Russia will face severe economic sanctions if it installs a puppet regime in Ukraine, a senior UK minister said on Sunday after Britain accused the Kremlin of seeking to install a pro-Russian leader there.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi now ranks as the “most popular global leader” with an approval rating of 71 percent, according to a survey by the Morning Consult Political Intelligence, a US consultancy firm.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden has cancelled her wedding as the nation imposes new restrictions to slow the community spread of the COVID-19 Omicron variant, she told reporters on Sunday.

A Turkish court on Saturday ordered well-known journalist Sedef Kabas to be jailed pending trial on a charge of insulting President Tayyip Erdogan, CNN Turk said, targeting her with a law under which tens of thousands have been prosecuted.

Omicron is now the dominant Covid-19 variant circulating in the European Union and European Economic Area (EAA), the bloc’s health agency has said.  

A draft executive order written by Donald Trump’s White House in the weeks after his defeat in the 2020 election directed the nation’s top military leader to seize voting machines, a report said Friday.

The United States on Friday announced large-scale Nato naval exercises in the Mediterranean beginning tomorrow and with the participation of aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman, as tensions flare with Russia, which is to hold its own maritime maneuvers at the same time.

Fighting raged for a third day yesterday between the Islamic State group and Kurdish forces in Syria after IS attacked a prison housing jihadists, in violence that has claimed over 70 lives, a monitor said. 

The United States, the World Health Organization’s top donor, is resisting proposals to make the agency more independent, four officials involved in the talks said, raising doubts about the Biden administration’s long-term support for the UN agency. 

With tens of thousands of Russian troops positioned near Ukraine, the Kremlin has kept the US and its allies guessing about its next moves in the worst security crisis to emerge between Moscow and the West since the Cold War.

The death toll from a Saudi-led coalition airstrike that hit a prison run by Yemen’s Houthi rebels climbed to at least 82 detainees, the rebels and an aid group said Saturday.

The US government said on Friday it would suspend 44 China-bound flights from the United States by four Chinese carriers in response to the Chinese government's decision to suspend some US carrier flights over COVID-19 concerns.

The United States, the World Health Organization's top donor, is resisting proposals to make the agency more independent, four officials involved in the talks said, raising doubts about the Biden administration's long-term support for the U.N. agency.

Washington and Moscow’s top diplomats agreed at high-stakes talks on Friday to keep working to ease tensions over Ukraine, with the United States promising a written response to Russian security demands next week. 

Iran is in talks with Russia over the construction of two new units at its sole nuclear power plant, the Islamic republic’s atomic energy agency said yesterday.

As he starts his second term as UN secretary-general, Antonio Guterres said Thursday the world is worse in many ways than it was five years ago because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the climate crisis and geopolitical tensions that have sparked conflicts everywhere — but unlike US President Joe Biden he thinks Russia will not invade Ukraine.

The Islamic State group on Friday attacked a Syria prison housing fellow jihadists and a military base in Iraq in near simultaneous deadly operations that revived fears of a IS resurgence. 

The UN General Assembly on Thursday adopted a non-binding resolution calling on all member states to fight against Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism, especially on social media.

China and Russia on Thursday blocked a US push to impose United Nations sanctions on five North Koreans in response to recent missile launches by Pyongyang, diplomats told AFP.

US President Joe Biden’s public approval rating fell to the lowest level of his presidency this week as Americans appeared exhausted by the Covid-19 pandemic and its economic toll, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll.