A huge explosion rocked a Jordanian military munitions depot early yesterday sparking a large fire, but the army said there were no casualties at the base located in an uninhabited area.

US President Donald Trump boasted that he saved Saudi Arabia’s crown prince from greater scrutiny over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to an explosive new book.

Firefighters were battling unprecedented wildfires up and down the US West Coast yesterday that killed 15 people and forced more than half a million others to flee their homes, with officials warning of more deaths to come in the days ahead.

The global climate crisis could see more than a billion people displaced from their homes in the next 30 years, as ecological disasters drive mass migrations and greater armed conflict, according to a new report released Wednesday.

When hundreds of Rohingya refugees paid traffickers to escape their squalid camp in Bangladesh, they were promised a new life in Malaysia after just one week at sea.

The European Union stepped up planning for a “no-deal” Brexit yesterday after Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government refused to revoke a plan to break the divorce treaty that Brussels says will sink four years of talks.

Around half a million people in Oregon evacuated as dozens of extreme, wind-driven wildfires scorched US West Coast states on Friday, destroying hundreds of homes and killing at least 16 people, state and local authorities said.

ByteDance, the Chinese owner of video-sharing app TikTok, is planning to make Singapore its beachhead for the rest of Asia as part of its global expansion, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Brazilian state of Bahia has signed an agreement to conduct Phase III clinical trials of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine against Covid-19 and plans to buy 50 million doses to market in Brazil, officials have said.

In a year when the coronavirus pandemic has reshaped countless American rituals, even the commemoration of 9/11 could not escape unchanged.

India’s defence minister yesterday hailed the formal commissioning of the country’s first new French Rafale jets as a “strong message” to its adversaries, amid an escalating border row with China.

President Donald Trump admits he tried to minimize the seriousness of the threat from Covid-19 at the outset of the pandemic in audio recordings released Wednesday from interviews with veteran US journalist Bob Woodward.

Global animal, bird and fish populations have plummeted more than two-thirds in less than 50 years due to rampant over-consumption, experts said yesterday in a stark warning to save nature in order to save ourselves.

The European Parliament yesterday removed Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi from the “Sakharov Prize community” because of her “acceptance” of state crimes against the Rohingya community.

China accused Washington of “political persecution and racial discrimination” yesterday, after the US confirmed it had revoked the visas of more than 1,000 Chinese students under an order by President Donald Trump that accused some of espionage.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for $35 billion more, including $15 billion in the next three months, for the World Health Organization’s (WHO) “ACT Accelerator” programme to back vaccines, treatments and diagnostics against COVID-19. Some $3 billion has been contributed so far, Guterres told an online event yesterday, calling it “seed funding” that was less than 10% of what the WHO wants for the programme, formally called Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator. Financial support has, so far, lagged goals, as nations or governments including the European Union, Britain, Japan and the United States reach bilateral deals for vaccines, prompting Guterres and WHO General Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to plead to nations to contribute.

The Iranian navy began a three-day exercise in the Sea of Oman near the strategic Strait of Hormuz yesterday, deploying an array of warships, drones and missiles.

Washington’s top diplomat yesterday urged Southeast Asia to cut ties with Chinese companies helping build islands in the South China Sea after China accused the US of becoming “the biggest driver of militarization” in the contested sea, as tensions between Washington and Beijing look set to swamp a regional Asian summit.

About 2,000 academics from top institutions in India and abroad have signed petitions demanding federal authorities stop targeting people critical of the government as part of a widening investigation into caste clashes two years ago.

British actress Diana Rigg, who came to fame in the cult 1960s TV show "The Avengers" and enjoyed a distinguished and varied career on stage and screen from James Bond to "Game of Thrones", died today aged 82.