Tropical storm Ian has strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane as it nears western Cuba, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said yesterday.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres yesterday renewed his call for the global abolition of nuclear weapons as concerns grow over Russia’s threat to use them in the Ukraine war.

Depositors scuffled and long lines formed at Lebanese banks yesterday as they partially reopened after a week-long closure following a slew of heists by customers desperate to access their money.

Italy took a sharp turn to the right yesterday after Giorgia Meloni’s Eurosceptic populist party swept to victory in general elections, putting a one-time Mussolini admirer on course to become the first woman to lead the country.

Iran has arrested more than 1,200 protesters, officials said Monday, in its lethal crackdown on 10 nights of unrest driven by outrage over the death of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in the custody of the notorious morality police.

The world economy will take a bigger hit than previously forecast next year due to the effects of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the OECD said yesterday.

The Kremlin yesterday refused to deny that Russia might close its borders to prevent an exodus of military-age men after President Vladimir Putin declared a partial mobilisation in an effort to regain the upper hand in the war in Ukraine.

President Vladimir Putin on Monday granted Russian citizenship to former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, nine years after he exposed the scale of secret surveillance operations by the National Security Agency (NSA).

A leading Iranian cleric has urged authorities "to listen to the people", as protests ignited by a young woman's death in morality police custody show no sign of letting up.

A gunman with a swastika on his t-shirt killed 13 people, including seven children, and wounded more than 20 at a school in Russia on Monday before committing suicide, investigators said.

Ukraine has discovered two more mass burial sites containing the bodies of hundreds of people in the northeastern town of Izium, which Kyiv recaptured from Russia this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

US attempts to violate Iran's sovereignty over the issue of protests triggered by the death of a woman in police custody will not go unanswered, the foreign ministry said on Monday.

Iran summoned the British and Norwegian ambassadors over what it called interference and hostile media coverage of the nationwide unrest triggered by the death of a woman detained by morality police.

Giorgia Meloni looks set to become Italy's first woman prime minister at the head of its most right-wing government since World War Two after leading a conservative alliance to triumph at Sunday's election.

China and India called at the United Nations for a negotiated end to the Ukraine war, stopping short of robust support for traditional ally Russia.

Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian militant yesterday during an army operation in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian officials said, in the latest in a series of incidents in recent months around the volatile town of Nablus.

A suicide attack claimed by the Somali Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab killed at least seven people and injured nine others in Mogadishu yesterday, the army and eyewitnesses told AFP.

Concerts by Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters were cancelled by a venue in the Polish city of Krakow, organisers said yesterday, after the artist’s comments on the war in Ukraine caused a storm of criticism.

Italians voted yesterday on whether to usher in the country’s first government led by the far right since World War II, bringing eurosceptic populists to the heart of Europe.

Ukraine yesterday said that the southern port city of Odessa was attacked by Iranian-made drones overnight, two days after a Russian attack with such a weapon killed two civilians.