Russia yesterday acknowledged Ukrainian forces had pierced deep into the Kursk border region in an offensive that a top official in Ukraine said was aimed to “destabilise” Russia and “stretch” its armed forces.

China supports Iran in defending its “sovereignty, security and national dignity”, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi told Iran’s acting foreign minister in a phone call yesterday, according to a statement by China’s foreign ministry.

"An end to the war in Gaza would be a decisive step towards a regional de-escalation," the spokesperson said.

The campaign of Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Saturday some of its internal communications were hacked and blamed the Iranian government, citing past hostilities between Trump and Iran without providing direct evidence

US Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned in a packed arena in Arizona on Friday, hoping to put Republican candidate Donald Trump on the back foot in the West, while Trump held his own rally in Montana to support a Republican candidate for Senate.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in a phone call on Friday that the escalation of tensions in the Middle East was “in no party’s interest” while also stressing the need for a Gaza ceasefire, the State Department said.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro gave a scathing response to an offer on Friday from his Panamanian counterpart, Jose Raul Mulino, to facilitate his departure to a third country to allow for a political transition.

Deadly Israeli strike on Gaza school

A drone attack on Rohingyas fleeing Myanmar killed many dozens of people, including families with children, several witnesses said, describing survivors wandering between piles of bodies to identify dead and injured relatives.

Rescuers in Gaza said an Israeli air strike on a religious school housing displaced Palestinians killed 93 people yesterday, sparking international condemnation despite Israel’s insistence that it was targeting militants.

Seven people were killed Friday when the small plane they were traveling in crashed in southern Chile, the country’s civil aviation authority said.

Iran is set to carry out an order by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to “harshly punish” Israel over the assassination of a Hamas leader in Tehran, a Revolutionary Guards deputy commander was quoted as saying on Friday by local news agencies.

India’s foreign minister has called the Maldives a “priority” for New Delhi on his first trip to the archipelago nation since its pro-China president expelled Indian troops.

Russia was fighting intense battles yesterday against thousands of Ukrainian troops as deep as 20 km (12 miles) inside the Kursk region after Ukraine’s biggest attack on Russian sovereign territory since the start of the war in 2022.

The Biden administration has decided to lift a ban on US sales of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia, the State Department said on Friday, reversing a three-year-old policy to pressure the kingdom to wind down the Yemen war

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has congratulated Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus for taking charge of the interim government in Bangladesh

More than 100 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli strike on a Gaza school sheltering displaced people, the official Palestinian news agency said on Saturday, while the Israeli army said it had hit a Hamas command centre

A plane with 62 people on board crashed in Vinhedo, Brazil, on Friday, local TV station GloboNews reported

Bombardment by pro-Iranian groups supporting the Syrian government killed 13 civilians in an eastern village under the control of Kurdish-led forces, a war monitor said yesterday.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro suspended access to the social media site X on Thursday, as he faced renewed pressure from a trio of friendly Latin American nations to release data proving his claimed reelection was valid.