WhatsApp has filed a lawsuit in Delhi against the Indian government seeking to block regulations coming into force yesterday that experts say would compel Facebook’s messaging app to break privacy protections, sources said.

The European Union is partly to blame for deaths of migrants taking boats across the Mediterranean due to unanswered distress calls, obstruction of humanitarian rescue efforts, and so-called “pushbacks” to Libya, the United Nations said yesterday.

A transit employee shot eight co-workers to death and was himself killed at a commuter rail yard in San Jose, California, on Wednesday, authorities said, in the latest burst of deadly mass gun violence to grip the United States.

The United States topped a list of the countries most frequently targeted by deceptive foreign influence operations using Facebook between 2017 and 2020, the social media company said in a new report released on Wednesday.

UN Headquarters will tomorrow observe the International Day of UN Peacekeepers, including honouring eight Bangladeshis who have lost their lives since 1948.

U.S. wrestling superstar and actor John Cena apologised to Chinese fans on Tuesday after calling Taiwan a country during an interview to promote his latest movie "Fast & Furious 9".

President Joe Biden and President Vladimir Putin will hold their first summit next month in Geneva, the White House said Tuesday, setting the stage for a new chapter in the fraught US-Russian relationship.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is mired in a funding shortage that is already hampering operations, its top emergency expert told health ministers yesterday as countries called for a more in-depth investigation of the pandemic origins.

Australia yesterday abruptly announced it will shutter its embassy in Afghanistan this week, expressing fears over the “increasingly uncertain security environment” in Kabul as foreign troops withdraw.

A powerful cyclone headed for eastern India yesterday, forcing the evacuation of nearly two million people just a week after another huge storm claimed at least 155 lives on the west coast.

Belarus’s regime was increasingly isolated yesterday as Europe cut air links and calls grew for more action over its diversion of an airliner and arrest of a dissident on board.

Expanding its diplomatic footprints in the strategic Indian Ocean nation the Maldives, India is all set to open a new Consulate in Addu city, which is the second largest urban area after capital Male, in a country where China is increasingly assertive.

Iran’s election watchdog has approved the candidacy of hardline judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi in presidential elections, state television reported on Tuesday, while disqualifying some of his main potential rivals.

Messaging app WhatsApp has blocked the accounts of dozens of Palestinian journalists following this month’s fighting between Israel and Gaza’s Islamist rulers Hamas, reporters said. Shortly after a ceasefire went into effect at 2:00am on Friday (2300 GMT Thursday) ending 11 days of deadly conflict, two journalists in AFP’s Gaza City bureau received notices from WhatsApp in Arabic informing them their accounts had been blocked.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday vowed to rebuild US relations with Palestinians by reopening a consulate in Jerusalem and giving millions in aid to help the war-ravaged Gaza Strip.

Russia said on Tuesday it had the ability for the first time to operate long-range strategic nuclear-capable bombers from its air base in Syria, expanding its capabilities and allowing such planes to train in new regions.

President Joe Biden will hold a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin next month in Geneva, a face-to-face meeting between the two leaders that comes amid escalating tensions between the U.S. and Russia in the first months of the Biden administration.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson issued a qualified apology for offence caused by his past remarks about Islam, speaking in a critical report into his Conservative Party which looked at discrimination including complaints of Islamophobia.

Iraq’s president said $150 billion from oil had been smuggled out of the country since Saddam Hussein was ousted in 2003, as he introduced a law to fight endemic corruption.

Afghan forces clashed with Taliban fighters in a provincial capital about 120 kilometres (75 miles) from Kabul, officials and witnesses said, prompting the defence minister to take charge of a counteroffensive.