China is pleased to see Russia and the United States maintaining contact and improving ties to advance a political resolution of the Ukraine crisis, President Xi Jinping said in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.

Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, one of the world’s biggest by circulation, is suing US-based AI firm Perplexity for allegedly “free-riding” on its content on its search engine.

World food commodity prices rose in July to their highest in over two years, as a jump for vegetable oils and record levels for meat outweighed falling cereal, dairy and sugar prices, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization said.

Israel’s military will “take control” of Gaza City under a new plan approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet, touching off a wave of criticism yesterday from both inside and outside the country.

A rare first edition of JRR Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” sold for 43,000 pounds ($57,000) at auction on Wednesday, after it was found during a house clearance in southwest England.

An Israeli strike killed one person in southern Lebanon yesterday, the Lebanese health ministry said, in the latest attack despite a November ceasefire.

A train derailed in the southern Iranian province of Kerman yesterday, injuring more than two dozen people though no deaths were reported, according to local media.

Britain’s minister for homelessness Rushanara Ali resigned late on Thursday after claims that she evicted tenants from a property she owns and then increased the rent by hundreds of pounds.

The first time Germany acknowledged denying military support to its long-time ally

With a Friday deadline for Russia to agree to peace in Ukraine or have its oil customers face secondary tariffs, Trump has found a novel, but risky, use for his favorite trade tool.

Netanyahu said Israel intended to take military control of the entire strip despite intensifying criticism at home and abroad over the devastating almost two-year-old war.

Trading partners have largely refrained from retaliatory tariffs, sparing the global economy from a more painful tit-for-tat trade war.

A remote Pacific nation selling passports to fund climate action has approved just six applicants since early this year, but officials yesterday said that interest in joining the low-lying, largely barren island is increasing.

The population of Japanese nationals fell by a record amount -- more than 900,000 people -- in 2024, official data showed, as the country battles to reverse its perennially low birth rates.

The third-hottest July worldwide ended a string of record-breaking temperatures, but many regions were devastated by extreme weather amplified by global warming, the European climate monitoring service said Thursday.

Indian authorities in Kashmir have banned 25 books, including a work by Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy, saying the titles “excite secessionism” in the contested Muslim-majority region.

The Kremlin yesterday said that a summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Ukraine was set for the “coming days” as US-led efforts to broker peace rumble on.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday said Israel intends to take military control of all of Gaza, despite intensifying criticism at home and abroad over the devastating almost two-year-old war in the Palestinian enclave.

Indian exporters warned that additional US tariffs risked making businesses “not viable” after President Donald Trump ordered steeper levies on Indian goods over New Delhi’s purchasing of Russian oil.

The annual human rights report produced by the United States will scale back criticism of El Salvador, Israel and Russia, a report said Wednesday, as officials hinted it would focus instead on what they call dwindling freedom of expression in Europe.