agreed to face off in two debates on June 27 and Sept. 10, setting up the highest stakes moments yet of the race for the White House.

The number of people killed by weekend flash floods and mud slides in Indonesia's West Sumatra province has risen to 67 and 20 are still missing, authorities said on Thursday, as the government plans to relocate survivors to safer areas.

Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico suffered life-threatening injuries when he was shot and wounded in an attempted assassination on Wednesday, the government office said.

Dutch nationalist Geert Wilders on Wednesday said a deal had been reached to form what was set to be the most right-wing government in the Netherlands in decades, almost six months after a major election victory.

India granted citizenship on Wednesday to a first batch of 14 people under a controversial law, midway through general elections in which religious divisions have taken centre stage.

Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan was granted bail in Islamabad on Wednesday on land corruption charges but will have to stay in jail to serve time in two other cases, his lawyer said.

Hundreds of police are searching northern France on a massive manhunt for a fugitive gangster known as "The Fly", a day after he was freed from a prison van by gunmen in an attack that killed two prison guards.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has postponed all upcoming foreign visits, his press secretary said, after Russia's offensive in the north of Kharkiv region.

A third person has died after a partial collapse at the Myslowice-Wesola mine in southern Poland, an executive of the site's owner said.

13 people have been killed in a crash on a highway in Peru's Andean region, according to a radio announcement.

The Russian defence ministry said that its air forces destroyed 10 long-range missiles, known as ATACMS, that Ukraine's military launched overnight at Crimea on Wednesday.

Former US President Donald Trump's private Boeing 757 clipped another corporate jet while taxiing at West Palm Beach International Airport in Florida on Sunday, a source familiar with the incident said on Tuesday.

The US State Department has moved a $1 billion (AED 3.6 billion) package of weapons aid for Israel into the congressional review process, two US officials said on Tuesday.

The United Nations' International Court of Justice (ICJ) will hold hearings on Thursday and Friday to discuss new emergency measures sought by South Africa over Israel's attacks on Rafah during the war in Gaza.

Eight people were killed and eight critically injured when a bus carrying labourers collided with a pickup truck, then overturned in northern Florida on Tuesday.

At least two French prison guards were shot dead and three others seriously injured after heavily armed men ambushed a prison van to free an inmate, triggering a major manhunt.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told President Volodmyr Zelensky during a trip to Kyiv that part of a major US aid package had arrived in Ukraine and that more was on its way.

Displaced civilians are fleeing again as Israeli tanks forge deeper into eastern Rafah, reaching some residential districts, stepping up an offensive in the southern border city where more than a million people had been sheltering.

Crews in Baltimore set off controlled explosions to enable them to remove a portion of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge from the bow of the massive container ship that collided with it in March.

An Australian court has sentenced a former military lawyer to five years and eight months in jail for sharing classified military documents with journalists about the special forces actions in Afghanistan.

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said President Joe Biden's administration does not view the killings of Palestinians in Gaza by Israel as genocide.

The number of people killed by flash floods and mud slides in Indonesia's West Sumatra province has risen to 52 and more than 3,000 people were evacuated, authorities said on Tuesday.

Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry stressed on Monday the importance of resuming deliveries of aid to the Gaza Strip after Israel halted access through the Rafah Border Crossing.

At least four people are dead, 61 injured and more than 40 feared trapped after a massive billboard fell during a rainstorm in India's financial capital of Mumbai on Monday.

Britain's King Charles handed over a senior military role to his son Prince William at a ceremony on Monday, marking a rare joint appearance for the pair as the king steps up his return to public duties after his cancer diagnosis.

Israeli tanks, under cover from heavy fire from air and ground, pushed further into Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday, residents and Hamas media said, while airstrikes hammered Rafah in the south.

Donald Trump's estranged former fixer Michael Cohen is expected to begin giving testimony on Monday that could determine whether jurors convict the former US president of illegally hiding a payment to silence an adult film star.

India voted on Monday in the fourth phase of a seven-week long general election, as campaign rhetoric became more strident over economic disparities and religious divisions, while soaring summer temperatures was a challenge for some voters.

Armenian police detained 88 people at a protest in the capital Yerevan by demonstrators demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan over his decision to cede several border villages to Azerbaijan.

Flash floods and mud-slides in Indonesia's West Sumatra province killed at least 43 people over the weekend while a search for 15 missing people continued, authorities said on Monday.

The season's first major wildfires have spread across Western Canada as authorities issued an evacuation order for a community in British Columbia and warned of poor air quality across provinces.

At least 15 people were killed and scores injured on Sunday when a section of a Russian apartment block collapsed after being struck by fragments of a Soviet-era missile, launched by Ukraine and shot down by Russia, Russian officials said.

Flash floods caused by heavy rains have devastated villages in northern Afghanistan, killing 315 people and injuring more than 1,600.

The death toll from floods in Brazil's southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul rose to 147, local authorities said on Monday, while 127 people are still missing.

Israel called for Palestinians in more areas of Gaza's southern city of Rafah to evacuate and head to what it calls an expanded humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi, in a further indication that the military is pressing ahead with its plans for a ground attack on Rafah.

Fierce fighting was raging on Saturday for control of several Ukrainian villages near the Russian border as the Russian military sought to press home its attacks in the northeastern Kharkiv region.

Israel announced the delivery of 200,000 litres of fuel to the besieged Gaza Strip after the United Nations said that a lack of stock was hampering relief operations.

The death toll from heavy rains in Brazil's Rio Grande do Sul state has climbed to 136, local civil defence said on Saturday, up from 126, while another 125 people remain unaccounted for.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) welcomed the United Nations General Assembly's resolution supporting Palestine's right to full membership in the world body.

The United Nations General Assembly on Friday overwhelmingly backed a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member by recognising it as qualified to join, and recommending the UN Security Council "reconsider the matter favourably."

The United States is preparing a $400 million military aid package for Ukraine, as the US returns to a regular pace of supplying weapons to Kyiv after lawmakers passed a $95 billion bill, the White House said on Friday.

India's top court gave temporary bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in a graft case on Friday, allowing him to campaign in the ongoing general elections.

Israeli tanks captured the main road dividing the eastern and western halves of Rafah on Friday, effectively encircling the entire eastern side of the city in the southern Gaza Strip.

Australia has announced that it would hold a parliamentary inquiry to look into the negative impacts of social media platforms, saying they have significant reach and control over what Australians see online, with almost no scrutiny.

Donald Trump's lawyer sought to show inconsistencies in adult star Stormy Daniels' account of a 2006 sexual encounter she said she had with Trump during the first criminal trial of a sitting or former US president.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hopes he and US President Joe Biden can overcome their disagreements over the conflict in Gaza, after Biden withheld some weapons from Israel.

The death toll from severe flooding in southern Brazil has risen to 107, Reuters reported citing the civil defence on Thursday, as rescue operations continued from the devastation in the state of Rio Grande do Sul.

The United Nations General Assembly on Friday is set to back a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member by recognising it as qualified to join and sending the application back to the UN Security Council to "reconsider the matter favourably."

Air India Express said on Thursday its cabin crew has rejoined work after reporting sick this week, ending disruptions in services at the Tata Group's budget carrier that cancelled its flights for the second day.

US President Joe Biden believes that a major Rafah operation by Israel will not advance the country's objective of defeating Hamas in Gaza, the White House said on Thursday.

Tata Group's budget carrier Air India Express said it had cancelled around a quarter of its flights on Thursday and was taking "appropriate action" against cabin crew as services were disrupted for a second day after staff reported sick this week.

President Joe Biden on Wednesday publicly warned Israel for the first time that the US would stop supplying it weapons if Israeli forces make a major invasion of Rafah, a refugee-packed city in southern Gaza.

Russia President Vladimir Putin on Thursday accused the West of risking a global conflict and said no one would be allowed to threaten the world's biggest nuclear power as Russia marked the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two.

A plane with 78 passengers skidded off a runway before take-off at Senegal's main airport on Thursday, injuring 11 people and bringing the facility to a halt.

A Ukrainian drone attack sparked a fire and damaged several storage tanks at a fuel depot in Russia's Krasnodar region, the region's crisis administration said on Thursday.

Syrian air defences on Thursday shot down Israeli missiles fired from the Golan Heights towards Damascus' outskirts targeting a building in the countryside, Syria's defence ministry said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and election rival Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi traded barbs about campaign funding on Wednesday, with both sides accusing the other of taking money from top industrialists Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani.

The Swiss government has proposed granting $11 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

AstraZeneca has initiated the worldwide withdrawal of its COVID-19 vaccine due to a "surplus of available updated vaccines" since the pandemic.

US President Joe Biden's administration paused a shipment of weapons to Israel last week in opposition to apparent moves by the Israelis to invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah, a senior administration official said on Tuesday.

The world just experienced its hottest April on record, extending an 11-month streak in which every month set a temperature record, the European Union's climate change monitoring service said on Wednesday.

At least 86 Air India Express flights have been cancelled after cabin crew went on a "mass sick leave", official sources said on Wednesday.

European countries have reported a surge in whooping cough cases in 2023 and the first quarter of 2024, with 10 times as many identified as in each of the previous two years.

Rescuers rushed to evacuate people stranded by devastating floods across the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul on Tuesday, with at least 90 dead, thousands left homeless, and desperate survivors seeking food and basic supplies.

Long queues were building at British airports on Tuesday night after the country's Border Force suffered a nationwide technical issue that affected passport control.

Two Palestinians were killed and others were injured early on Wednesday, as a result of Israeli bombing south of the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.

The Pentagon announced yesterday that the US military has completed the construction of the floating port off Gaza. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi voted early on Tuesday as India held the third phase of a massive general election, when seats in his home state Gujarat and 10 other regions will be decided.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday it had taken operational control of the Palestinian side of Gaza's southern Rafah Crossing, which borders Egypt and has been pivotal for the delivery of aid and exit of injured people in the Gaza war.

An Indian city court extended on Tuesday the pre-trial detention of opposition leader and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal until May 20, legal news website Live Law reported, weeks before the capital votes in national elections.

President Vladimir Putin was sworn in for a new six-year term on Tuesday at a Kremlin ceremony that was boycotted by the United States and a number of other Western countries due to Russia's war in Ukraine.

Rescuers searched through the debris of a multi-storey building collapse in the South African city of George early on Tuesday that has left at least five people dead and dozens still trapped.

Officials say the three tourists killed in Mexico were believed to have been attacked while trying to prevent their vehicle being stolen.

Israeli forces began striking targets in Rafah hours after Hamas announced it had accepted an Egyptian-Qatari ceasefire proposal, which could end months of conflict in Gaza.

Hamas on Monday agreed to a ceasefire proposal in the seven-month-old war with Israel in Gaza.

Scottish National Party (SNP) veteran John Swinney was elected as its new leader on Monday and is set to replace Humza Yousaf as Scotland's first minister after he emerged as the sole contender in the contest to pick a new premier.

Israel's military carried out airstrikes in Rafah on Monday, residents said, hours after Israel told Palestinians to evacuate parts of the southern Gaza city where more than a million people uprooted by the war have been sheltering.

Russia said on Monday it would practice the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons as part of a military exercise after what Moscow said were threats from France, Britain, and the United States.

The death toll from rains in Brazil's southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul rose to 83, local authorities said on Saturday morning, while dozens still have not been accounted for.

Ukrainian drone attacks on two buses taking people to work killed six people and injured another 35 in the Belgorod region of Russia, the governor said on Monday.

US and Philippine armed forces fired missiles and artillery to thwart a simulated invasion in the Philippines' northern waters facing Taiwan on Monday, in a show of military force and strengthening ties as regional tensions rise.

Family members of three tourists who went missing in northern Mexico last month have identified their bodies, the state prosecutor's office in Baja California said in a statement on Sunday.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hardened his rejection of Hamas demands for an end to the Gaza war in exchange for the freeing of hostages, saying on that would keep the group in power and pose a threat to Israel.

Pakistan recorded its highest April rain since 1961, receiving more than double the usual rainfall for the month, according to the country's Meteorological Department.

Thousands of Israelis have protested demanding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accept a ceasefire agreement with Hamas that would see the remaining Israeli hostages brought home from Gaza.

Russia has opened a criminal case against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and put him on a wanted list, the state news agency TASS reported on Saturday, citing the Interior Ministry's database.

Hamas has said it is sending a delegation to Cairo on Saturday to discuss a deal for a truce and the release of hostages in Gaza, hours after US CIA Director William Burns arrived in the Egyptian capital, according to Egyptian sources.

NATO's four-month long military exercises near Russia's borders, known as Steadfast Defender, are proof the alliance is preparing for a potential conflict with Russia, a spokeswoman for Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.

Students at Trinity College Dublin protesting Israel's war in Gaza have built an encampment that forced the university to restrict campus access on Saturday and close the Book of Kells exhibition, one of Ireland's top tourist attractions.

Alexander Vinnik, a Russian suspected cybercrime kingpin who was arrested in Greece in 2017, convicted of money laundering in France three years later and is now awaiting trial in California, has pleaded partially guilty, TASS news agency cited his lawyer as saying on Saturday.

The Indonesian government is aiming to make use of around two million hectares of sugarcane plantation in Papua region to expedite the development of bioethanol.

China on Friday launched an uncrewed spacecraft on a nearly two-month mission to retrieve rocks and soil from the far side of the moon, the first country to make such an ambitious attempt.

Police forcibly removed scores of defiant pro-Palestinian protesters at several colleges on Thursday, including taking down an encampment at UCLA in a jarring scene that underscored the heightened chaos that has erupted at universities this week.

The Indonesian government will permanently relocate almost 10,000 residents after a series of explosive eruptions of the Ruang volcano has raised concerns about the dangers of residing on the island in future, a minister said on Friday.

A magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck off the island province of Leyte in central Philippines on Friday, with damage and aftershocks expected, its seismology agency said.

Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi will contest the general election from the family bastion in the north, his Congress party announced on Friday, a move that will challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a region he dominates.

A bus veered into a ravine in Pakistan's far north early on Friday, a local government spokesman said, killing 20 passengers, while 21 injured were rescued and taken to hospital.

The death toll from heavy rains in Brazil's southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul rose to 29, local authorities said on Thursday evening, as the state government declared a state of public calamity to handle the dramatic situation.

Mexican authorities said on Thursday they were searching at sea and on land for two Australians and one American reported missing in Baja California, one of the country's most violent states.

Hundreds of helmeted police muscled their way into a central plaza of the University of California at Los Angeles early on Thursday to dismantle a pro-Palestinian protest camp attacked the previous night by pro-Israel supporters.

Rebuilding homes in the Gaza Strip could drag into the next century if the pace follows the trend of previous conflicts, according to a UNreport released on Thursday.

At least 36 people were killed and another 30 injured after a section of an expressway in China's Guangdong province collapsed, state media reported on Thursday.

Residents of Indoesia's Tagulandang are in despair after Mount Ruang volcano erupted on Tuesday and left the island uninhabitable.

South Indian state of Kerala has closed all schools and colleges until Monday due to scorching temperatures, urging people in the coastal region to limit exposure to the sun and take care to prevent wildfires.

India's food safety regulator said on Thursday it had ordered nationwide testing and inspections at all companies making spice mixes, widening a crackdown on the sector as global regulators investigate contamination issues with two popular local brands.

A Russian ballistic missile struck a postal depot in the Ukrainian port of Odesa late on Wednesday, injuring 14 people and triggering a large fire, Regional Governor Oleh Kiper said.

Former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein will be retried in New York, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office said in court on Wednesday, a week after the state's highest court threw out his 2020 conviction.

Dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators have been arrested after they were holed-up in an academic building on Columbia University campus late on Tuesday.

Dozens of schools in India's national capital region were evacuated on Wednesday after they received a bomb threat by email, police said, adding that "nothing objectionable" was found during searches of the schools.

Hundreds residents of Indonesia's Tagulandang island were waiting at the island's port to be evacuated on Wednesday, footage from National Search and Rescue Agency showed, while grey smoke continued to erupt from Ruang volcano.

A 14-year-old boy was killed and four other people were injured after a stabbing in London on Tuesday involving a man with a sword.

Rescuers were searching on Tuesday for at least 91 people missing in heavy flooding across Kenya, the interior ministry said.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi received a phone call on Monday from US President Joe Biden to discuss the latest developments in negotiations over a ceasefire in Gaza and the dangers of a military escalation in Rafah, Egypt's presidency said.

A man, armed with a sword, has been arrested in London after he attacked members of the public and two officers near a train station, the British police said on Tuesday.

Australia's food safety agency said on Tuesday it was weighing accusations of contamination about some spice mixes sold by Indian companies MDH and Everest to decide if a food recall was required, becoming the latest regulator to step up scrutiny.

Indonesia's Ruang volcano off the island of Sulawesi erupted on Tuesday, spewing ash and lava, after an eruption earlier this month led to hundreds of evacuations and an airport closure.

A Russian missile attack on an educational institution in a popular seafront park in the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odesa on Monday killed at least four people and injured 32, local officials said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Saudi Arabia on Monday, the first stop in a broader trip to the Middle East to discuss issues including the governance of Gaza once the war with Israel ends.

Scotland's leader Humza Yousaf resigned on Monday, further opening the door to the UK opposition Labour Party to regain ground in its former Scottish heartlands in a national election expected later this year.

At least 42 people have been killed in floods in central Kenya's Mai Mahiu area after a dam burst early on Monday, and the number of deaths could rise, police said.

The Philippines cancelled in-person sessions in public schools for two days from Monday, warning that the power grid on its main island of Luzon could be strained in a heatwave that is also broiling other parts of Southeast Asia.

The World Central Kitchen has announced its resumption of operations in the Gaza Strip, four weeks after seven of its employees were killed in an Israeli air attack.

At least four people died, including a four-month-old baby, and scores were injured in Oklahoma this weekend after dozens of twisters swept the US Southern Plains, while weather alerts on Sunday put more than 7 million Americans under tornado warnings.

Pope Francis offered encouragement to prisoners, artists and young people in Venice on Sunday, with his first trip of the year testing his mobility and resilience after a number of health scares in recent months.

Disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was taken to hospital in poor health his lawyer confirmed, just days after his 2020 conviction in New York was overturned.

A gold pocket watch, which was recovered from the body of the richest man on the Titanic, has sold for over 4.1m dirham at auction, along with other items recovered from the sunken ship.

An Arab ministerial coordination meeting in Riyadh emphasised the necessity of ending the conflict on the Gaza Strip and the lifting of all restrictions that hinder the entry of humanitarian aid.

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.