International

US President Donald Trump welcomes Chinese President Xi Jinping to the White House on Thursday for a lavish state summit, with both leaders keen to showcase stable ties despite a deep underlying rivalry.

The leaders of India's "cockroach" youth movement said on Thursday that they would launch nationwide protests if India's chief election officer does not resign within 48 hours, after a newspaper report said he had been questioned by his deputies over changes to voter lists.

Russian drone and missile strikes on Ukraine's capital Kyiv and its northeast killed eight people on Thursday in attacks that included a maternity hospital and a farm, officials said.

A federal judge ordered US President Donald Trump on Thursday to restore White House access for journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico, saying his ban on the three media outlets was likely unconstitutional.

Australia said on Wednesday an OpenAI agent breached a government health data portal in June, gaining unauthorised access to files, in what could be the first known instance of an AI agent hacking a government website.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan have agreed on Wednesday for Turkish forces to gradually hand over a military camp at the Bashiqa-Zilkan base in northern Iraq to the Iraqi government.

Russian forces have attacked the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early on Thursday with ballistic missiles, killing two people and injuring six, as debris crashed down on several districts, said Mayor Vitali Klitschko.

The US State Department has pledged an additional $267 million on Wednesday toward fighting the Ebola outbreak in central Africa, as health authorities battle to get the deadly virus under control.

Executives from three of the world's leading artificial intelligence companies briefed the UN Security Council on Wednesday amid warnings that increasingly powerful AI systems could soon improve themselves, slip beyond human control and pose a threat to international security.

Ukraine and Russia have both voiced an interest in a limited ceasefire involving grain and energy-related targets, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday after meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in New York.

One Indian national was killed in an attack on the bulk carrier MV Cape Dao while the vessel was heading towards India, the Indian embassy in Oman said on Wednesday.

Italy's Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli ordered the closure of the Colosseum to be extended until Thursday as a mark of respect after a worker was killed overnight in an accident.

The first shuttle talks between the US and Iran for months raised hopes on Wednesday that the adversaries could make some progress towards ending the Middle East war, although neither side spelled out any change in their positions.

Israeli airstrikes killed at least four Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, local health officials said, and Israel said one of the attacks targeted a Hamas finance chief.

The Philippine Senate, sitting as an impeachment court, on Wednesday lowered the number of votes needed to convict Vice President Sara Duterte, reducing the threshold prosecutors must clear to secure a guilty verdict.

Pakistan curbed access on Wednesday to its capital, Islamabad, ahead of a march planned by supporters of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan, blocking major highways with shipping containers and deploying tens of thousands of security forces.

The official death toll from a passenger ship that capsized and sank in Indonesia's Java Sea rose to 20 on Wednesday, up from the previous 10, with rescuers expecting to find more bodies as the ongoing underwater search widens, officials said.

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday called for complete economic isolation of Iran, showing no intention to resume talks at the UN General Assembly but saying he believed a deal would be done after the US midterm elections in November.

Canada is giving C$100 million (around $71.05 million) in international assistance for Palestine, Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Tuesday.

Mexico has unveiled nationwide rules restricting cellphone use in schools for younger students from bell to bell on Tuesday, as concern grows over the effects of screen time on children.

Three armed men opened fire on guests at a house party in a township south of the South African city of Durban on Tuesday night, killing at least 11 and injuring three, in what police said could be a gang-related incident.

US President Donald Trump and the leaders of Greenland and Denmark signed an agreement on Tuesday that permits a larger US military presence on Greenland and may resolve a standoff over the strategically located and mineral-rich island.

Belgium and Rwanda have resumed diplomatic relations 18 months after breaking ties due to a dispute over the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

An F-16 fighter jet assigned to the US air base Spangdahlem in western Germany crashed on Tuesday, the US military said, adding that one pilot had ejected safely and was receiving medical treatment.

Donald Trump is set for a whirlwind schedule of meetings with leaders from four continents at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, against the backdrop of the wars in Ukraine and Iran that show no signs of abating.

A student opened fire in front of their high school in Turkey's western province of Manisa early on Tuesday, wounding at least 11 other pupils, Justice Minister Akin Gurlek said.

Torrential rains brought by a powerful typhoon lashing Japan's Pacific coast caused landslides that killed four people with six missing, public broadcaster NHK said on Tuesday, while snapping electricity supply to about 45,000 homes.

Thousands of flights across the US were disrupted on Monday, with incoming flights halted for hours at major East Coast airports, before the Federal Aviation Administration resolved a telecommunications problem late in the afternoon.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on Monday he had agreed to a request from Saudi Arabia to provide defensive air-to-air refuelling for a limited time period, a move he described as helping to stabilise the wider region.

MS NOW, CNN and Politico said on Monday they were suing the Trump Administration to protect their First Amendment rights after President Donald Trump's announcement that he would ban the news outlets from the White House's building grounds.

Pakistan's government said on Monday that it launched airstrikes in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, ‌killing at least 28 militants, with one security official saying two Afghan provinces were ⁠targeted.

Flights at several British airports were delayed on Monday due to an air traffic control failure, Britain's NATS air traffic control provider said, less than two weeks after a separate issue halted flights across the country.

A fire that broke out at a textile factory in the Chinese city of Foshan in southern Guangdong province on Sunday killed eight people and injured one, state media said on Monday.

A powerful typhoon was approaching Japan's Pacific coast on Monday, bringing torrential rain, violent winds, and a heightened risk of landslides across the Kanto region and other parts of eastern Japan, the weather agency said.

Australia will bid to join the United Nations Security Council from 2029, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Sunday, as he launched a campaign to secure one of the two non-permanent seats available to its bloc.

Indonesian authorities will continue searching on Monday for more than a hundred people still missing after a passenger ship sank in the Java Sea last week, with the confirmed death toll now at 10, its rescue agency said on Sunday.

Police have arrested Aleema Khan, the sister of Pakistan's jailed ex-prime minister Imran Khan, at her house in Lahore, a spokesperson from Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party said on Sunday.

US President Donald Trump said on Sunday the triumphal arch he plans to build near Arlington National Cemetery in Washington would double as a "military complex" housing drones and snipers, as well as storing large quantities of ammunition.

Violence flared in the occupied West Bank on Sunday when a suspected Palestinian gunman shot dead an Israeli man, police said, and Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian motorist who the military said was attempting to run them over.

The largest Ukrainian drone attack reported so far on the Moscow region killed three people and damaged part of an oil refinery in the capital, authorities said on Sunday, as Russia votes in the final day of parliamentary elections.

The US Military said it killed four people in a strike on a vessel in the Caribbean on Saturday, alleging that the vessel was involved in drug trafficking.

Saudi civil defence sent an all-clear on Saturday after issuing alerts for a second time for potential danger in Riyadh and the city of Al-Kharj east of the capital, amid an uptick in attacks by Houthi rebels on the Gulf country.

Eleven Syrian military personnel were killed in an explosion at a weapons depot near the town of Ayyash in Deir ez-Zor Governorate, the country's Ministry of Defence said.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced on Saturday that the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide fell to 117.8 million by the end of 2025, down 5.4 million from 2024.

The White House on Saturday denied access to journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico, following through with US President Donald Trump's announcement that he would ban them from the building's grounds.

Israeli airstrikes killed at least three Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, health officials said.

US President Donald Trump said in a social media post on Saturday that he plans to appoint a new artificial intelligence adviser, known as an "AI czar," and create an "AI force," though he did not provide details about either initiative or how they would be implemented.

The US State Department approved a potential $2.7 billion military sale to Ukraine aimed at strengthening and upgrading the country's air defences, the department said in a congressional notification late on Friday.

The United States, Denmark and Greenland have entered into an agreement for the US to develop a significant military presence on Greenland, while prohibiting US adversaries from building their own bases on the island, Donald Trump said.

President Donald Trump has extended an executive order that would impose a fee of $100,000 for H-1B non-immigrant visas by another year, the White House said.

The death toll in an attack at a police compound in northwest Pakistan has reached 31, AFP reported on Saturday, citing a police official.

US President Donald Trump banned news outlets CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House on Friday, complaining about their coverage in a social media post.

A 16-year-old student shot dead at least two fellow students and then killed himself at a school in the southern Philippines on Friday, provincial officials said.

At least 16 people, including five police personnel, were killed in northwest Pakistan on Friday when an explosives-laden car rammed into a police facility on Friday.

The UN's World Food Programme, the world's biggest humanitarian agency, on Friday named US President Donald Trump's nominee, Luke Lindberg, as its next executive director, a statement said.

India's food regulator said on Friday it had found a Nestle baby food sample to be substandard and was pursuing legal action against the Swiss company in one of its biggest growth markets.

Indonesian rescuers have recovered three bodies from a passenger ship that capsized and sunk in the Java Sea last weekend, a Navy official told Reuters on Friday as the search for more than 100 missing passengers continues.

Gaza rescuers wrapped up searches on Thursday in the rubble of a bomb-damaged building that collapsed a day earlier, where 21 people were killed and 45 rescued from under the rubble, a Palestinian official said.

A delegation of US officials travelled to Myanmar this week and met with the country's military-backed government to secure the release of detained US citizen Adam Castillo, a Department of State spokesman said on Thursday.

US President Donald Trump has threatened to take action against the EU if it moves forward with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's proposal to make Canada the bloc's first associate member.

Australia will stop foreign students from bringing partners and children to accompany them while they study and tighten working holiday visa rules, a senior minister said on Thursday, amid growing debate over high migration levels.

The European Union plans to prevent children under the age of 13 from using social media as part of a gradual approach to strengthening protection against risks associated with digital platforms.

Plans by city authorities in Cape Town, South Africa, to permanently cage around 60 chacma or Cape baboons have triggered a bitter dispute over whether wildlife that has adapted to city life should be confined, culled or allowed to coexist with residents.

Gaza rescuers on Wednesday searched through the wreckage of a bombed-out apartment building that collapsed overnight, killing at least 20 Palestinians and trapping dozens of others beneath the rubble.

The US State Department said on Wednesday it would extend visa sanctions on Palestinian Authority (PA) officials and members of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) ahead of the upcoming UN General Assembly.

Canada, seeking to diversify its defense ties away from the United States, has formally applied to join the British-led Joint Expeditionary Force military coalition, Prime Minister Mark Carney's office said on Wednesday.

Former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte appeared in the courtroom on Wednesday for the first time since being transferred to the International Criminal Court 18 months ago to face murder charges regarding his war on drugs.

Sweden's centre-left opposition has defeated the incumbent right-wing governing bloc by the slimmest of margins, public broadcaster SVT said on Wednesday, after 99 per cent of the votes in Sunday's parliamentary election had been counted.

Former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci was found guilty of war crimes including murder, torture and illegal detention by the Kosovo war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia's air defences destroyed a Houthi drone south of Mecca before it entered prohibited airspace over the holy city, a spokesperson for the Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen said on Wednesday, as fighting spreads in the Middle East.

Desperation and frustration are growing among families of the 129 people still missing following the weekend capsizing of a ship in Indonesia's Java Sea, as persistent heavy seas and bad weather continue to restrict search-and-rescue operations.

An NBC local news helicopter crashed in the Chatsworth area of Los Angeles on Tuesday evening, killing three people, NBC said during a live television broadcast.

The recovery of hundreds of bodies from the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israeli strikes in Gaza during the war that began nearly three years ago has raised fresh concerns about possible war crimes, the UN human rights chief said on Tuesday.

An Italian fighter jet deployed on a NATO mission shot down a drone in Lithuanian airspace on Tuesday that "most probably" came from Russia, Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said.

Indian police will question Google over a lack of safeguards after smashing a criminal network that set up and managed more than 500,000 fake Gmail accounts to send hoax bomb threats to government offices, a police official told Reuters on Tuesday.

The Saudi Arabian Civil Defence has issued an all-clear on Tuesday after issuing alerts about potential danger in six cities, including Yanbu, the kingdom's main Red Sea oil port, where millions of barrels a day are loaded.

Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan have extended their condolences to the UAE over the martyrdom of its two military servicemen, Major Abdullah Shams Al Menhaly and candidate Saeed Abdullah Al Shamsi, on Monday.

Britain's King Charles will host the leaders of major artificial intelligence companies this week to discuss whether a shared set of principles is needed to guide a technology that has sparked growing warnings about its threat to humanity.

Amazon has announced on Sunday it was pausing operations with Miami-based 21 Air, the cargo carrier that operated the Amazon-branded plane that crashed in Miami, killing five people.

Eleven people were injured in an ammonia gas leak at an industrial complex in Jordan's southern city of Aqaba on Monday, an official told Reuters.

Voting began on Monday in the Philippines' Muslim-majority south under heightened security after three people were killed and 15 wounded in violence on the eve of the historic election.

Flights at Italy's Catania airport were suspended again on Monday due to volcanic ash from Mount Etna's ongoing activity, the company operating the Sicilian hub said.

Hundreds of Indonesian rescuers including the coastguard and the navy raced on Monday to board a passenger ship that capsized in the Java Sea over the weekend as they searched for the 129 people still missing, officials said, with the confirmed death toll at six.

US President Donald Trump on Sunday called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to stop targeting Russian diesel infrastructure, saying the attacks were causing a shortage of the fuel that is "hurting the world".

The Saudi Civil Defense has sent an all-clear on Monday after issuing alerts for potential danger in four southern cities.

Indonesian rescuers were searching on Sunday for 130 people from a passenger ship that sank in the Java Sea after 113 others were evacuated, the country's search and rescue agency said, adding that six people had died.

A Russian drone hit a passenger train on Ukraine's border with NATO member Poland on Sunday, shortly after former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other European diplomats had used the same line.

At least five people were wounded in a Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Odesa on Sunday morning, officials said, a day after strikes on the city killed two people.

Authorities in the Philippines said on Sunday it could take weeks or months to identify the victims of a ferry fire that killed 76 people, as forensic experts begin collecting and comparing DNA samples and investigators determine the cause.

An Israeli airstrike on Sunday killed at least two Palestinians in a vehicle and wounded 13 others in the Gaza Strip, medical staff said.

Saudi Arabia shut its East-West oil pipeline on Friday after it was hit in a drone attack, disrupting a key route used to bypass shipping problems in the Strait of Hormuz.

BRICS members agreed on a joint declaration on Saturday, expected to condemn unilateral aggression by any country without naming individual states, according to sources cited by Reuters.

Philippine rescuers recovered 41 more charred remains from a ferry fire, authorities said on Saturday, raising the death toll to 76 and leaving 13 people unaccounted for, as forensic teams faced the daunting task of identifying the victims.

Russian air strikes in several Ukrainian regions on Saturday killed six people, injured dozens and damaged residential buildings and infrastructure across the country, officials said.

Bulgaria is investigating the cause of a fire at a weapons storage facility operated by EMCO, including the possibility of sabotage and a link to a previous blaze at another of the company's facilities in August, the interior minister said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in the Indian capital on Saturday for the summit of leaders of the BRICS group of countries and talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Twenty-five years after the deadliest attack on US soil, Americans paused on Friday to commemorate the nearly 3,000 people killed when hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

Nigeria's parliament has suspended official visits to South Africa and ordered lawmakers to boycott South African-hosted legislative activities, citing reports of attacks on Nigerians and other African migrants there.

A shortage of air traffic controllers has caused flight cancellations and major delays at Sydney Airport on Friday morning, the federal agency responsible for managing Australia's air traffic said.

Philippine firefighters on Friday managed to board a burned-out ferry more than a day after the ship caught fire on its way from Manila to the western province of Palawan, killing five people and leaving more than 80 missing.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin began talks in New Delhi on Friday, their second meeting in two weeks, that is expected to focus on trade, energy and defence ties between the two countries, which have long been friends.

Growing numbers of US lawmakers are calling for new rules to govern AI systems after dire warnings from two Anthropic researchers that rapidly progressing artificial intelligence could lead to the extinction of the human race in the not-too-distant future.

A fire in Congo's rebel-controlled city of Bukavu killed at least 24 children as it destroyed two schools and burned down around 300 wooden houses, an official from the rebel administration told Reuters on Thursday.

President Donald Trump said he did not regret going to war against Iran despite the impact the conflict may have on the November US midterm elections.

President Donald Trump capped the first day of his Republican Party's first-ever midterm convention by proposing to pay every US adult a $5,000 "Trump dividend" if his party wins November's congressional elections.

A large-scale search and rescue operation was underway off the western Philippine island of Palawan on Thursday after a passenger ferry caught fire, killing five people and leaving dozens of passengers missing.

President Donald Trump said he expected the war with Iran to end after the November US midterm elections after the two sides launched their biggest wave of attacks on shipping since the start of the six-month-old war.

Twenty-five people have died in a fire aboard a foreign cargo vessel undergoing repairs at a state-owned shipyard in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao on Thursday, state media reported.

The US military said on Wednesday three people have been killed ​in a strike on a vessel ‌in the Caribbean Sea, the latest in a series of attacks that Washington says target "narco-terrorists" but human rights ​groups condemn as extrajudicial killings.

At least 14 people were killed and 11 wounded on Wednesday in an explosion at a temporary site used to store weapons and remnants of war near the Syrian city of Sarmada in Idlib province, state television reported.

The United States has destroyed five Iranian oil carriers on Tuesday after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targeted its navy warship with ballistic missiles "twice over the past two days".

Britain's NATS air traffic control provider has a week to investigate the systems failure that halted flights and stranded hundreds of thousands of passengers, the government said, as pressure mounts on its chief executive.

Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic on Wednesday dissolved parliament and announced snap elections for next month as he seeks to extend his hold on power by running for prime minister.

Norway's King Harald Vwas being laid to rest on Wednesday, in a series of ceremonies marking the culmination of 13 days of national mourning following his death at the age of 89.

Jordanian army forces have intercepted 18 Iranian missiles targeting the country early on Wednesday.

Flights at major British airports were disrupted on Tuesday by a technical fault at air traffic control provider NATS, the latest in a series of failures that renewed questions about the resilience of Britain's aviation infrastructure.

At least 73 civilians have been injured after Yemen's Houthi rebels attacked a number of civilian and energy facilities in Saudi Arabia's southern region on Tuesday, state media confirmed.

Britain, France and Canada on Tuesday moved to block imports from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, as a wider group of countries signalled further steps to defend the two-state solution amid mounting concern over settlement expansion.

German police have detained a 48-year-old man suspected of carrying out a series of sabotage attacks on the country's electricity grid, police and prosecutors said on Tuesday.

Rescuers in Nepal are focusing on three hydropower project tunnels where they believe dozens of workers could be trapped, authorities said on Tuesday, two weeks after a devastating flood killed hundreds and left thousands missing.

Indonesia has reopened its main airport in Jakarta and four others that had been closed due to volcanic ash from a series of eruptions at Mount Anak Krakatau, transport minister Dudy Purwagandhi said in a statement on Tuesday.

Russia pummelled Kyiv with drones and missiles early on Tuesday, resuming its air attacks after a brief halt for the visit of US peace negotiators, killing two people and triggering fires across the Ukrainian capital.

Kenya's government offered a temporary amnesty to undocumented East African nationals after hundreds of Burundians flocked to their country's embassy in Nairobi on Monday seeking travel documents, fearing a crackdown on small-scale traders from abroad.

Seven Indonesian airports, including two serving Jakarta, remained closed on Monday morning because of volcanic ash from eruptions at Mount Anak Krakatau, the transport minister said.

Bolivian authorities on Monday confirmed that nine people have died after an explosion on Friday at a military barracks in the Bolivian municipality of Viacha, about 30 km (20 miles) from La Paz.

Israeli strikes on a southern Lebanese town early on Monday killed at least 11 people, a day after seven people were killed and without an online evacuation warning from the military.

Grief-stricken Nepalis entered the last day of 13-day mourning period on Monday for the hundreds who died in the catastrophic flood along the country's border with China even as the government kept search operations going after four miracle rescues in recent days.

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) surged into first place in state elections in Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday, exit polls showed, putting a far-right party within reach of power at the state level for the first time since World War II.

At least five people died when an Amazon Prime Air cargo flight overran a runway and crashed while landing at Miami International Airport on Sunday, local officials said.

An Israeli strike has killed a man and his 8-year-old daughter in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, health officials said.

Bangladesh's dengue outbreak is accelerating, with 42,590 people hospitalised and 117 deaths recorded this year, as a sharp September surge strains hospitals and raises fears the mosquito-borne disease could intensify further in the coming weeks.

US peace envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv on Sunday as the Trump administration renewed its push to end Russia's four-and-a-half-year war in Ukraine.

US forces struck three Iranian oil vessels on Saturday after ballistic missiles were launched at two US Navy ships, according to US Central Command.

Israeli strikes killed seven people, including two women, in southern Lebanon on Sunday, the Lebanese health ministry said, as Israel retaliated for what it said were Hezbollah drone attacks within areas occupied by its troops.

An eruption of Indonesia's Mount Anak Krakatau caused five airports to suspend flight operations on Sunday, affecting hundreds of flights at Jakarta's main airport, after some school activities and fishing were halted.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told US special representatives Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner on Saturday that contacts between Moscow and Washington were always beneficial, and that Russia found it convenient to work with them.

A Chinese national was pulled alive from a tunnel in Nepal on Saturday, authorities said, 10 days after a wall of ice, rock and mud tore through a Himalayan valley, killing more than 1,300 people and leaving over 5,600 missing.

US special representatives Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner landed in Moscow on Saturday for talks on how to end the war in Ukraine, where they were met by Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

One person has been confirmed dead and 11 others remain missing after torrential rains triggered a mudslide early Saturday morning in a town in China's Jiangxi Province, local authorities said.

Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte posted bail on Saturday after a trial court ordered her arrest on three counts of grave threats linked to comments she made about President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the first lady and a former House speaker.

A judge declared a mistrial on Friday in the US murder trial of Lindsay Clancy for killing her three young children, a tragedy her attorney said occurred while she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.

The Israeli military said on Friday it struck southern Lebanon after Hezbollah launched a drone attack towards Israeli soldiers.

Australia's most populous city Sydney baked in a burst of sweltering spring heat on Saturday, raising the risk of bushfires and prompting authorities to issue a ban on lighting fires.

Two people were pulled out alive on Friday from a tunnel linked to a hydropower station on the Trishuli River in Nepal, nine days after an ice, rock and mud slide swept through its valley, killing more than 1,200 people and displacing tens of thousands.

German police are searching for a man who sent letters claiming responsibility for a series of sabotage attacks on the power grid this week after they found what appeared to be explosives at his home, officials said on Friday.

The pilot-in-command of an Air India flight from Phuket to New Delhi that dropped nearly 300 feet last month, injuring several passengers, has been dismissed after testing positive for a psychoactive substance.

Wildfires have begun spreading near Indonesia's under-construction new capital, prompting project authorities to urge the disaster mitigation agency to carry out cloud-seeding and water-bombing operations, officials said.

A Philippine court on Friday ordered the arrest of Vice President Sara Duterte in connection with a criminal case accusing her of making threats against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the first lady, and a former House speaker.

China's southern coastal provinces of Fujian and Guangdong braced for further torrential rain on Friday, after severe downpours linked to Typhoon Saudel triggered flooding in urban and rural areas, swamping vehicles and causing a three-storey brick building to collapse.

US Vice President JD Vance said that an investigation was being carried out into a deadly strike on an Iranian wedding on Tuesday that an analysis showed likely resulted from a direct hit by the United States' munition.

India on Friday ordered a Nepali billionaire's company popular for its Wai Wai noodles to discontinue some products after an investigation found its factory used unhygienic "floor-collected, broken noodles" in making its Indian snacks.

Property, housing and infrastructure worth at least $2.56 billion (387.5 billion Nepalese rupees) were damaged in Nepal's catastrophic floods last week, according to the country's disaster authority chief.

The US House of Representatives passed legislation on Thursday to block federal aid for universities that boycott Israel, the latest Republican-backed pro-Israel measure amid growing Democratic criticism of the Israeli government over the war in Gaza.

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.