International

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's coalition has swept to a historic election win on Sunday, paving the way for promised tax cuts that have spooked financial markets and military spending aimed at countering China.

Hong Kong's media tycoon Jimmy Lai has been sentenced to 20 years in jail on national security charges, including two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and one of publishing seditious materials.

Kyiv's foreign minister said on Sunday the Ukrainian and Russian leaders need to meet in person to hash out the hardest remaining issues in peace talks, and that only US President Donald Trump has the power to bring about an agreement.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's party is set to secure a big majority in Japan's lower house in an election on Sunday, public broadcaster NHK forecast, based on exit polls.

Voters in Thailand came out in numbers on Sunday for a general election defined by a three-way battle between conservative, progressive and populist camps, with no single party expected to secure a clear majority and prolonging the spectre of political instability.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has condemned anti-Olympics protesters as "enemies of Italy" after violence on the fringes of a demonstration in Milan on Saturday night and sabotage attacks on the national rail network.

Australia's conservative opposition coalition reunited on Sunday after the junior partner National Party severed ties last month with the Liberal Party over its decision to back government hate speech laws drafted in the wake of the Bondi massacre.

US President Donald Trump condemned but did not apologise for a video on his social media account that featured a racist clip about former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama.

Investigators searching through a sixth day for the elderly mother of US television journalist Savannah Guthrie are examining a newly surfaced message in the presumed kidnapping, the FBI and Pima County Sheriff's Department said on Friday.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday that a woman had died in northern Bangladesh in January after contracting the deadly Nipah virus infection.

At least 31 people were killed and 169 wounded in an explosion at a mosque in Pakistan's capital city of Islamabad.

Hong Kong media tycoon and democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai will be sentenced on February 9, the city's judiciary said on Friday, in a closely watched national security trial that has drawn international criticism.

Authorities in southern Spain have evacuated residential areas out of fear a major river could overflow, and warned of landslides caused by bursting aquifers on Friday after Storm Leonardo swept over the Iberian Peninsula.

Danone is withdrawing batches of infant formula in Austria, Germany and France, the company and an Austrian government food agency said, expanding an industry recall sparked by contamination with the toxin cereulide.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called the expiration of the New START Treaty a grave moment for international peace and urged Russia and US to negotiate a new nuclear arms control framework without delay.

Pakistan's military said on Thursday it had concluded a week-long operation against separatists in Balochistan who stormed more than a dozen locations, taking hostages, setting off explosives and waging gun battles with security forces.

One man died in Portugal after flood waters engulfed his car and in Spain, a girl was dragged away by a river after trying to rescue her dog, as Storm Leonardo lashed the Iberian peninsula with heavy rains and strong winds on Thursday.

Snow and freezing rain hit Berlin's airport on Thursday morning, causing airlines to delay or cancel multiple departing flights.

The Trump administration is withdrawing some 700 federal immigration enforcement agents from Minnesota, although about 2,000 agents will stay in place, White House border czar Tom Homan announced on Wednesday, a number the state's Democratic leaders say is still too high.

China's President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin both hailed their ties during a video call on Wednesday held in the run-up to the fourth anniversary of Moscow's war in Ukraine.

Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes killed 21 Palestinians including six children in Gaza on Wednesday, health officials said, the latest violence to undermine a truce in the enclave.

Nestle widened an infant formula recall to include a batch of Guigoz after France lowered the maximum threshold for the cereulide toxin, contradicting analyst expectations that no further withdrawals would be needed from the Swiss group.

The UN Secretary General António Guterres has warned prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians are increasingly fragile, urging urgent international action to prevent the collapse of a two-state solution.

Pakistan's security forces used drones and helicopters to wrest control of a southwestern town from separatist insurgents after a three-day battle, police said on Wednesday, as the death toll in the weekend's violence rose to 58.

The most prominent son of late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, has been killed, sources close to the family, his lawyer Khaled el-Zaydi and Libyan media said on Tuesday.

The Sudanese army said it broke a years-long siege on the city of Kadugli on Tuesday, potentially providing tens of thousands of people a reprieve from famine and signalling a shift in the war's momentum.

A World Health Organisation (WHO) official said on Tuesday that the first five patients were transferred through Gaza's Rafah crossing with Egypt, which reopened on Monday.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia on Tuesday of exploiting a US-backed energy truce to stockpile munitions and using them to attack Ukraine with hundreds of drones and a record number of ballistic missiles.

French police raided the offices of Elon Musk's social media network X on Tuesday and prosecutors ordered the tech billionaire to face questions in April in a widening investigation, amid growing scrutiny of the platform by authorities across Europe.

Spain will ban access to social media for minors under 16 and platforms will be required to implement age verification systems, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Tuesday as he announced several measures to guarantee a safe digital environment.

Former US President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, will testify in a congressional investigation into the late offender Jeffrey Epstein, a staffer said on Monday.

Air India has begun checking the fuel switches on its Boeing Dreamliner aircraft, after one of its pilots reported a possible defect with the mechanism on one of the long-haul jets, according to an internal memo reviewed by Reuters.

US President Donald Trump said late Monday that his administration is pursuing $1 billion in damages from Harvard University, rejecting a report that said the White House had dropped its demand for a $200 million payment to settle its dispute with the educational institution.

US President Donald Trump on Monday announced a trade deal with India that slashes US tariffs on Indian goods to 18 per cent from 50 per cent in exchange for India halting Russian oil purchases and lowering trade barriers.

The son of Norway's crown princess will stand trial on Tuesday on charges of domestic violence, serious assault and drug possession, among other crimes, one of several cases that have shaken the Norwegian monarchy.

Israel reopened the border between Gaza and Egypt on Monday for people on foot, a move that would allow Palestinians to leave the enclave and let back in those who want to return after fleeing Israel's war in the enclave.

US President Donald Trump's senior envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to visit Israel for meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel's military chief, two senior Israeli officials said on Monday.

At least 12 people were killed and seven wounded after a Russian drone struck a bus carrying miners in Ukraine's southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, energy firm DTEK and government officials said on Sunday.

Singapore will launch its own space agency on April 1 as it bids to "fully harness the value and opportunities of the growing global space economy", the country's trade ministry announced on Monday.

Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father have returned to their home in a Minneapolis suburb after being detained by US immigration officers and held at a detention facility in Texas, a lawmaker said on Sunday.

Gaza's main border crossing in Rafah will reopen for Palestinians on Monday, Israel said, with preparations underway at the war-ravaged enclave's main gateway that has been largely shut for almost two years.

Nearly 90 people have died in bitter cold affecting areas of the United States from Texas to New Jersey, according to media reports citing local authorities.

Pakistan's security forces killed 145 militants over 40 hours after coordinated attacks across Balochistan, the chief minister of the southwestern province said on Sunday, as the authorities battle one of the deadliest flare-ups in years.

Israel carried out its heaviest airstrikes in Gaza in weeks on Saturday, killing 26 people according to local health authorities, in attacks on a Hamas-run police station and on apartments and tents in an area sheltering displaced Palestinians.

The US government entered what is expected to be a brief shutdown on Saturday after Congress failed to approve a deal to keep a wide swath of operations funded ahead of a midnight deadline.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets in Minneapolis and students across the United States staged walkouts on Friday to demand the withdrawal of federal immigration agents from Minnesota following the fatal shootings of two US citizens.

France has lowered the safety limit for cereulide toxin in infant formula, aiming to strengthen protections after several major groups ordered worldwide recalls over contamination concerns, the farm ministry said on Saturday.

An ally of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has proposed a bill to ban social media for children, as the world's biggest market for Meta and YouTube joins a global debate on the impact of social media on young people's health and safety.

The death toll from a landslide a week ago in Indonesia's West Java province has risen to 49, the country's main rescue agency Basarnas said on Saturday, with 15 still missing.

The Syrian government and Kurdish forces declared a ceasefire deal on Friday that sets out a phased integration of Kurdish fighters into the state, averting a potentially bloody battle and drawing US praise for a 'historic milestone'.

US President Donald Trump said it was dangerous for Britain to be getting into business with Beijing, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer lauded the economic benefits of resetting relations with China during a visit there on Friday.

Israel has released 15 bodies of Palestinians killed during its war in Gaza, three days after recovering the remains of the last hostage, in moves mediators hope will pave the way to carrying out the next stage of US President Donald Trump's peace plan.

There is a low risk of the deadly Nipah virus spreading from India, the World Health Organisation said on Friday, adding that it did not recommend travel or trade curbs after two infections reported by the South Asian nation.

President Donald Trump has endorsed a spending deal negotiated by US Senate Republicans and Democrats on Thursday that would stave off a government shutdown while lawmakers continue negotiating guardrails to rein in immigration agents.

Police in Vietnam have launched a criminal investigation into a warehouse accused of producing fake coffee made from soybeans following a raid earlier this week, the Ministry of Public Security said on Thursday.

Israeli fire killed at least two Palestinians in Gaza on Thursday, health officials said, in the latest violence rattling a fragile ceasefire as Hamas and Israel looked to implement the second phase of the US-brokered Gaza peace plan.

US border czar Tom Homan, newly installed as commander of President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis, said on Thursday that federal agents would focus on 'targeted' operations, shifting away from the broad street sweeps that have drawn widespread outrage.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday that he wanted to build a "sophisticated relationship" with Beijing to boost growth and security, signalling a reset after years of strained ties.

Authorities in Pakistan have ordered enhanced screening of people entering the country for signs of infections of the deadly Nipah virus after India confirmed two cases, adding to the number of countries stepping up controls.

A plane crash in northeast Colombia on Wednesday has killed all 15 people on board, including a local lawmaker, state-run airline Satena said.

A South Korean court sentenced former first lady Kim Keon Hee to 20 months in jail on Wednesday for accepting Chanel bags and a diamond pendant from Unification Church officials in return for providing political favours.

Keir Starmer began the first visit to China by a British prime minister since 2018 on Wednesday, seeking to strengthen political and business ties with Beijing as relations between Western countries and the US become more volatile.

Deputy Chief Minister of the Indian state of Maharashtra, Ajit Pawar, has died in a plane crash on Wednesday while heading to the city of Baramati to attend public meetings ahead of local body elections next month. He was 66.

At least 38 people across 14 states had died as of Tuesday from a powerful winter storm that left much of the central and eastern US gripped by snow, ice, and below-freezing temperatures, according to local officials and news reports.

India is monitoring Nipah virus infections, with two reported from its eastern state of West Bengal since December, the health ministry said, as some Southeast Asia nations step up scrutiny of air travellers.

Search operations for the 32 people still missing after a landslide in Indonesia's West Java were hampered by rain on Wednesday morning, the country's disaster mitigation agency said, as it raised the death toll to 34.

Three French tourists were killed when a boat capsized off the coast of Oman, the Royal Oman Police said on Tuesday in a post on X.

The UN children’s agency said on Tuesday it had for the first time in two-and-a-half years been able to deliver school kits with learning materials into Gaza after they were previously blocked by Israeli authorities.

Search and rescue operations have continued on Tuesday for 10 people still missing after a passenger boat capsized off a southern Philippine province, with the death toll rising to 18, the Philippine Coast Guard said.

A major heatwave across Australia's southeast stoked bushfires, forced hundreds of residents in rural towns to evacuate and brought record-breaking temperatures, with Melbourne recording its hottest day in nearly 17 years.

Israel has recovered the remains of the last remaining hostage held in Gaza, the military said on Monday, fulfilling a key condition of the initial phase of US President Donald Trump's plan to end the war in the Palestinian territory.

A powerful winter storm that pummeled much of the United States with freezing rain and heavy snowfall forced airlines to cancel and delay thousands of flights on Monday.

Seven people were killed and one person was seriously injured on Sunday when a private jet crashed as it was taking off from an airport in Bangor, Maine.

A group of armed attackers have killed 11 people at a football field after a match in the Mexican city of Salamanca, the latest outburst of violence in Mexico's Guanajuato state, officials said late on Sunday.

Tens of millions of Americans hunkered down on Monday or ventured out to help neighbours under bitter cold, blizzards of snow and lashings of freezing rain from a huge winter storm that paralyzed the eastern United States.

French food and beverage maker Vitagermine has recalled specific batches of baby formula as a precautionary measure, it said on Sunday, as a toxin contamination scare continued to spread.

A fire broke out after an explosion at a biscuit factory near the central Greek city of Trikala on Monday, killing three people and leaving another two missing, the fire brigade said.

The death toll from a ferry boat accident in the Southern Philippines has reached at least 15, with 316 people rescued, the Philippine Coast Guard said on Monday as the search continued for the dozens still missing.

At least 104 people considered political prisoners by a leading Venezuelan rights group were released on Sunday as part of an ongoing release process, according to the leader of the group.

The death toll from a landslide that hit Indonesia's West Java province at the weekend rose to 17 on Monday, the country's disaster mitigation agency said, with dozens still missing.

US immigration agents shot and killed a US citizen in Minneapolis on Saturday, officials said, sparking fierce protests and condemnations from local leaders in the second such incident this month.

More than 400,000 customers in the US as far west as Texas were without power and more than 9,600 flights were expected to be cancelled on Sunday ahead of a monster winter storm that threatened to paralyse eastern states with heavy snowfall.

Around 1,700 apartment buildings in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv were still without heating following a Russian missile and drone attack earlier this week, Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said on Sunday.

Seven people have died and 82 are missing after a landslide hit in Indonesia's West Java province, Indonesia's disaster mitigation agency said on Saturday, amid reports of heavy rain in the area.

The death toll from a bombing at a wedding near the Afghan border rose to seven on Saturday, police said, as Pakistan struggles to deal with a rising wave of attacks.

An Australian boy has died in the hospital after being bitten by a shark in Sydney Harbour, his family said on Saturday after a series of shark attacks along the country's east coast.

Russia has attacked Ukraine's two largest cities Kyiv and Kharkiv early on Saturday, officials said, with one person killed and at least 15 injured.

The US has officially left the World Health Organisation (WHO) after a year of warnings that doing so would hurt public health globally, saying its decision reflected failures in the UN health agency's management of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Vietnam's top leader To Lam was re-appointed on Friday as head of the ruling Communist Party for the next five years after a unanimous vote by its central committee, as he pledged to turbocharge growth in the export-reliant nation.

Uganda's military chief said on Friday that authorities had detained 2,000 opposition supporters, killed 30 and were hunting for more following a disputed presidential election in which his father Yoweri Museveni, won a seventh term.

Indonesian rescuers on Friday had found the bodies of 10 passengers on a fishery surveillance plane that went missing in Indonesia's South Sulawesi province over the weekend, the country's search and rescue agency said.

US President Donald Trump has withdrawn on Thursday an invitation for Canada to join his Board of Peace initiative aimed at resolving global conflicts.

Six people have been confirmed missing in a landslide that ripped through a busy campground on New Zealand's North Island, authorities said on Friday as emergency crews continued to comb through the rubble.

US President Donald Trump has abruptly stepped back on Wednesday from threats to impose tariffs as leverage to seize Greenland, ruled out the use of force and suggested a deal was in sight to end a dispute over the Danish territory that risked the deepest rupture in transatlantic relations in decades.

A commuter train has crashed into a construction crane in southeastern Spain, leaving an undetermined number of people lightly injured, regional emergency services said on Thursday.

Rescue workers combed rubble on Thursday at a campsite in New Zealand as they searched for the missing, children among them, following a landslide triggered by heavy rains that snapped power links to thousands and caused widespread damage.

Three people have been killed in a shooting in the Australian state of New South Wales, police said on Thursday, with reports a gunman remained at large.

Pakistani firefighters have retrieved the bodies of up to 25 people from the debris of a shopping mall fire in Karachi on Wednesday, taking the death toll to around 50.

Rescue workers in New Zealand have searched on Thursday for several people missing following a landslide at a campsite as heavy rains caused widespread damage and left thousands without power.

Israeli fire killed 11 Palestinians in separate incidents in Gaza on Wednesday, local medics said, in the latest violence to undermine a three-month-old ceasefire in the war-shattered enclave.

US President Donald Trump ruled out the use of force in his bid to control Greenland on Wednesday, but said in a speech in Davos that no other country can secure the Danish territory.

Pakistan will join US President Donald Trump's 'Board of Peace' to help achieve lasting peace in Gaza, its foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

US President Donald Trump barrels into Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, and he is likely to use the World Economic Forum to escalate his push for acquiring Greenland despite European protests in the biggest fraying of transatlantic ties in decades.

Spain's biggest train drivers' union on Wednesday called for a nationwide strike to demand assurances for the profession's safety after one of Europe's biggest train crashes left at least 42 dead and a second derailment killed a driver.

French dairy group Lactalis said on Wednesday its nutrition unit was recalling batches of baby milk in 18 countries, due to the presence of a toxin also cited in a recall by Nestle of some batches of infant nutrition products earlier this month.

A South Korean court jailed former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo for 23 years on Wednesday, on charges that included insurrection relating to ex-President Yoon Suk Yeol's declaration of martial law in December 2024.

A Japanese court on Wednesday sentenced a 45-year-old man to life imprisonment for fatally shooting former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, public broadcaster NHK reported, in an incident that stunned the nation three and a half years ago.

A commuter train has derailed on Tuesday after a containment wall fell on the track due to heavy rain near the Spanish city of Barcelona, killing the driver and injuring 37 people, a fire brigade official said.

The Arab Parliament has joined the Arab League in strongly condemning the Israeli storming of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) headquarters in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of occupied Jerusalem on Tuesday.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Tuesday that the country strongly opposed any tariffs being imposed by the US to further President Donald Trump's aim of acquiring Greenland.

US President Donald Trump has linked his drive to take control of Greenland to his failure to win the Nobel Peace Prize, saying he no longer thought "purely of Peace" as the row over the island threatened to reignite a trade war with Europe.

Israeli forces have ordered dozens of Palestinian families in the southern Gaza Strip to leave their homes in the first forced evacuation since October's ceasefire, as residents and Hamas said on Tuesday the military was expanding the area under its control.

Firefighters were clearing the charred ruins of a Karachi mall on Tuesday as they tried to locate 63 people still missing after a fire that burned for nearly two days and killed 21 people.

The IS terror group has claimed responsibility for targetting a Chinese-run restaurant in a heavily guarded part of Afghanistan's capital, killing seven and injuring several more.

Russian forces launched a combined drone and missile attack on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv early on Tuesday, triggering cuts in power and water supplies, the city's mayor said.

A total of 43 reports of missing persons have been filed at police headquarters in Huelva, Madrid, Málaga, Córdoba and Seville on Tuesday, with at least 40 people dead after a high-speed train derailed and collided with an oncoming one on Sunday night.

Dozens of beaches along Australia's east coast, including in Sydney, have closed on Tuesday after four shark attacks in two days, as heavy rains left waters murky and more likely to attract the animals.

An explosion tore through a Chinese-run restaurant in a hotel in a heavily guarded part of Afghanistan's capital on Monday, killing a Chinese national and six Afghans and injuring several others.

Wildfires in Chile have left at least 19 people dead, authorities said on Monday, as the government carried out mass evacuations and fought nearly two dozen blazes exacerbated by intense heat and high winds.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called on Monday for calm discussion to avert a possible trade war with the United States over Greenland, appealing to President Donald Trump to respect alliances such as NATO rather than undermine them.

A man died and several houses collapsed after an earthquake of magnitude 6 struck northwestern Kashmir in Pakistan on Monday, an official and the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said.

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.