Yemen’s warring parties were yesterday set to lay down their weapons for the first nationwide truce since 2016 with all eyes on whether the UN-brokered ceasefire will hold.

Ukraine yesterday said Russian forces were making a “rapid retreat” from northern areas around the capital Kyiv and the city of Chernigiv as the Red Cross prepared for a fresh evacuation effort from the besieged southern port of Mariupol.

Mali’s army said Friday that it had killed 203 combatants in an operation in the centre of Sahel state, an apparent uptick in violence in the conflict-torn country.

Russia has declared a prominent journalist, a video blogger and six other media figures “foreign agents”, the latest in a series of such moves that critics say are designed to stifle dissent.

Amnesty International on Friday lambasted any move by Turkey to transfer the Istanbul trial of 26 suspects in the 2018 murder of Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi to Riyadh.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Friday there are no ethical problems in her remaining in her role after reports that she is in advanced negotiations to switch to a high-profile television job.

US military has canceled a test of its Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile that it had initially aimed only to delay in a bid to lower nuclear tensions with Russia during the war in Ukraine, the Air Force told Reuters on Friday.

The US military could have done more to limit civilian casualties and damage during the battle for the Syrian city of Raqqa that marked the Islamic State’s fall in 2017, according to a report commissioned by the Pentagon.

Maksim Levin, a photographer and videographer who was working for a Ukrainian news website and was a long-time contributor to Reuters, was killed while covering Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Israeli security forces killed three gunmen from the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad in a shootout in the occupied West Bank yesterday.

Pope Francis yesterday said he was considering a trip to Kyiv and implicitly criticised Russian President Vladimir Putin over the invasion of Ukraine, saying a “potentate” was fomenting conflict for nationalist interests.

The former chief prosecutor of United Nations war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda has called for an international arrest warrant to be issued for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned his people early Saturday that retreating Russian forces were creating “a complete disaster” outside the capital as they leave mines across “the whole territory,” even around homes and corpses.

Amid escalating super-power rivalries, Asian nations have to unite with like-minded countries to strengthen rule-based international order to prevent the repeat of invasions like Ukraine, said regional security and defence experts at an Asia News Network webinar.

US has warned India against warming up to Russia, ahead of a visit by Moscow's top diplomat to press New Delhi to resist Western pressure to condemn its invasion of Ukraine.

Heavy clashes between rival groups in Sudan’s Darfur have left some 45 people killed, officials said, as tribal leaders reported that fighting persisted in the latest ethnic violence.

A 12-year-old boy was shot and killed as he sat in a parked car Thursday night in New York City, police said, shining a light on surging gun violence in the US megacity.

Russia’s foreign minister yesterday praised India’s independent foreign policy stance on Ukraine, as he held talks with his Indian counterpart, a day after US deputy NSA warned New Delhi against trusting Moscow amid an ongoing border row with China.

Scientists on Thursday published the first complete human genome, filling in gaps remaining after previous efforts while offering new promise in the search for clues regarding disease-causing mutations and genetic variation among the world’s 7.9 billion people.

Ukrainian attack helicopters executed a low-flying pre-dawn raid on Russian territory yesterday, a Russian official said, eluding air defenses to strike a fuel depot and signalling Kyiv’s ability to broaden the field of the war.