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.

At least 115,000 health and care workers have died from Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, the WHO chief said yesterday, calling for a dramatic scale-up of vaccination in all countries.

Iran has informed the UN nuclear watchdog that it has decided to extend a monitoring deal with the agency for a month, Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency said yesterday, according to the Etemad website.

Indian authorities yesterday ordered the evacuation of nearly half a million people out of the path of a new cyclone heading towards eastern India just one week after another deadly storm smashed into the west coast.

India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) yesterday filed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) before the Supreme Court challenging the Calcutta High Court’s order allowing Narada case accused and senior leaders of TMC to be kept under house-arrest.

Belarus’ forced diversion of a plane and arrest of a journalist who was on board has widened a rift between Western powers and Minsk, prompting calls for further sanctions and an international probe over the incident.

Belarusian authorities scrambled a fighter jet and flagged what turned out to be a false bomb alert to force a Ryanair plane to land on Sunday and then detained an opposition-minded journalist who was on board, drawing criticism from across Europe.

More than 125,000 school teachers in Myanmar have been suspended by the military authorities for joining a civil disobedience movement to oppose the coup in February, an official of the Myanmar Teachers’ Federation said.

When an Israeli air strike targeted a security office near her home in Gaza this month, 10-year-old Zeina Dabous frantically scribbled a note and slipped it under her mother’s pillow.

The UN Security Council has called for “full adherence to the ceasefire” in the conflict between Israel and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in its first statement since violence erupted on May 10.

Two pictures purportedly showing Dubai’s Sheikha Latifa were published on an unverified Instagram account this week, months after the United

President Jair Bolsonaro must pay a fine for failing to adhere to state health safety regulations at a public event, the governor of Maranhao state

Twenty-one people were killed when extremely cold weather struck during an ultramarathon in rugged Gansu province in northwestern China,

Martin Bashir, the BBC journalist who tricked princess Diana into giving an explosive interview, yesterday apologised to Princes William and Harry, but said claims linking his actions to her death were “unreasonable”.

At least 14 people died and a child was seriously injured on Sunday when a cable car linking Italy's Lake Maggiore with a nearby mountain plunged 20 metres to the ground, local officials and rescuers said.

A Western Sahara independence leader at the centre of a diplomatic dispute between Rabat and Madrid must answer legal charges in Spain before leaving the country, Spain said on Sunday.

An Egyptian court today rejected a complaint by the Japanese owner of a container ship that blocked traffic in the Suez Canal for six days in March against the vessel's continued detention by canal authorities, a lawyer said.

President Joe Biden acknowledged Friday there is no easy path to getting North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons but reaffirmed his “iron-clad” commitment to the US alliance with South Korea after talks with President Moon Jae-in.

US President Joe Biden on Friday said he would not allow his Justice Department to seize the phone or email records of reporters, saying any such move would be “simply wrong.”

Myanmar’s junta chief has said deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi is in good health and will appear in court within days during the general’s first television interview since the coup.