Australia’s newly elected prime minister has said Pacific leaders have been “very positive” about his government’s renewed engagement, even as Beijing continues its diplomatic blitz across the increasingly contested region.

Thousands of Israelis yesterday started the annual nationalist “flag march” through Jerusalem that regularly stokes Palestinian anger, a year after tensions in the disputed Holy City exploded into war.

Ukrainian forces endured heavy artillery barrages yesterday as they held off Russian attempts to capture Severodonetsk, the largest city Kyiv still controls in the Luhansk region of the Donbas, Ukrainian officials said.

Turkey will not wait for US “permission” to launch a new offensive in Syria, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in remarks published yesterday, defying a warning from Washington.

More than 30 people were killed in southern Nigeria yesterday after a stampede erupted during a crowded church charity event where food was being distributed.

The United States expressed concern on Saturday over China’s “efforts to restrict and manipulate” the UN human rights chief’s visit to the Xinjiang region where Beijing is accused of detaining over a million people in indoctrination camps.

Investigators in Texas on Saturday sought to determine how critical mistakes were made in the response to the deadly Uvalde school shooting, including why nearly 20 officers remained outside a classroom as children placed panicked 911 calls for help.

Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday told the leaders of France and Germany in a phone call that Russia was willing to discuss ways to make it possible for Ukraine to resume shipments of grain from Black Sea ports, the Kremlin said.

Former US president Donald Trump rejected calls for tightened gun controls Friday following the Texas school massacre, saying decent Americans should be allowed the firearms they need to defend themselves against “evil.”

A Palestinian teenager was shot by Israeli troops Friday near the town of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank and died of his wounds, the Palestinian health ministry said.

Russian forces were assaulting the Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk yesterday after saying they had captured the nearby rail hub of Lyman as Moscow pressed its offensive in the eastern Donbas.

The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on two Russian banks, a North Korean company and a person it accused of supporting North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction program, increasing pressure on Pyongyang over its renewed ballistic missile launches.

At least 31 people were killed yesterday when a stampede broke out in south Nigeria during a church charity event where food was being distributed, police said.

At least 31 people died in Nigeria on Saturday during a stampede at a church in the southern Rivers state, a police spokesperson said.

Former US President Donald Trump has urged the Congress to prioritise school security over sending military aid to Ukraine.

A young survivor of the massacre at a Texas elementary school said she covered herself with a friend’s blood and pretended to be dead while she waited for help to arrive.

Students trapped inside a classroom with a gunman repeatedly called 911 during this week’s attack on a Texas elementary school, including one who pleaded, “Please send the police now,” as officers waited more than an hour to breach the classroom after following the gunman into the building, authorities said Friday.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday accused Western countries of waging a “total war” on Russia and its people and culture as Moscow pushes on with its military operation in Ukraine.

An Al Jazeera journalist shot dead in the occupied West Bank earlier this month was murdered in a “war crime” by an Israeli soldier, an official Palestinian investigation concluded Thursday.

Japan yesterday for the first time joined fellow members of the Group of Seven industrialised nations in pledging to end public financing for fossil fuel projects abroad by the end of the year to help combat global warming.