International

A magnitude 6.8 earthquake rocked the northern foothills of the Himalayas near one of Tibet's holiest cities on Tuesday, Chinese authorities said, killing at least 53 people and shaking buildings in neighbouring Nepal, Bhutan and India.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un oversaw a successful test of a new intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile (IRBM), state media KCNA said, pledging to accelerate the country's nuclear and missile capabilities.

The US Congress formally certified Republican President-elect Donald Trump's election victory during a session presided over by Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost the November contest.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation as Liberal Party leader on Monday after nine years in office.

French President Emmanuel Macron called on Ukraine Monday to have "realistic" expectations on territory as its fight against the Russian invasion heads into a fourth year, saying he saw no "quick and easy solution" to the conflict.

Three Israelis were killed on Monday and several injured in a shooting attack on a car and bus near the settlement of Kedumim in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Israel's national ambulance service Magen David Adom (MDA) said.

Pope Francis on Monday named a Catholic cardinal who has criticized Donald Trump's political agenda as the new leader for the Catholic Church in Washington, D.C., days before Trump is set to be inaugurated as US president.

At least eight policemen and a driver were killed in a bomb blast set off by Maoist rebels in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, police said on Monday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) plans to expand its work in Syria significantly beyond an initial $100 million programme, the organisation's president said on Monday, citing pressing needs in the health, water and power sectors.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said on Monday that he found it worrying that billionaire Elon Musk was involving himself in the political issues of countries outside of the United States. 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that Washington wanted to see a ceasefire deal in Gaza concluded and the hostages brought out in the next two weeks.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is increasingly likely to announce he intends to step down, though he has not made a final decision, after nine years in office, according to a Reuters source.

A review of over 100 buildings in the UK has found that contractors who fitted cladding panels that didn't meet fire-safety standards when installed have largely escaped financial liability. The findings come seven years after the Grenfell Tower blaze in London.

A winter storm brought snow, ice and freezing temperatures to a broad swath of the U.S. on Sunday, with some 60 million people across more than a dozen states from Kansas to New Jersey under winter weather warnings and advisories.

Ukrainian forces have launched a major new attack in Russia's western Kursk region, Russian military bloggers reported on Sunday.

Thousands braved heavy snow in Seoul on Sunday to rally for and against arresting impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol, as South Korea's political crisis appeared headed toward another high-stakes confrontation.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani, appointed by the country's new rulers, arrived in Qatar on Sunday to meet senior Qatari officials.

Millions of Americans from the Plains to the East Coast faced the threat of blizzards, heavy snow, treacherous ice and freezing rain through Monday, the National Weather Service said on Saturday.

Israeli military strikes in the Gaza Strip have killed at least 70 people over the last day, Palestinian medics said on Saturday, as mediators launched a new ceasefire push to end the 15-month-old war.

Syria's Damascus airport will start operating international flights from January 7, Syrian Civil Aviation Authority chief Ashad Al Saliby told Syrian state news agency Sana on Saturday.

The administration of President Joe Biden has notified Congress of a proposed $8 billion arms sale to Israel, a US official said on Friday, with Washington maintaining support for its ally whose war in Gaza has killed tens of thousands.

Poland launched its presidency of the Council of the European Union on Friday mired in a diplomatic row with Hungary that underscored a deepening sense of political disunity across Europe just as it confronts a raft of major global challenges.

Israel carried out airstrikes on dozens of Hamas targets in Gaza over the past 24 hours, it said on Friday, pressing attacks that Palestinian health authorities said had killed more than 110 people in two days.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said on Friday it is deeply alarmed by the devastating impact of winter rains and freezing temperatures on displaced Palestinians in Gaza, adding to the unparalleled humanitarian catastrophe.

South Korean investigators called off their attempt to arrest impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol at his residence Friday over a failed martial law bid, citing safety concerns after a standoff with his security team. 

Officials on Thursday positively identified the person found dead inside the Cybertruck that exploded outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas as a US Army soldier from Colorado, while the FBI said it was not yet clear if the blast was an act of terrorism.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu authorised Israeli negotiators to continue talks in Doha on a hostage release, his office said Thursday, after Israel and Hamas traded blame for their slow progress.

Israel's military said on Thursday its special forces had raided an underground missile production site in Syria in September that it said was primed to produce hundreds of precision missiles for use against Israel by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

Authorities entered impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol's compound on Friday to execute an unprecedented arrest warrant, evading a crowd of protesters outside, but were confronted with presidential security forces.

Investigators in New Orleans were searching on Thursday for what motivated a US Army veteran flying an IS flag from his truck to plough into a crowd of New Year's revelers, killing 15 people and injuring 30 more before dying in a shootout with police.

An Israeli airstrike killed at least 10 Palestinians in a tent encampment sheltering displaced families in the southern Gaza strip early on Thursday, medics said.

Ten people were injured in a mass shooting in the New York City borough of Queens late on New Year's Day, the New York Police Department said in a news briefing early on Thursday.

South Korean police on Thursday raided the offices of Jeju Air and the operator of Muan International Airport as part of the probe into the fatal crash of a Boeing 737-800 plane that killed 179 people. 

A high-ranking Syrian delegation arrived in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday on the first foreign visit by the country's new rulers since they ousted president Bashar al-Assad last month, state media said.

Former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who had often taken an independent line against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right government allies, said on Wednesday he was resigning from parliament.

The population of Gaza has fallen 6 per cent since the war with Israel began nearly 15 months ago as about 100,000 Palestinians left the enclave while more than 55,000 are presumed dead, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS).

A man shot dead 12 people in a rampage in a small town in Montenegro before dying from self-inflicted injuries early on Thursday, authorities said, in one of the tiny Balkan nation's worst mass killings.

A Tesla Cybertruck exploded in flames outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas on Wednesday, killing the driver and injuring seven others, and the FBI was investigating whether the blast was an act of terrorism, officials said.

Chinese government hackers breached the US Treasury office that administers economic sanctions, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, identifying targets of a cyberattack Treasury disclosed earlier this week.

A US Army veteran flying an ISIS flag from his truck swerved around makeshift barriers and plowed into New Orleans' crowded French Quarter on New Year's Day, killing 15 people in an attack officials said may have been carried out with the help of others.

Seven migrants were rescued, but at least 20 are missing after their boat sank en route to Italy from Libya, the mayor of the Italian island of Lampedusa said on Wednesday.

Israeli air strikes on al-Bureij refugee camp and Jabalia town in central and northern Gaza killed at least 17 Palestinians on Wednesday, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.

Senior aides to South Korea's impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol offered to resign en masse on Wednesday, a day after his office expressed regret over acting President Choi Sang-mok's approval of two new judges to a court set to decide Yoon's fate.

Russia launched a New Year's Day drone strike on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early on Wednesday, killing two people, wounding at least six others and damaging buildings in two districts, authorities said. Explosions boomed across the morning sky as Ukraine's air force warned of incoming drones and Mayor Vitali Klitschko said air defences were repelling an enemy attack. Two floors of a residential building in central Kyiv were partially destroyed in the strike, according to the State Emergency Service. Two people were killed, it said. Photos posted by the agency showed firefighters dous

The United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions on entities in Iran and Russia, accusing them of attempting to interfere in the 2024 US election.

A UN Human Rights Office report on Tuesday condemned Israeli attacks on hospitals in Gaza, saying they had devastated the Palestinian enclave's health system and raised serious concerns about Israel's compliance with international law.

Puerto Rico woke up in darkness on Tuesday morning after a power grid failure left nearly all of the island without electricity.

Iran's security chief Ali Akbar Ahmadian said a new group would emerge in Syria to fight Israel following the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, state media reported.

Israel's ambassador to the United Nations issued on Monday what he called a final warning to Yemen's Houthi to halt their missile attacks on Israel, saying they risked the same "miserable fate" as Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria's Bashar al-Assad if they persisted.

A South Korean court on Tuesday approved an arrest warrant for President Yoon Suk Yeol, who has been impeached and suspended from power over his decision to impose martial law on December 3, investigating authorities said.

Ukraine and Russia carried out a new exchange of prisoners of war on Monday, with Kyiv bringing home 189 former captives, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday.

Police in Kenya's capital Nairobi fired teargas to try to disperse protesters demonstrating on Monday against what they say is a wave of unexplained abductions of government critics as well as detaining some of those taking part.

Iran confirmed the arrest of Italian journalist Cecilia Sala for "violating the laws of the Islamic Republic", Iran's official IRNA news agency reported on Monday.

Syria hopes for "strategic partnerships" with Ukraine, its new foreign minister told his Ukrainian counterpart on Monday, as Kyiv moves to build ties with the new Islamist rulers in Damascus amid waning Russian influence.

Holding elections in Syria could take up to four years, Syria's de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa said in remarks broadcast on Sunday, the first time he has commented on a possible electoral timetable since Bashar al-Assad was ousted this month.

A Jeju Air flight from Seoul on Monday was forced to return after encountering a landing gear problem, the airline said, a day after South Korea's most deadly plane crash.

South Korea's acting President Choi Sang-mok on Monday ordered an emergency safety inspection of the country's entire airline operation system as investigators worked to identify victims and find what caused the country's deadliest air disaster.

At least 71 people have died in Ethiopia when a truck packed with passengers plunged into a river, according to the spokesperson for the southern Sidama regional government and a statement.

The number of refugees worldwide has exceeded 122 million in 2024, surpassing last year’s figures, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Jimmy Carter, the Georgia peanut farmer who as US president struggled with a bad economy and the Iran hostage crisis but brokered peace between Israel and Egypt and later received the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work, died at his home in Plains, Georgia, on Sunday, the Carter Center said. He was 100.

South Korea's joint investigation unit has requested an arrest warrant for suspended President Yoon Suk Yeol over his short-lived imposition of martial law earlier this month, an official said on Monday.

At least 179 people were killed when a Jeju Air plane belly-landed and veered off the runway, erupting in a fireball as it slammed into a wall at South Korea's Muan International Airport on Sunday, the national fire agency said.

Israeli forces carrying out a weeks-long offensive in northern Gaza ordered any residents remaining in Beit Hanoun to quit the town on Sunday, pointing to Palestinian rocket fire from the area, residents said.

Russia will scrap a moratorium on the deployment of intermediate and shorter range nuclear-capable missiles because the United States has deployed such weapons in various regions around the world, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Sunday.

Mikheil Kavelashvili, a hardline critic of the West, was sworn in as president of Georgia on Sunday amid a political crisis after the government froze European Union application talks in a move that sparked major protests.

Massive waves of up to four metres are pummeling the coasts of Ecuador and Peru, leaving scores of ports closed and at least one person dead on Saturday, authorities said.

Severe weather disrupted holiday travel on Saturday across the United States with deadly tornadoes in the southeast and heavy snow and wind on the west coast, delaying or cancelling thousands of flights across the country.

Russia's Vladimir Putin on Saturday apologised to Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, for a "tragic incident" which happened in Russian airspace involving an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane that crashed on Wednesday.

Afghan Taliban forces targeted "several points" in neighbouring Pakistan, Afghanistan's defence ministry said on Saturday, days after Pakistani aircraft carried out aerial bombardment inside Afghanistan.

Gaza health officials said on Saturday that Israeli forces detained the director of a hospital in the north, which the World Health Organization said was put out of service by an Israeli raid. 

Turkey has decided to allow parliament's pro-Kurdish DEM Party to hold face-to-face talks with PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan on his island prison, the party said on Friday, setting up the first such visit in nearly a decade.

Huge crowds demonstrated in Yemen's capital on Friday, a day after Israeli jets pounded Houthi rebel targets in response to missile and drone attacks by the Iran-backed group.

Israeli forces raided the Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of only three medical facilities on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, on Friday, ordering dozens of patients and hundreds of others to evacuate the compound, officials said.

The UN worker hurt in an Israeli air strike on Yemen's main international airport on Thursday suffered serious injuries and has been evacuated to Jordan for further treatment, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

NASA’s Parker solar probe is safe and operating normally after successfully completing the closest-ever approach to the sun by any human-made object, the space agency has said.

At least 69 people died after a boat headed from West Africa to the Canary Islands capsized off Morocco on December 19, Malian authorities said, as data showed deaths of migrants attempting to reach Spain surged to an all-time high in 2024.

 A majority of South Korea's parliament voted on Friday to impeach acting president Han Duck-soo.

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Friday dissolved Germany's lower house of parliament to pave the way for snap elections on February 23 following the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's three-way coalition.

Israel struck multiple targets linked to the Houthi movement in Yemen on Thursday, including Sanaa International Airport, while the chief of the World Health Organisation (WHO) was boarding a plane.

The Arab League has condemned Israeli far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s incursion into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Thursday alongside a group of settlers. 

Syria's new authorities on Thursday launched a security crackdown in a coastal region where 14 policemen were killed a day before, vowing to pursue "remnants" of the ousted Bashar al-Assad government accused of the attack, state media reported. 

The United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) called on Thursday for a timely Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon, citing what it called Israeli violations of a November 27 ceasefire agreement with Iran-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

Described as a "reluctant king" in his first stint as prime minister, the soft-spoken Manmohan Singh, who died on Thursday at the age of 92, was arguably one of India's most successful leaders.

The Azerbaijan Airlines flight that crashed in Kazakhstan on Wednesday was downed by a Russian air defence system, four sources in Azerbaijan with knowledge of the investigation told Reuters.

Survivors and families of victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami 20 years ago visited mass graves, lit candles and comforted one another across Southeast and South Asia in ceremonies on Thursday to mark the disaster that killed some 230,000 people.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Thursday that it had foiled several plots by Ukrainian intelligence services to kill high-ranking Russian officers and their families in Moscow using bombs disguised as power banks or document folders.

Five Palestinian journalists were killed when their marked media van was struck by an Israeli airstrike in central Gaza's Nuseirat on early Thursday, the enclave's health authorities said. 

The Palestinian group Hamas and Israel traded blame on Wednesday over failure to conclude a ceasefire agreement despite progress reported by both sides in past days.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Kurdish armed groups in Syria will either lay down their weapons or "be buried", amid hostilities between Turkey-backed Syrian fighters and the group members since the fall of Bashar al-Assad this month.

Lebanon's state media said an Israeli air strike targeted the Baalbek region in the east of the country before dawn on Wednesday, branding it a "violation" of the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

Bombardment by the Pakistani army in Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province on Tuesday killed at least 46 people, most of whom were children and women, said the Afghan Taliban, vowing to retaliate against their neighbour.

A passenger jet flying from Azerbaijan to Russia crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, killing 38 people while 29 survivors received hospital treatment, Kazakh authorities said.

Russia attacked Ukraine's energy system and cities in its eastern region with cruise and ballistic missiles on Wednesday morning, Ukraine's energy minister and local officials said.

Israeli troops forced the evacuation of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza and many patients, some of them on foot, arrived at another hospital miles away in Gaza City, the territory's health ministry said on Tuesday.

The United Nations has raised urgent concerns over the deteriorating food security situation in Sudan, where ongoing conflict has led to widespread hunger and famine conditions.

Syria's de facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa reached an agreement on Tuesday with former rebel faction chiefs to dissolve all groups and consolidate them under the defence ministry, according to a statement from the new administration.

Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets in Christian areas of Damascus on Tuesday to protest the burning of a Christmas tree near Hama in central Syria, AFP journalists witnessed.

An engine room explosion sank a Russian cargo ship called 'Ursa Major' in the Mediterranean Sea between Spain and Algeria and two of its crew are missing, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

A powerful blast on Tuesday ripped through an explosives plant in northwest Turkey killing 12 people and injuring three others, the local governor said.

A SWISS Airbus flying from Bucharest to Zurich made an emergency landing in Graz, Austria, on Monday due to engine failure and smoke in the cabin and cockpit.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz admitted on Monday for the first time publicly to Israel's killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran in July, further risking tensions between Tehran and its arch-enemy Israel in a region shaken by Israel's war in Gaza and the conflict in Lebanon.

South Korea's main opposition party plans to "immediately" take steps to impeach acting president Han Duck-soo, the party's floor leader said on Tuesday.

France unveiled a new government on Monday composed of former ministers and senior civil servants that Prime Minister Francois Bayrou will hope can oversee the passage of a 2025 budget and prevent a deepening of the country's crisis.

The Sudanese government has suspended its participation in the global hunger-monitoring system on the eve of a report that’s expected to show famine spreading across the country, a step likely to undercut efforts to address one of the world’s largest hunger crises.

Major General Aroldo Lázaro Sáenz, Head of Mission and Force Commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), has underscored the urgency of accelerating the Israeli army’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon and advancing the deployment of the Lebanese army in the area.

Luigi Mangione, the man accused of fatally gunning down health insurance executive Brian Thompson on a Manhattan street, pleaded not guilty on Monday to New York state murder charges that brand him a terrorist.

Bangladesh has told neighbour India that it wants former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who fled to New Delhi in August, back in the country for "judicial process", the acting head of the country's foreign ministry said on Monday.

Jordan stands ready to help Syria rebuild, its foreign minister said after meeting Syria's new de facto ruler Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus on Monday, the highest-level contact by an Arab state with Syria's new administration.

Israel ordered the closure and evacuation on Sunday of one of the last hospitals still partly functioning in a besieged area on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip, forcing medics to search for a way to bring hundreds of patients and staff to safety.

A Russian delegation arrived in Tehran for a visit that includes a meeting with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Russian state news agency TASS reported on Monday, as the two countries prepare to sign a comprehensive cooperation agreement. 

President-elect Donald Trump threatened to reassert US control over the Panama Canal on Sunday, accusing Panama of charging excessive rates to use the Central American passage and drawing a sharp rebuke from Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino.

Two weeks after seizing power in a sweeping offensive, Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa said weapons in the country, including those held by Kurdish-led forces, would come under state control.

Police arrested a man who reportedly set a woman on fire while she appeared to be asleep on a New York City subway train on Sunday morning, killing her.

A bridge connecting two states in Brazil's northern and northeastern regions collapsed on Sunday as vehicles were crossing, killing at least one person and spilling sulfuric acid into the Tocantins River.

Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 17 Palestinians, eight of them at a school sheltering displaced families in Gaza City, medics said, as the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of a hospital in the north.

A man suspected of driving a car into a German Christmas market in an attack that killed at least five people and injured scores of others faces charges of murder and attempted murder, police said on Sunday, after the man was remanded in custody.

Four people were killed in southwest Turkey on Sunday when an ambulance helicopter collided with a hospital building and crashed into the ground.

Mozambique's death toll from Cyclone Chido has risen to 94, the country's disaster management agency said on Sunday.

The US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said five of its fighters had been killed on Saturday in attacks by Turkish-backed forces on the city of Manbij in northern Syria.

The US military said it conducted precision airstrikes on Saturday against a missile storage facility and a command-and-control facility operated by Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen's capital, Sanaa.

Syria's new rulers have appointed a foreign minister, the official Syrian news agency (SANA) said on Saturday, as they seek to build international relations two weeks after Bashar al-Assad was ousted.

Russia's Kazan airport has temporarily halted flight arrivals and departures, Russia's aviation watchdog Rosaviatsia said via the Telegram messaging app on Saturday, following a Ukrainian drone attack on the city.

A driver rammed a car into a large crowd of revellers at a Christmas market in central Germany on Friday evening, killing at least two people and injuring more than 60 before he was arrested, authorities said.

António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, condemned the killing of three World Food Programme (WFP) staff members in Sudan on 19th December, when the agency’s field office in Yabus, in Blue Nile State, was hit by aerial bombardment.

Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), described Sweden's decision to stop funding the agency in 2025 as disappointing, stating that it comes at the worst time for Palestinian refugees.

Louise Wateridge, Emergency Officer for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in Gaza, stated on Friday that more than two million people remain trapped in dire conditions in Gaza, deprived of their basic needs.

US diplomats visiting Damascus were expected on Friday to hold Washington's first in-person official meetings with Syria's new de facto rulers led by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), hoping to gauge what plans the former Al Qaeda affiliate has for the country.

A seven-year-old child was killed by a knife-wielding assailant who attacked a teacher and pupils at a Zagreb primary school on Friday.

The United Nations General Assembly voted on Thursday to ask the International Court of Justice for an opinion on Israel's obligations to facilitate aid to Palestinians that is delivered by states and international groups including the U.N.

A court in France found Dominique Pelicot guilty on Thursday of repeatedly drugging and raping his wife for almost a decade, and inviting dozens of strangers to rape her unconscious body in a case that has horrified the world.

Human Rights Watch said on Thursday that Israel has killed thousands of Palestinians in Gaza by denying them clean water which it says legally amounts to acts of genocide and extermination.

The U.S. reported its first severe human case of bird flu on Wednesday in a Louisiana resident who is hospitalised in critical condition after suspected contact with an infected backyard flock.

Eleven people died in a fire in a cafe in Hanoi on Wednesday night and police have arrested a man suspected of starting the blaze, Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security said on Thursday.

Five French judges will deliver their verdicts on Thursday in a mass physical abuse case against 51 men that has appalled the world and transformed the victim, Gisele Pelicot, into a stirring symbol of courage and resilience.

Emergency services in Italy have rescued a cave explorer after she was injured and trapped underground for more than three days following a fall, bringing relief to Italians who have been following her fate.

Russia said on Wednesday it had detained a citizen of Uzbekistan who had confessed to planting a bomb which killed Lieutenant General Igor Kirillovin Moscow a day earlier on the instructions of Ukraine's security service.

A ceasefire between Turkey and the US-backed Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) around the northern Syrian city of Manbij has been extended until the end of this week, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Tuesday.

Moscow has intensified its attacks on Ukrainian forces battling to hold an enclave in Russia's Kursk region and increased pressure in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, Ukraine's top army commander said on Tuesday. 

Ukraine's SBU intelligence service on Tuesday claimed the bomb attack that killed a top Russian general in Moscow, who they accused of using chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops.

Rescuers in Vanuatu searched on Wednesday for people trapped under rubble a day after a 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck the Pacific nation's capital Port Vila, killing 14 people and damaging commercial buildings, embassies and a hospital.

South Korean investigators probing President Yoon Suk Yeol's short-lived martial law declaration failed to gain entry to his office to seek evidence on Tuesday after presidential office security staff denied them entry, Yonhap news agency reported.

Sir Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin Group, will be boarding Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity and blasting off to space on Sunday.

Singapore is reviewing penalties for violent offences following an outcry over a 12-day prison sentence for a student who strangled his girlfriend until she blacked out.