International News

A blast at a storage facility for petroleum products at the Netherlands' Rotterdam port killed one person and wounded six others on Thursday.

Colombia's President Abelardo De La Espriella has vowed on Wednesday to set up an emergency fund to help rebuild hospitals, schools, homes, and infrastructure destroyed by Monday's earthquake, which killed 265 and left nearly 500 people unaccounted for.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt will leave her role at the end of the month, US President Donald Trump has announced on Wednesday, leaving the president without one of his most trusted advisers ahead of November's midterm elections.

Air India will begin mandatory substance testing for all pilots on Thursday, expanding checks beyond regulatory requirements days after a pilot involved in a serious mid-air incident tested positive for psychoactive substances, according to an internal memo.

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Iturup, a Japan-claimed island at the end of the Kuril chain near the island of Hokkaido, Russian media said on Thursday, a day after major naval drills and a missile firing by ally North Korea.

Facebook and Instagram owner Meta has announced on Thursday it had taken down more than 750,000 accounts it suspected were held by Australians aged under 16 since a world-first ban on teen accounts, and promised more action.

The status of the North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla as Spanish territories is not up for discussion, Spanish officials have said on Wednesday, after Morocco's justice minister reiterated Rabat's sovereignty claims over the cities.

Donald Trump has been sued on Wednesday by two media entities seeking to shut down a new service that sells paid access to the US president's posts, including some that can move markets, on his Truth Social platform.

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has announced plans to buy electric shock gloves for officers in the field, alarming rights advocates who have condemned the action of ICE during President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.

Colombian rescue teams raced on Wednesday to find survivors still trapped beneath collapsed buildings two days after a powerful earthquake left nearly 250 people dead.

Four crew members and two rescuers have been killed in an attack by Houthis on a cargo ship in the Bab el-Mandeb strait on Tuesday, Yemen's transport ministry said, while the US military said it struck a container ship attempting to sail toward an Iranian port.

China's strongest typhoon this year lashed wide swathes of the country, battering the capital with bouts of intense rain that flooded key roads and stranded vehicles, after setting new rainfall records in central and eastern provinces.

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he secretly switched planes in Turkey last month at the direction of the US Secret Service, but that the plane he ultimately flew on was still more vulnerable than Air Force One.

Powerful storms have moved through the US Midwest on Tuesday, leaving at least two people dead and nearly a million without power, officials said.

At least 44 people died after a passenger ferry capsized in a lake in Zimbabwe on Tuesday, police said, roughly trebling an earlier estimate of the death count after more bodies were found.

Indonesian authorities rescued 172 people on Wednesday after a ferry travelling from the tourist island of Bali caught fire in waters off Lombok, officials said,as the search continued for any other missing passengers.

Rescue crews dug through mountains of shattered concrete in western Colombia on Tuesday, racing to find survivors after a powerful earthquake killed more than 250 people, according to estimates from local authorities.

North Korea has fired a ballistic missile on Wednesday toward the sea off the Korean Peninsula's east coast, South Korean and Japanese authorities said, days ahead of major joint military exercises by Seoul and Washington long denounced by Pyongyang.

A Syrian court sentenced ousted leader Bashar al-Assad to death on Tuesday after a trial in absentia, convicting him of crimes including killings, torture, and arbitrary arrest during the country's nearly 14-year war.

At least 14 suspected illegal miners were killed and eight injured when a mine dump collapsed in South Africa's North West province on Monday night.

Lebanon's parliament on Tuesday abolished the death penalty and replaced all existing death sentences with life imprisonment, the speaker's office said in a statement.

Russia on Tuesday freed a former American Marine who had been jailed in the country since 2022, US President Donald Trump said.

Democratic Republic of Congo has confirmed Ebola deaths have reached 2,011, the latest grim milestone in what health officials have described as the fastest-spreading outbreak on record.

US President Donald Trump has responded to Iran's conditions for a peace deal on Monday with his own demands that Iran pay compensation for people killed in wars, attacks and protests as discussions on the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz continue.

Indonesia has stepped up efforts to contain forest and land fires across six priority provinces, deploying cloud-seeding aircraft to induce rain as authorities seek to slow the haze now spreading across the region, officials said.

At least 111 people were killed after a powerful earthquake struck western Colombia early on Monday, knocking down buildings across several cities and injuring 87 more, with still others trapped in the rubble.

Russian attacks killed six people and wounded 20 in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia early on Tuesday and also struck Kyiv, triggering fires in the capital, officials said.

Torrential rain and storms in Typhoon Dolphin's wake inundated several provinces in China's east, drenching the coastal region and flooding streets in Shanghai, where around 40 per cent of flights were grounded on Monday due to the weather.

Police in eastern India used tear gas, batons and water cannon to disperse thousands of youth protesters as they marched on the state legislature in Jharkhand state on Monday over alleged wrongdoing in civil service examinations.

China said a Long March 7A rocket carrying the ChinaSat-4B satellite failed after an in-flight anomaly following liftoff from the Wenchang space launch site in the southern island province of Hainan on Monday.

At least 13 people were killed and 39 injured in a Ukrainian drone attack on industrial and civilian targets in the city of Nizhnekamsk, authorities said on Monday, one of the heaviest civilian tolls in Russia in months.

The Yemeni military has announced early on Monday that seven people, including military personnel and civilians, were killed and 30 others wounded in a Houthi attack on the Red Sea port city of Mocha.

A gunman killed a Thai official inside a local government office on the capital Bangkok's outskirts on Monday, authorities said, days after a teenager's shooting spree at a school in the same province reignited debate over gun control.

The Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has raised the number of deaths to 1,887 and confirmed Ebola cases to 4,120 on Sunday due to the outbreak that was declared in the east of the country on May 15.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu restated his rejection of Donald Trump's latest Gaza plan in televised remarks to his right-wing government on Sunday, even as Israel's military has effectively halted attacks in the territory under pressure from the US President.

A fire in Indonesia's Mount Bromo National Park in East Java that burnt 550 hectares (1,360 acres) has been extinguished, with no casualties reported.

Ukraine and Russia accused each other of lethal attacks on Sunday, as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Moscow was targeting global food security by striking Odesa's seaport.

Israel's military on Sunday closed the West Bank village of Taybeh to nonresidents, saying it aimed to prevent growing attacks on Palestinians by Israeli settlers across the West Bank.

Captain of an Air India flight that suddenly lost altitude last week is undergoing further laboratory testing after an initial screening indicated a result requiring confirmation.

The death toll from a school shooting in Thailand rose to nine on Saturday, after police said a 12-year-old girl caught up in Friday's incident had died.

Typhoon Dolphin, the most powerful tropical cyclone to hit China this year, made landfall on the country's eastern coast on Sunday, bringing torrential rain and strong winds and triggering warnings of flooding and landslides.

Five people were killed and 25 injured in a Ukrainian overnight drone attack on the Russian city of Belgorod, local authorities said on Sunday.

Thousands of residents in British Columbia were ordered to evacuate on Saturday as a fast-moving wildfire in western Canada nearly doubled in size overnight.

Spain's government said on Friday it would establish border controls for flights and ships from Italy from midnight on Saturday until September 7 in a dispute with the neighbouring country over irregular migration.

Typhoon Dolphin lashed Japan's southern Okinawa prefecture on Saturday, injuring five people and cutting power to 14,000 buildings, while China shut ports and ferry routes ahead of the storm's expected arrival on its east coast.

Russian strikes killed three people, including a child, in the region surrounding capital Kyiv on Saturday, an official said.

A Thai teenager killed at least five people and himself at a school outside Bangkok on Friday after fatally shooting his grandparents, police said, in the Southeast Asian nation's worst mass killing since 2022.

A US federal appeals court ordered President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday to stop construction on a $400 million ballroom on the site of the White House's demolished East Wing, dealing the Republican leader a major setback in a case testing his presidential authority.

Spanish police have dismantled what they described as one of the largest people-smuggling networks operating in the Mediterranean, believed to have brought more than 2,000 migrants into the country.

A bomb planted in a minibus wounded 14 people on the outskirts of Syria's capital Damascus on Thursday night, with some of the injuries so severe that they were taken for fatalities, an official said on Friday.

Spain's government expects to transfer some migrant minors from overcrowded reception centres in the North African enclave of Ceuta to the mainland within weeks, alleviating the migration crisis after last week's deadly border rush.

Morocco is ready to cooperate with Spain and other European partners on the return of unaccompanied minors who were among tens of thousands of migrants who crossed into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, state news agency MAP reported on Thursday.

North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile on Thursday towards the sea off the peninsula's eastern coast, South Korea's military said, the first such launch in more than 40 days after a series of weapons tests earlier this year.

A wildfire prompted an evacuation alert on Wednesday about 30 km (18.64 miles) from Vancouver, one of Canada's largest metropolitan areas, as blazes in Western Canada continued to spread due to dry and hot weather.

Israel said two of its soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon on Wednesday while Lebanese authorities said Israeli retaliatory attacks killed at least one person, a flare-up in violence that coincided with the latest round of talks between the two countries.

Italy took the unprecedented step of placing all its major cities on the highest level of health alert due to high temperatures on Thursday while Hungary turned off the lights at some of its best-known buildings to save energy as a heatwave maintained its grip on large parts of Europe.

Rescuers worked on Thursday to douse fires and clear debris in Ukraine's eastern city of Balakliia after Russian strikes on homes killed three overnight, authorities said on the Telegram messaging app.

Work to build Google's planned Indian data centre hub is in full swing, with a hillside above the site stripped to red earth and terraced into steps, but mounting opposition from environmentalists is creating hurdles for the US tech giant's $15 billion project.

An Arab ministerial meeting in Amman has called for urgent international action to halt Israeli violations in occupied East Jerusalem and at its holy sites.

The Israeli military said it had begun targeted strikes in southern Lebanon on Wednesday in response to a "Hezbollah violation", a day after the latest round of US-facilitated talks between ‌Israel and Lebanon took place in Rome.

Four men were stabbed in a street near London's Covent Garden district on Wednesday and a woman was arrested in what police said they believed to be a "mental health related incident".

The temperature in Austria climbed to a record high on Wednesday, while Hungarians curbed power use as the latest heatwave and drought took their toll on central and southern Europe.

US President Donald Trump said his administration had "very good discussions" with Iran during all-day negotiations on Tuesday, fuelling expectations of an imminent end to the five-month conflict.

The Democratic Party's progressive wing scored a high-profile victory when Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan's US Senate primary, according to media projections on Wednesday, giving its anti-establishment message a boost ahead of November's midterm elections.

Bangladesh's former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said on Wednesday that a ban on her Awami League party should be lifted and reiterated that she would return to her country in December, challenging the new government of her rival Bangladesh Nationalist Party.

A SpaceX rocket piece floating in space since last year smashed into the moon at high speed early Wednesday morning, joining the ranks of meteoroids, wayward spacecraft and other pieces of space junk that have bombarded the lunar surface for ages, astronomers confirmed.

A projectile struck an Indian-flagged vessel near Yemen, causing it to capsize and sink, but all 14 seafarers on board were rescued, India's shipping minister Sarbananda Sonowal said on Tuesday in a post on X.

Albanian firefighters battled on Wednesday a wildfire in the southern region of Mallakaster which forced evacuations of about 15 families with their livestock and pets as a heatwave kept large parts of southern and eastern Europe in its grip.

Russia fired dozens of ballistic missiles at Ukraine's capital Kyiv and the surrounding region on Wednesday, killing at least 17 people and destroying warehouses and logistics centres of major retailers, Ukrainian officials said.

An airplane's tyre burst on landing at Cape Town International Airport on Tuesday afternoon, causing flight disruptions as the main runway was closed though all passengers disembarked the plane safely.

Conflicting signals from the US and Iran over the status of talks to end their five-month-old war boosted uncertainty on Tuesday, with the latest attack on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz highlighting risks to global energy flows.

Russia said seven people, including three children, had been killed and 40 injured at its Black Sea holiday resort of Gelendzhik in what it said was a deliberate Ukrainian drone attack on civilians.

India's Gen-Z Cockroach Janta Party, whose recent protest against exam paper leaks claimed a rare ministerial scalp, has no immediate plans to enter electoral politics, its founder told Reuters on Tuesday.

Wildfires were easing in Greece on Tuesday though hundreds of firefighters were on alert for persistent flare-ups northwest of Athens, where rugged hills and canyons hampered efforts to fully contain a blaze that gutted homes and scorched forests, farmland and olive groves.

Testing of experimental treatments, preventive medicines and vaccines for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola behind Democratic Republic of Congo's ongoing outbreak is advancing rapidly, the UN's World Health Organisation said on Tuesday.

A man has been arrested on suspicion of deliberately starting one of three fires that have destroyed hundreds of buildings and forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes in and around Spokane, Washington.

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that talks with Iran were underway, warning that it was a 'last chance' for Tehran to sign a good deal to end the five-month-old war.

The death toll ​from twin ‌earthquakes which struck Venezuela in June has risen to 6,125, ​according to figures released by top lawmaker ​Jorge ​Rodriguez on Monday.

Jay Clayton was sworn in Monday as the US director of national intelligence after a contentious Senate confirmation hearing in which he refused to directly acknowledge that President Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election.

Indonesian rescuers are continuing the search for 28 people still missing on Monday after a ferry caught fire off Indonesia's Madura island, an official said.

An Indian court on Monday acquitted the former chief of India's wrestling federation in a harassment case lodged by female wrestlers, local media reported, three years after the allegations triggered months-long protests demanding action against him.

US President Donald Trump said talks with Iran will happen on Monday but declined to set a deadline for an agreement.

Two firefighting helicopters collided in Greece while helping to control a huge wildfire on Sunday that has destroyed more than 100 homes northwest of Athens, while people fled another blaze on the tourist island of Kefalonia.

The death toll from Thursday's mass rush into Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco reached at least 72 on Sunday as five more bodies were found along Ceuta's coast, officials said.

Two people were hospitalised after a building collapsed in a central area of Sydney on Monday, emergency services said.

At least 14 people were killed in an explosion outside a police station in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday, with authorities investigating it as a suspected suicide attack.

Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza for a second straight day on Sunday, killing at least 15 Palestinians, medics said, despite US President Donald Trump's announcement of a breakthrough in efforts to implement last year's Gaza ceasefire agreement.

Armed men killed at least 12 people and abducted women and children during a Saturday night attack on a village in Nigeria's northwestern Sokoto state, witnesses said.

Ukrainian drone strikes killed at least eight people in Russian regions overnight and on Sunday, hitting targets including a warehouse belonging to Wildberries, Russia's largest online retailer, regional officials said.

US President Donald Trump said late on Saturday he would hold off on a fresh attack on Iran as long as a deal could be reached quickly to halt Iran's nuclear ambitions and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

At least five people have been killed and 41 remain missing after a ferry caught fire off Indonesia's Madura Island, prompting a major search and rescue operation.

A small tourist plane crashed on Saturday as it flew over the Nazca Lines archaeological site in southern Peru, killing 13 people, Peru's government said.

A homemade bomb carried by a woman killed three people and injured at least 21 in an explosion near an upscale restaurant in central Moscow on Saturday evening, the authorities said.

Israel's military on Saturday killed two Palestinians in Gaza and destroyed two warehouses near a hospital that stored medicine in separate strikes, amid uncertainty over whether Israel has accepted a deal reached with Hamas over the group's disarmament.

Celebrated Nepali mountaineer Nirmal Purja and nine others were confirmed dead on Saturday after an avalanche on Broad Peak in northern Pakistan.

Russia pounded Kyiv and the region in a heavy ballistic missile attack early on Saturday, killing 10 people, as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Ukraine had run out of interceptor missiles for its US Patriot air defence systems.

US President Donald Trump said talks in Cairo between mediators and Hamas leaders on Thursday have led to a phased disarmament agreement in Gaza.

Kuwait’s air defences intercepted a new wave of Iranian drone strikes on Saturday, the army said, as Iran and the US continued to exchange attacks across the Middle East.

Wildfires fanned by gale-force winds burned across multiple areas of Greece on Saturday, forcing residents to flee as conditions worsened again in parts of Spain and France.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he wanted to forgive students who hurled expletives at him during protests last month, saying that punishing them and forcing them to appear repeatedly in court would not help resolve the situation.

Sri Lanka's former police chief Pujith Jayasundara and former senior defence official Hemasiri Fernando were sentenced to death on Friday over the 2019 Easter bombings that killed 279 people, local media reported.

Spain said on Friday it had reversed a huge rush of migrants into a Spanish enclave in North Africa, with most of the more than 50,000 people who had crossed the border by land and sea already heading back voluntarily.

Kuwait's Armed Forces intercepted and destroyed drones that entered its airspace on Friday morning, adding there was material damage due to falling debris but no casualties.

India's cabinet has approved 3.16 trillion rupees ($33.13 billion) as cash handouts for farmers for five years through fiscal 2031, the government said on Friday.

The bodies of four climbers were located by Pakistani search crews on Friday after at least 10 mountaineers went missing in a suspected avalanche on Broad Peak a day earlier, Pakistani sources said.

Kuwait's Ministry of Defence said an Iranian attack targeted a building belonging to a Chinese company in the north of the country on Thursday, killing one worker and causing extensive material damage to the facility.

A powerful earthquake that struck southern Japan this week has exposed the vulnerability of the country's manufacturing supply chains, a decade after a devastating quake in the same region triggered widespread industry disruption.

An explosion that buried parts of a mining complex has killed at least 34 miners in Pakistan's Balochistan province, Pakistani officials said on Friday.

India's Central Bureau of Investigation has filed charges against 13 people in connection with leaked question papers for the national medical college entrance test, days after youth-led protests over the scandal forced the education minister to quit.

A preliminary investigation by relevant authorities has found that a drone caused the fire involving two vessels at Damietta Port on Wednesday, Egypt's Cabinet said.

Russia pounded Ukraine with dozens of missiles and hundreds of drones, killing eight people in overnight attacks on Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, decrying shortages of air defence supplies and urging allies to help.

France, Spain and Greece battled major wildfires on Thursday, with Spain bringing one blaze under control but facing new threats as intense heat, dry vegetation and powerful winds kept much of southern Europe on alert.

The US Military said on Wednesday night it carried out a fresh wave of strikes on Iranian military targets.

The 7.1-magnitude earthquake that struck southern Japan toppled houses and split open streets in the small city of Yatsushiro, but town official Akio Matsushita is most worried about the invisible threats from the lack of water and power amid the punishing summer heat.

Israeli strikes killed at least four people in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, health officials said, as mediators held new talks with Hamas leaders to work towards full implementation of a US-brokered Gaza peace plan.

Saudia Arabia announced in the early hours of Wednesday morning it had launched targeted strikes on Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq, in coordination with US Central Command (CENTCOM).

Russian air strikes killed at least eight people in Ukraine on Thursday, including one in Kyiv, in attacks extending as far as the western city of Lviv, forcing neighbouring Poland to scramble fighter jets to secure its airspace.

A major blaze in central Spain has stabilised, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said on Wednesday, in a rare reprieve as soaring temperatures in France and Spain increased the threat from wildfires in both countries.

Rescuers were frantically searching on Wednesday for survivors of a 7.1-magnitude earthquake that shook southern Japan, killing at least 13 people, knocking out power to thousands of homes and rupturing roads across the region.

Three Greek firefighters died on Wednesday as they battled a blaze on the island of Crete as wildfires spread further in Europe, despite a rare reprieve in Spain, where a major fire stabilised.

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said there have been good talks with Iran even as he reiterated his threats to target Pickaxe Mountain as well as bridges and power plants if a deal is not made with Tehran.

US President Donald Trump held talks with Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday, with spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt describing it as "positive and productive".

US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday discussed efforts to revive peace talks with Russia and a deal to allow Ukraine to make Patriot missile interceptors, ahead of the funeral of a US senator who was one of Kyiv's strongest backers.

France was bracing for its fourth major heatwave of the year on Tuesday, as soaring temperatures and tinder-dry conditions across the southwest piled pressure on crews battling a giant wildfire in the Bordeaux region.

India's Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the release of under-18s arrested during the youth protests over exam leaks and said authorities must ensure surveillance footage is preserved after petitioners alleged police brutality against demonstrators.

President Donald Trump said on Monday that the US was having "good talks" with Iran and there was a chance of a deal over their conflict, but warned US strikes would resume if the negotiations failed to deliver.

Israel will allow a multinational security force to enter Gaza as proposed under US President Donald Trump's ceasefire plan for the enclave, an Israeli official said on Sunday, a day before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to Washington.

Russian strikes on front-line localities in eastern Ukraine killed seven people and injured more than 20 on Monday, officials said.

Saudi Arabia's air defences intercepted and destroyed drones launched from Iraq on Monday and reaffirmed its right to respond to the sources of "the aggression".

Britain's new prime minister, Andy Burnham, welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as his first international visitor on Monday, in a move that underscores London's steadfast support for Ukraine.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday vowed to press ahead with an anti-corruption drive that could see multiple charges filed against his cousin, former House Speaker Martin Romualdez.

French police detained a man on Monday after he attacked three women with knives near Porte de Clichy in Paris, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told reporters.

Firefighters sought on Monday to take advantage of more favourable weather conditions to subdue massive wildfires threatening the French city and region of Bordeaux and a number of sites in neighbouring Spain.

Indian authorities have suspended a policeman for firing rounds in the air from an assault rifle to disperse student protesters in an eastern state over the weekend, the latest flashpoint in a wave of youth protests that forced the federal education minister to resign.

The Kuwait Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday strongly condemned the repeated attacks by the Houthi group on ships in the Red Sea, the last of which was on Saudi ship NCA MASA while sailing in the Red Sea.

US President Donald Trump has paused attacks on Iran to allow more room for diplomacy, the US ambassador to the United Nations told Fox News.

Typhoon Noul will dump heavy to torrential rains across much of southern China for two days, authorities said, after sweeping the province of Guangdong and neighbouring Hong Kong with gale-force winds, following landfall on Sunday.

India's education minister resigned on Saturday, handing a major victory to youth protesters whose street protests over examination paper leaks had become a serious challenge for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

German police said a 21-year-old man was shot dead on Sunday, a day after he allegedly drove a minivan into people near a Berlin parade, killing one person.

Rescuers were searching on Sunday for 17 people still missing after a Vietnamese ship sank in the busy waterway of the South China Sea, while 45 have been pulled from the waters since Saturday night, China's state broadcaster CCTV said.

The number of confirmed Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo has risen to 3,075, with 1,354 deaths, according to recent government data.

Twelve people were killed, including five children, in an overnight drone attack on a holiday camp in a Russian-held part of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region, Russian-installed local authorities said on Saturday, accusing Ukraine of deliberately attacking civilians.

At least 35 were killed and 30 injured in a collision between two passenger buses on the Deir al-Zor-Damascus road, a health ministry official told state news agency SANA on Saturday.

Wildfires on the coast of southwestern France moved inland towards Bordeaux on Saturday, forcing the evacuation of thousands in the city's suburbs, while in neighbouring Spain high winds complicated efforts to fight a massive blaze near Madrid.

Recovering from the earthquakes in Venezuela will take years, the Red Cross said on Friday, one month on from the June 24 disaster that killed more than 5,000 people.

US missiles struck targets across Iran on Friday and President Donald Trump vowed "major military punishment" for Tehran and its Houthi allies in Yemen, though he once again left open the door to a diplomatic deal with Iran.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres arrived in Damascus on Saturday for the first trip to Syria by a serving United Nations' chief since 2009, before the start of a civil war that killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions.

The US military said on Thursday night it had carried out a fresh wave of strikes on Iranian military targets, marking the 13th consecutive night of American attacks.

Palestinian officials welcomed UNESCO's designation of Sebastia in the occupied West Bank as a World Heritage site, hoping it will prevent Israel extending its control at the ancient village, while Israel condemned it as a political decision.

Leaders of India's youth-led "cockroach" movement said on Friday that the government has asked for time until Saturday afternoon to respond on their demand for the education minister's resignation, following talks between the two sides.

Four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed near a Palestinian village on Friday in a confrontation that added to a growing toll over recent weeks as Israeli settler violence has intensified against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Irish police intercepted "a significant explosive device" in a car travelling towards the border with Northern Ireland this week that they said on Friday was likely the work of nationalist militants opposed to British rule in Northern Ireland.

The Spanish government on Thursday night declared a national emergency after a series of wildfires threatened communities near Madrid and in the neighbouring province of Avila, forcing more than 10,000 people to evacuate as firefighters struggled to contain the blazes.

Bangladesh President Mohammed Shahabuddin, a former ally of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, has resigned citing serious health issues, his office said on Friday.

US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy are scheduled to meet in Washington on Tuesday, a White House official said on Friday.

Ousted Ukrainian defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov said on Thursday he would accept no other government position besides his former job, escalating a political crisis that has gripped Ukraine at a pivotal point in the war with Russia.

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.