The death toll from a fire that tore through a coronavirus hospital in southern Iraq rose to 92, health officials said yesterday, as authorities faced accusations of negligence from grieving relatives and a doctor who works there. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned yesterday against overcrowding at tourist sites after the Indian Medical Association (IMA) warned that the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic is “inevitable” and “imminent” and alerted the state governments against allowing potential “super-spreader” events. 

Havana on Monday blamed a US “policy of economic suffocation” for unprecedented protests against Cuba’s communist government, as Washington pointed the finger at “decades of repression” in the one-party state. 

Crowds clashed with police and ransacked or set ablaze shopping malls in cities across South Africa yesterday, with dozens of people reported killed, as grievances unleashed by the jailing of ex-president Jacob Zuma boiled over into the worst violence in years. 

Australian scientists said they have developed the “holy grail” of blood sugar testing for diabetics, a non-invasive strip that checks glucose levels via saliva.

Russia’s meteorological service said yesterday the country could see its hottest summer on record, driven by climate change, after a record-breaking heatwave in June.

The US Food and Drug Administration updated its warning labels Monday for the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine to include information about an observed “increased risk” of a rare neurological disorder called Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS). 

France’s antitrust watchdog yesterday slapped a 500 million euro ($593 million) fine on Alphabet’s Google for failing to comply fully with temporary orders it had given in a row with the country’s news publishers.

Wildfires were burning across more than one million acres of the western United States and Canada on Monday, as scorching temperatures held their grip on areas reeling from a brutal weekend heat wave.

A record number of French people sought to book appointments for Covid-19 vaccinations on Monday night after President Emmanuel Macron announced a slew of measures designed to push sceptics to get themselves jabbed.

Schools remain shut in 19 countries due to the pandemic, affecting 156 million children in what risks being “a generational catastrophe,” the heads of two UN agencies warned Monday. 

We will look back in anger, and we will look back in shame.

The Taliban do not want to battle government forces inside Afghanistan’s cities and would rather see them surrender, a senior insurgent leader said Tuesday, as the militants also warned Turkey against extending its troop presence. 

1789 – Storming of the Bastille in Paris. This event escalates the widespread discontent into the French Revolution.

Commuters soared over one of the world’s biggest and most traffic-clogged cities as a new cable car system went into operation in the Mexican capital on Monday. 

The death toll from a fire that tore through a coronavirus hospital in southern Iraq rose to 92, health officials said on Tuesday, as authorities faced accusations of negligence from grieving relatives and a doctor who works there.

The bodies of 10 people were found on Monday evening after a stampede at a Soweto shopping mall as looting continued in Gauteng province, premier David Makhura said on Tuesday. 

At least 44 people were killed and over 67 injured in a fire likely caused by an oxygen tank explosion at a coronavirus hospital in Iraq's southern city of Nassiriya, health officials and police said on Monday.

One of the Haitian-American men arrested on suspicion of taking part in the assassination of Haiti's president last week had been an informant to the US Drug Enforcement Administration, a DEA official said on Monday.

A crane attached to a high-rise under construction in Kelowna, British Columbia, collapsed on Monday causing multiple fatalities, police said.