Most business owners have shut up shop and fled Ukraine’s Mikolaiv, but florist Angela Kalisnik continues to sell tulips and roses just a short drive away from the frontline.

Voting was underway in Turkmenistan yesterday for a tightly-controlled leadership election that is all but certain to yield ex-Soviet Central Asia’s first father-son succession.

France, Britain and Germany yesterday warned Russia that its demands to have its trade guaranteed with Iran risked the collapse of an almost-completed nuclear deal.

Forty-seven children were “killed or maimed” in Yemen’s civil war in January and February following a surge in violence, the United Nations children’s fund said yesterday.

Saudi Arabia yesterday confirmed a 10-year travel ban for freed blogger and human rights activist Raif Badawi, who has become a symbol of freedom of expression around the world.

US President Joe Biden has vowed that Russia would pay a “severe price” if it used chemical weapons in Ukraine, while also pledging to avoid provoking Moscow into “World War III.”

The United States and Nato are shipping weapons into Ukraine at break-neck speed, including highly sensitive items such as shoulder-fired missiles called Man-Portable Air-Defense Systems (MANPADS) that can take down aircraft.

Scientists have reversed signs of ageing in middle-aged and elderly mice by partially resetting the rodents’ tissues to more youthful states, an advance they say may lead to better anti-ageing methods without side effects like brittle bones, weaker muscles or cancer.

U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday authorized $200 million in weapons and other assistance for Ukraine, the White House said, as Ukrainian officials said heavy shelling by Russian forces were endangering attempted evacuations.

Ukraine was ready to negotiate to end the war started by Russia more than two weeks ago, but would not surrender or accept any ultimatums, the country's foreign affairs minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Saturday.

Saudi Arabia on Saturday executed 81 people convicted of crimes ranging from killings to belonging to militant groups, the largest known mass execution carried out in the kingdom in its modern history.

As Russian and Ukrainian websites fall victim to cyber attacks and Moscow restricts access to some foreign social media, internet users across both countries have turned to online tools to help circumvent the blocks.

Russian forces pounding the port city of Mariupol shelled a mosque sheltering more than 80 people, including children, the Ukrainian government said Saturday as fighting also raged on the outskirts of the capital, Kyiv.

Saudi Arabia has confirmed the formation of a nuclear energy holding company that will aid in the development of nuclear facilities in the kingdom, the Saudi Gazette reports quoting Saudi Arabia's governor to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Prince Abdullah Bin Khalid (IAEA).

Western sanctions against Russia could cause the International Space Station to crash, the head of Russian space agency Roscosmos warned Saturday, calling for the punitive measures to be lifted.

For the first time ever, the name of Whitechapel, an important tube station of London, has been displayed in Bangla.

Fighting raged northwest of Kyiv on Saturday, with the bulk of Russian ground forces 25 km (16 miles) from the centre of the Ukrainian capital, while several other cities were encircled and under heavy shelling, the UK Defence Ministry said.

The United Nations on Friday said it had no evidence Ukraine had a biological weapons program while Washington and its allies accused Russia of spreading the unproven claim as a possible prelude to launching its own biological or chemical attacks.

US President Joe Biden on Friday vowed that Russia would pay a "severe price" if it used chemical weapons in Ukraine, while also pledging to avoid provoking Moscow into "World War III."

More than 18 million people - three times higher than official records suggest - have probably died because of Covid, say researchers.