US Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in South Africa yesterday, kicking off a three-nation African visit as Washington scales up diplomacy to counter Russian influence on the continent.

Ukraine yesterday accused Russia of again shelling Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, the Zaporizhzhia, and called for new international sanctions on Moscow for “nuclear terror”.

Kyiv and Moscow yesterday accused each other of striking Europe’s largest nuclear site, causing a reactor stoppage as three grain ships departed Ukraine under a deal to avert food shortages.

Major flooding in California’s Death Valley on Friday stranded approximately 1,000 people, buried cars and shut down all roads into and out of the famously parched national park.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has confirmed that Turkey will start paying for some of its Russian natural gas imports in rubles.

Escalation of Violence in Gaza

Israel’s military yesterday warned deadly air strikes against Palestinian militants in Gaza could last a week, as cross-border fire reverberated for a second day in the worst escalation since last year’s war.

“Humanity is playing with a loaded gun” as crises with the potential for nuclear disaster proliferate worldwide, UN head Antonio Guterres said in Hiroshima yesterday, the 77th anniversary of the first atomic bomb attack.

Twelve Polish pilgrims died and 30 others were injured yesterday when a bus  veered off a highway and crashed into a ditch in northern Croatia, authorities said.

A Texas jury ordered US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Friday to pay $45.2 million in punitive damages for falsely claiming that the deadly 2012 Sandy Hook elementary shooting was a “hoax.”

Israeli jets pounded targets in Gaza on Saturday and rocket barrages into southern Israel persisted, raising fears of an escalation after a wave of Israeli airstrikes on the coastal enclave killed at least 12 people, including a 5-year-old girl.

In light of the government’s  latest decision to increase prices of fuel across the country from today (August 6), let’s have a look at fuel prices (per litre) in the major economies of the world as well as Bangladesh’s neighbouring countries.

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan has provoked Beijing’s ire -- and brought into focus Washington’s deliberately ambiguous foreign policy stance toward the democratic, self-ruled island.

Tensions over developments in Taiwan overshadowed an Asian meeting of foreign ministers yesterday, diverting attention at a forum that had been expected to focus on efforts to end the crisis in Myanmar among other issues.

A senior commander of Islamic Jihad was among more than 15 people killed in Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip yesterday, prompting the militant group to warn Israel has made a “declaration of war”.

World food prices fell sharply in July, partly thanks to a deal between Ukraine and Russia lifting a sea blockade that had stopped Ukrainian grain shipments, a UN agency said yesterday.

US President Joe Biden’s government on Thursday declared monkeypox a public health emergency, a move that should free up new funds, assist in data gathering and allow the deployment of additional personnel in the fight against the disease.

Three grain ships left Ukrainian ports yesterday while the first inbound cargo vessel since Russia’s invasion was due in Ukraine later in the day to load, as Kyiv called for the safe passage deal to be extended to other cargoes such as metals.

China is halting cooperation with the United States in a number of areas, including dialogue between senior-level military commanders and climate talks, in retaliation for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, it said on Friday.

China has decided to sanction US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her immediate family in response to her "vicious" and "provocative" actions, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Friday.