A pledge by G20 leaders, whose countries account for most global CO2 emissions, to pursue the most ambitious target against global warming breathed new life into fraught UN climate talks in Egypt yesterday.

Iran issued a second death sentence in three days and clashes killed at least six people as women-led protests over Mahsa Amini’s death in

Government ministers and negotiators from nearly 200 countries yesterday began the hard slog of finding common ground for a deal at the annual UN climate summit, as host country Egypt assured that the slow-moving talks were still on track.

Turkey yesterday accused a Syrian woman of planting a bomb that killed six people in Istanbul, blaming the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) of carrying out the attack.

Iran said yesterday it had provided evidence to countries whose nationals it claims participated in unrest that has rocked the country in recent weeks.

Iran on Sunday issued its first death sentence over the protests that have shaken the country's clerical leadership, the judiciary said, with a rights group warning other convicts risked being "hastily" executed.

Turkey's Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu blamed Kurdish militants on Monday for a blast that killed six people in Istanbul's main shopping street, and said police had detained 22 suspects, including the person who had planted the bomb.

Six people were killed and 81 others wounded yesterday when an explosion rocked a busy pedestrian street in central Istanbul in what Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan called a bomb attack that  “smells like terrorism”.

Iran’s judiciary has charged more than 750 people in three provinces for participating in “recent riots”, local media reported, amid nationwide protests since the death of Mahsa Amini.

Israel’s veteran ex-premier Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday secured a mandate to form a new government, paving the way for his comeback at the helm of what is expected to be the most right-wing administration in the country’s history.

At least 19 people were killed and six injured yesterday when the minibus they were travelling in overturned in northern Egypt’s Nile Delta, the health ministry said.

An Iranian who got stuck for 18 years in a Paris airport, inspiring a Steven Spielberg movie starring Tom Hanks, died yesterday at the terminal, an airport official said.

Iranian security forces have killed at least 326 people in a crackdown on nationwide protests since Mahsa Amini’s death in custody, Iran Human Rights (IHR) said in an updated toll yesterday.

A rare inscription that sheds new light on the use of Canaanite language some 3,700 years ago has been discovered on an ivory comb in southern Israel, archaeologists said.

US President Joe Biden addressed the COP27 climate conference in Egypt yesterday, saying the global climate crisis posed an existential threat to the planet and promising that the United States was doing its part to combat it.

An Iranian general claimed yesterday that the Islamic republic had developed a hypersonic missile capable of penetrating all defence systems, raising concerns from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Countries scrambling this year to source more natural gas to replace supplies from Russia are risking years of emissions that could thwart climate goals, the research collaboration Climate Action Tracker said yesterday.

Fossil fuel lobbyists have flooded UN climate talks in Egypt, a report by watchdog groups said yesterday, as calls grow at the summit for a windfall tax on oil majors’ bumper profits.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has forced a short-term scramble for fossil fuels but the rise of solar, wind and other clean energies is “unstoppable”, the head of International Renewable Energy Agency told AFP.

Two Palestinians including a teenager were killed in unrest in the occupied West Bank yesterday, one of them in clashes during a visit by right-wing Israeli politicians to a sensitive religious site.