International

At least 24 people were killed and 93 others wounded when Israeli airstrikes hit a mosque and a school sheltering displaced people in the Gaza Strip early on Sunday, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said.

Russian air attacks on Ukraine kept the eastern half of the country under air raid alert for more than five hours, Ukraine's military said early on Sunday, with Moscow launching several waves of strikes targeting Kyiv and other cities.

Massive consecutive strikes hit Beirut's southern suburbs from late Saturday into Sunday, sending booms across the city and sparking flashes of red and white for nearly 30 minutes visible from several kilometres away.

Over 80 police personnel have been injured in clashes with supporters of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan taking part in a march near Islamabad, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said on Saturday.

Ukraine will present its "victory plan" at a regular meeting of its allies at Ramstein in Germany on October 12, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram on Saturday. 

An Israeli airstrike hit Lebanon's northern city of Tripoli for the first time early on Saturday, a Lebanese security source said, after more bombardment hit Beirut's suburbs and Israeli troops sought to make new ground incursions into southern Lebanon.

Rescuers dug through rubble in the village of Donja Jablanica on Saturday morning in search for people who went missing in Bosnia's deadliest floods in years that hit the Balkan country on Friday.

Gang members brandishing automatic rifles stormed through a town in Haiti's main breadbasket region, killing at least 70 and forcing over 6,000 to flee, in one of the deadliest attacks in decades.

Hundreds of Tunisians marched in the capital on Friday, escalating protests against President Kais Saied, two days before what they say is an unfair presidential vote in which Saied has removed most other candidates to remain in power.

U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday he is confident the upcoming presidential election will be fairly conducted, but he warned that Republican candidate Donald Trump and his running mate could refuse to accept the outcome.

An Israeli strike on the southern Lebanese town of Marjayoun on Friday hit around five metres from the entrance of its main hospital and medical staff have decided to temporarily evacuate, the hospital director Mounes Klakesh told Reuters.

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar will visit Pakistan to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit this month.

An Israeli strike on Friday morning near Lebanon's Masnaa border crossing with Syria cut off a road used by hundreds of thousands of people to flee Israeli bombardments in recent days, Lebanon Transport Minister Ali Hamieh said. 

At least 18 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike on the Tulkarm refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said on Thursday, with the Israeli military saying it killed a Hamas commander.

Australian authorities said they would deploy more police personnel and tighten security measures ahead of pro-Palestine rallies in Sydney and Melbourne on October 6, warning protesters there would be no tolerance for violence.

Ukraine's armed forces commander General Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Thursday he had ordered defences to be strengthened in the eastern Donetsk region, a day after Kyiv forces announced they had withdrawn from the town of Vuhledar.

Bangladesh has recalled five envoys, including the ambassador to neighbouring India, foreign ministry officials said on Thursday, in a major diplomatic reshuffle as the interim government clears out holdovers from the previous administration.

Israel bombed central Beirut early on Thursday, killing at least six people, after its forces suffered their deadliest day on the Lebanese front in a year of clashes with Hezbollah.

Russian forces launched a major drone attack overnight on 15 Ukrainian regions, causing damage to energy infrastructure and residential buildings, authorities said on Thursday.

At least 60 people have been killed after a boat carrying mostly women and children returning from a religious festival in Nigeria's northern Niger state capsized this week, a local official said.

The Gulf Cooperation Council reaffirmed its support for Lebanon during what it said was a "critical stage" and called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, after holding an extraordinary ministerial meeting in Doha.

A weakened Typhoon Krathon slammed into southwestern Taiwan on Thursday, hitting the island with a storm that has killed two people so far and forced it to shut down a second day with hundreds of flights grounded and financial markets closed.

Israel said on Wednesday eight of its soldiers were killed in combat in south Lebanon as its forces thrust into its northern neighbour in a campaign against the Hezbollah armed group.

Hezbollah said its fighters were engaging Israeli forces inside Lebanon on Wednesday, reporting ground clashes for the first time since Israel began pushing into its northern neighbour in a campaign to hammer the group.

Iran said early on Wednesday that its missile attack on Israel was over barring further provocation, while Israel and the US promised to retaliate against Tehran as fears of a wider war intensified.

Russian troops on Wednesday took charge of the eastern Ukrainian town of Vuhledar, a bastion that had resisted intense attacks since Russia launched its full-scale assault in 2022.

A group of Russian rescuers and volunteers on Wednesday saved four killer whales stranded for hours off the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia's far east after leading them to deeper waters.

Democrat Tim Walz and Republican JD Vance clashed on Tuesday at a vice presidential debate that was surprisingly civil in the final stretch of an ugly election campaign marred by inflammatory rhetoric and two assassination attempts.

Rescuers are searching for more than 100 migrants off the coast of Djibouti after smugglers forced them to jump into the sea, the UN migration agency said on Wednesday.

Danish police said on Wednesday they had apprehended three individuals in connection with the investigation into two blasts near Israel's embassy in Copenhagen.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday that missiles had been launched from Iran towards Israel, and that its home front command had provided life-saving guidelines to people in various parts of the country.

Former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Tuesday officially took over as the boss of NATO after the outgoing head of the alliance Jens Stoltenberg passed a ceremonial gavel to him to mark the occasion.

25 people are feared dead in Thailand after a school bus carrying students and teachers on a field trip caught fire on the outskirts of Bangkok, with 16 passengers hospitalised, the government said.

Rescue crews airlifted emergency food and water into remote North Carolina towns that were cut off and devastated by tropical storm Helene that turned the western part of the state into a "post apocalyptic" landscape.

Israel launched its expected ground incursion into Lebanon on Tuesday morning, with "limited" raids against Hezbollah targets in the border area, the Israeli military said.

Taiwan mobilised nearly 40,000 troops to bolster rescue efforts as the powerful Typhoon Krathon approaching its populous southwest coast is expected to bring a storm surge, while the coast guard raced to locate 19 sailors who abandoned ship.

Multiple Katyusha rockets were fired near Baghdad International Airport (BGW), two Iraqi military officials said early on Tuesday. There were no reports of injuries or material damage, a US defence official said.

Three people were killed and 15 others injured in a knife attack at a suburban supermarket in Shanghai on Monday on the eve of China's week-long National Day holiday, the latest in a series of stabbing incidents in major Chinese cities this year.

The man charged with attempting to assassinate Donald Trump after allegedly positioning himself with a rifle outside one of the former president's Florida golf courses on September 15 pleaded not guilty on Monday to five federal charges.

Hezbollah's deputy leader Naim Qassem, in his first public address since Israel assassinated the group's chief Hassan Nasrallah last week, said the movement is ready to confront any Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon.

At least 12 people died, including three infants, and 10 others were missing after their boat sank on Monday off the Tunisian coast at Djerba as they sought to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.

The Southeastern US began a huge cleanup and recovery effort as the death toll climbed towards 100, after Hurricane Helene knocked out power for millions, destroyed roads and bridges and caused dramatic flooding from Florida to Virginia.

Two people were found dead in a wildfire which, fanned by strong winds, raged uncontrolled near a rugged mountainous area in the central Greek region of Corinth on Monday, Greek authorities said.

Taiwan issued a land warning on Monday ahead of the arrival of Typhoon Krathon, which has strengthened into the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane and is expected to cross the densely populated west coast bringing torrential rain and strong wind.

A SpaceX Crew Dragon space capsule, which is due to bring home stuck astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams next year, has arrived at the International Space Station (ISS), according to NASA and SpaceX.

A Palestinian insurgent group said that three of its leaders were killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut, the first attack within city limits as Israel escalated hostilities against Iran's allies in the region.

Patrol boats and helicopters searched on Sunday for about 48 migrants missing since their boat sank near the Spanish island of El Hierro in what threatens to be the deadliest such incident in 30 years of crossings from Africa to the Canary Islands.

Nepal has shut schools for three days after landslides and floods triggered by two days of heavy rain across the Himalayan nation killed 100, with 67 missing, officials said on Sunday.

The death toll from an explosion at a petrol station in Dagestan in Russia's Caspian Sea region has risen to 13, including two children, the emergencies ministry said on Saturday.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has been killed, the Iran-backed group said on Saturday, confirming his death after the Israeli military said it had eliminated him in an airstrike in Beirut the day before.

Israel launched airstrikes on Beirut's southern suburbs and other areas of Lebanon on Saturday, a day after carrying out a massive attack on Hezbollah's headquarters that appeared to be aimed at killing its leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

Incessant rains in Nepal have unleashed floods and landslides that killed at least 10 people with seven missing during the last 24 hours, while disrupting transport, officials said on Saturday.

At least 43 people have been killed by Hurricane Helene that swamped neighborhoods, triggered mudslides, threatened dams and left more than 3.5 million homes and businesses without power, in the US on Friday.

The Israeli military said it had targeted Hezbollah's central headquarters in Beirut's southern suburbs on Friday in an attack that shook the Lebanese capital and sent thick clouds of smoke over the city.

Helene roared through Florida and Georgia states under darkness on Friday as one of the most powerful storms to hit the US, killing one person, swamping neighborhoods and leaving more than two million homes and businesses without power.

Former Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba is set to become Japan's next prime minister after winning a closely fought contest in his fifth and final attempt to lead the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

Israel rejected global calls for a ceasefire with the Hezbollah movement on Thursday, defying its biggest ally in Washington and pressing ahead with strikes that have killed hundreds in Lebanon and heightened fears of an all-out regional war.

Hurricane Helene has made landfall in the Florida Big Bend, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on late on early Friday. 

Western nations were weighing their options on how to safely get nationals out of Lebanon if a full-scale war breaks out, diplomats said, with Cyprus and possibly Turkey seen as offering sanctuary to tens of thousands of people.

The Israeli army said it intercepted a missile that was fired from Yemen after sirens and explosions were heard early on Friday.

Japan's ruling party holds one of the most unpredictable leadership contests in decades on Friday, a race that could result in Japan's youngest or first female premier, or see a popular veteran succeed in his fifth and final leadership bid.

Alabama executed convicted murderer Alan Miller on Thursday, in the second-ever nitrogen-asphyxiation execution since the state pioneered the method, which it says is less painful than lethal injections but human rights experts say may amount to torture.

US President Joe Biden announced more than $8 billion in military assistance for Ukraine on Thursday, using a visit by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to make a major commitment.

Norwegian police have issued an international search request for Rinson Jose, a Norwegian-Indian man linked to the sale of pagers to the Lebanese group Hezbollah that exploded last week.

A Japanese man said to have spent the world's longest time on death row was acquitted of murder on Thursday, ending his family's search for justice after a wrongful conviction for crimes committed nearly 60 years ago.

Taiwan's defence ministry raised the alarm on Thursday about a renewed surge of Chinese military activity around the island and live fire drills, accusing Beijing of policy instability that presented a serious challenge to its neighbours. 

The United States, France and some of their allies called for an immediate 21-day ceasefire across the Israel-Lebanon border while also expressing support for a ceasefire in Gaza, according to a joint statement released by the White House.

A Tunisian court sentenced presidential candidate Ayachi Zammel to six months in prison on charges of falsifying documents, his lawyer said. This is the second prison sentence against him in a week, days before the presidential election.

Vice President Kamala Harris will visit the US border with Mexico on Friday, the White House said on Wednesday, in her first visit to the politically contentious southern border since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee.

Benin's state prosecutor said a former sports minister and a prominent businessman have been detained on suspicion of plotting a coup.

Israel's military chief told troops on Wednesday that air strikes in Lebanon would continue in order to destroy Hezbollah infrastructure and to prepare the way for a possible ground operation by Israeli forces.

Hurricane John threatened southwestern Mexico with severe flooding even as it weakened on its trek inland after leaving three people dead and causing severe damage.

South Korea has been forced to repeatedly shut down runways at the two main airports for the capital Seoul since June due to disruption from balloons carrying trash launched by North Korea, a South Korean lawmaker said, citing aviation data.

Lebanon's Hezbollah said it launched a rocket targeting Mossad headquarters near Tel Aviv on Wednesday, which it says was responsible for assassinating its leaders and blowing up pagers and walkie-talkies used by the group.

Iran is ready to end its nuclear standoff with the West, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Tuesday.

A raging wildfire filled Ecuador's capital of Quito with smoke and threatened homes on Tuesday, as authorities rushed to control the blaze at a time when a historic drought has stretched resources and patience.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah confirmed one of its top commanders, Ibrahim Qubaisi, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon on Tuesday.

NASA said the launch of its Crew-9 mission with SpaceX has been pushed back to September 28 due to Tropical Storm Helene.

Russian forces stormed the eastern Ukrainian town of Vuhledar, a stronghold that has resisted Russian attack since the beginning of the 2022 war, according to Russian war bloggers and state media. 

Protesters in some US cities demonstrated against American military support for Israel on Tuesday, as risks have risen of a full-fledged conflict in the Middle East, with anti-war activists demanding an arms embargo against the US ally.

US President Joe Biden addressed world leaders at the United Nations for the final time on Tuesday, declaring that Russia's war in Ukraine has failed and that a diplomatic solution between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah was still possible.

Samsung Electronics workers at a factory in India's Tamil Nadu state are paid almost twice as much as employees in nearby companies, the South Korean group said on Tuesday, as a strike at the plant enters its third week.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is in New York for the meeting of world officials at the United Nations, held talks on the sidelines with German, Indian and Japanese leaders on Monday in an attempt to shore up support for Kyiv's war efforts.

The United States is sending a small number of additional troops to the Middle East given escalating tensions between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, the Pentagon said on Monday, declining to specify the precise number or mission of the deployed forces. 

Mexico's top disaster agency issued a red alert for parts of the country's southern Pacific coast on Monday, after Hurricane John rapidly strengthened to a Category 2 storm and threatened to get stronger before making landfall in the coming hours.

Lebanese authorities announced at least 492 people have been killed and tens of thousands have fled for safety after Israel launched hundreds of airstrikes on Monday. 

The Israeli government declared a nationwide state of emergency until September 30, on Monday evening, as anticipation for expanded Hezbollah rocket fire rises.

Israel unleashed its most widespread wave of airstrikes against hundreds of Hezbollah targets on Monday, killing at least 274 people by Lebanese tallies, and warned citizens to evacuate areas where it said the armed group was storing weapons.

Israel's military began carrying out fresh strikes against Hezbollah positions in Lebanon on Monday after reportedly identifying that the Iran-backed group was preparing to attack Israel, the military spokesperson said. 

At least 13 civilians were injured, including a child, as a result of Russia's air strikes on the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia on late Sunday, Ukrainian officials said on Monday.

A roadside bomb hit a convoy of foreign diplomats visiting northwest Pakistan on Sunday, killing a police officer in their security detail, police said.

Hundreds of Tunisians protested against President Kais Saied on Sunday, accusing him of deepening authoritarian rule and stifling political competition, two weeks before a presidential election.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said that 12 people were arrested for reportedly collaborating with Israel and "planning acts against Iran's security."

An Israeli airstrike killed seven people in a school sheltering displaced families in Gaza City on Sunday, Palestinian health officials said, with the Israeli military saying it had targeted Hamas fighters operating from the compound.

Sri Lanka's election commission formally announced on Sunday left-leaning Anura Kumara Dissanayaka the winner of the presidential election, defeating incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe.

A mass shooting involving several assailants has left at least four people dead and dozens wounded in the US state of Alabama, police said on Saturday.

A gas explosion in a coal mine in Iran's South Khorasan Province killed at least 51 people and injured 20, Iran's state media said on Sunday.

Israel and Lebanon exchanged heavy fire into Sunday, with Israeli warplanes carrying out the most intense bombardment in almost a year of war across Lebanon's south, while Hezbollah claimed rocket attacks on military targets in Israel's north.

Russian forces struck a multi-storey apartment building in Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, on Saturday evening, wounding 21 people and prompting an evacuation of some of its residents, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.

A 5.3 magnitude earthquake struck Taiwan's sparsely populated east coast county of Hualien on Saturday, with no immediate reports of damage.

Record rains in central Japan's Noto region, still recovering from a major New Year's Day earthquake, killed at least one person on Saturday, prompted evacuation orders for tens of thousands and caused blackouts for more than 6,000 households.

Millions of Sri Lankans were casting their votes on Saturday to elect a president who will face the task of bolstering the South Asian country's fragile economic recovery following its worst financial crisis in decades.

New Zealand pilot Phillip Mehrtens has been freed more than 19 months after being kidnapped by armed separatists in Indonesia's Papua, authorities said on Saturday.

A top Hezbollah commander was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Beirut's southern suburbs on Friday.

U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon urged immediate de-escalation as hostilities rumbled on at the Lebanese-Israeli border on Friday, following Israel's most intense airstrikes in nearly a year of conflict with the Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Israeli warplanes carried out late on Thursday their most intense strikes on southern Lebanon in nearly a year of war, heightening the conflict between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah amid calls for restraint.

The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland, has emphasised the urgent need for political and security frameworks to tackle the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

Letcher County Sheriff Mickey Stines was arrested after allegedly shooting and killing District Judge Kevin Mullins, inside a US courthouse.

The second round of a vaccination campaign to protect 640,000 children in Gaza against polio will also deliver micronutrients - essential vitamins and minerals - and conduct nutritional screening, a senior UN Children's Fund official said.

Israeli jets and artillery hit multiple targets in southern Lebanon overnight, Israel's military said on Thursday, after spiralling tensions following the mass attack on Hezbollah communications devices this week.

A child enrolled in a Japanese school in Shenzhen, China, has died after being stabbed by an assailant on Wednesday, the Japanese government said.

Lebanon's health ministry said 20 people were killed and more than 450 injured on Wednesday in the second wave of communication device explosions.

Hand-held radios used by Hezbollah detonated on Wednesday across Lebanon's south and in Beirut's southern suburbs, further stoking tensions with Israel a day after similar explosions launched via the group's pagers.

India's cabinet has accepted a recommendation to hold simultaneous elections to state assemblies and the national parliament.

A large-scale Ukrainian drone attack on Russia triggered an earthquake-sized blast at a major arsenal in the Tver region on Wednesday, forcing the evacuation of a nearby town, war bloggers and some media reported.

Russia's Foreign Ministry on Wednesday said an attack on Lebanese group Hezbollah and others using exploding pagers was an act of hybrid war against Lebanon in which thousands of innocent people had been hurt.

The worst drought on record has lowered the water level of the rivers in the Amazon basin to historic lows, in some cases drying up riverbeds that were previously navigable waterways.

A series of catastrophic explosions involving handheld pagers used by Hezbollah members has killed nine people, including a child, and injured almost 3,000 across Lebanon.

More than 1,000 people, including Hezbollah members and medics, were wounded on Tuesday when the pagers they use to communicate, exploded across Lebanon.

Atishi will take over as the new chief minister of India's national capital territory Delhi after the resignation of incumbent Arvind Kejriwal, the ruling Aam Aadmi Party said on Tuesday.

Volunteers in the Polish town of Nysa made flood walls to stem swollen rivers on Tuesday after heavy rain and flooding round central Europe that has killed at least 18 people.

Floods in Myanmar have killed at least 226 people in just over a week after heavy rains brought on by Typhoon Yagi battered the central provinces of the war-torn Southeast Asian country.

Former president Donald Trump will continue campaigning, despite a second assassination attempt in just two months. Trump confirmed he will carry out his activities as scheduled.

Polio vaccination coverage in Gaza has reached 90 per cent, the head of the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) said, adding that the next step was to ensure hundreds of thousands of children got a second dose at the end of the month.

The normally-bustling financial hub of Shanghai was brought to a standstill as residents sheltered at home to wait out the worst of Typhoon Bebinca.

A Hong Kong man pleaded guilty to sedition for wearing a T-shirt with a protest slogan, becoming the first person convicted under the city's new national security law passed in March.

The FBI is investigating an apparent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at his Florida golf course.

At least 28 people, including three children, were injured when a Russian guided bomb hit on Sunday a high-rise building in Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine, local officials 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.